Housing and Rental Prices in Winnipeg 2025

The last couple of decades it has seemed that the prices for housing and costs for rent would increase upwards every month. In some parts of Canada, the costs have gone up around 375%. They are only now starting to go down. A lot of developers are slowing their housing starts because interest rates are still too high, uncertainty in markets and supply chain, tariffs and now immigration. 

Housing prices dipped in the downturn in the 1990s and again in the stock market crash of 2008. And for people who want to go back far enough, the 1980s had a housing collapse linked to oil prices and deep recession that had people hurt badly in Alberta. Back then, prices dropped around 30%. In Winnipeg, prices really didn't budge for years in the 1980s.

It goes to show that there isn't a constant trajectory upwards for house prices and that expecting a 10% return a month is insanity. Those buying a house now for hundreds of thousands today have to ask themselves what the value of the house might when they sell it. If it is much lower, then is going to be painful selling. The seller who is downsizing stands to win if they bought decades back. Still, buying is more expensive no matter what size place. The interest rates, the prices of houses and taxes are all contributing to this.

The Feds under Mark Carney have ended GST for new house sales capped at a rate high enough for most buyers to benefit. The accelerator fund started under Trudeau, which sends federal money to municipalities for shovel-ready projects. In Winnipeg, the program has filled not once but twice. Some of those projects are well under way now.  Affordable housing is key to those projects going forward and they just aren't provincial housing but housing owned by non-profits, churches, universities and the like.

One of things learned about developing affordable housing is that it involves all levels of government, various private, no-profit and charity groups, supply chains and financing. To make matter worse, to get any zoning done in any jurisdiction means having people say how important housing is while making it impossible to build it. 

 We have some cases in Winnipeg where it has taken decades to get stuff built even on land not occupied. There are cases like that all over the country. In some cases having to go to court for obstructions on the part of local governments. Give the shortage of housing, this seems completely irresponsible. Literally thousands of housing units have been held up for years because of council and administration bungling and deliberately sabotage.

The best way to avoid homelessness is to stop tearing down people's home or letting them burn down. And to stop evicting them for renovations and huge increases in rent they can't afford. Or to sell their building once the federal or provincial supports end and once again putting people on the streets. The goal of provincial and the federal governments has to be preserve housing rather making it unaffordable and putting people on the streets. People who are homeless now once lived somewhere. More needs to be done to stop demolitions, arsons or derelict buildings to sit idle or people on the street will accelerate further.

Even as the governments push for more housing, there has been a slow increase as of recent in home sales. Interest rates and uncertainty in the market because of what is happening south of the border are affecting thigs. But pent up demand and the needs of the population won't be denied. Job transfers, retirements, children and other life changes mean people are looking to buy and sell.

The upcoming federal budget will see the government make an effort to get the costs down on things such as GST on newly built houses. The accelerator program will continue to add deeply affordable housing. Developers will only provide it generally if government mandates and funds it. Zoning changes at the municipal level can also help in terms of where building go up and how they are built. With better fire codes you don't need two stairwells or apartments built of steel and concrete. Wood is being used over the world for high rises.

It is going to take a combination of approaches to meet the housing needs. However, the country has done this work in the past and seems committed to doing it now. It still seems painfully slow but the main thing is to keep pressing on. Part of the problem we are facing now is years and even decades of not doing anything.

New Bus Service Flixbus Coming to Manitoba

Bus service has always been a hugely important service in Manitoba and across Canada. Even with all the choices for transportation out there, most developed nations have bus service of some kind within cities and between cities and communities. In 2021, Greyhound and Grey Goose bus lines stopped running in Canada. 

A few companies tried to fill the gap with varying degrees of success. Brandon and Dauphin already have had airport and appointment shuttles since 1997. The Brandon-based family business has slick mini-vans that can be seen regularly in the city of Winnipeg headed to the airport and beyond. As good as they are, they are not a coach bus doing a regular route back and forth at a reasonable rate.

Thompson has had a few bus services set up for Thompson to Winnipeg and has had varying degrees of success. Difficulties in bus comfort in terms of heating have been mentioned in the past. It is not easy to run a bus service in Manitoba. However, there is good reason to have it.

Anyone going to the airport doesn't want to necessarily park in long term parking for two weeks although many do and appreciate that option. It is probably easier if there is a regular bus one can catch and take to the airport in comfort. It is doubly worse for people who have to come in for medical appointments. No one, and I mean no one, wants to park all day at the hospital regularly?

Greyhound went under in Canada in 2021. Ridership was down and the pandemic kicked them to the curb after many decades in business. There was no obvious competitor in much of the country to take over. In Manitoba, there had already been supports in place by the government for smaller communities. In the end, it was not enough.

There are really not enough options for a coach bus throughout the province. Rider Express has one stop here with routes across the country. However, the stop is at the Southdale Mall. Not exactly central. It is hard to find any service that uses a central or airport location for a stop.

The Greyhound name got scooped in 2021 up by the big German Flixbus that began operations in Canada in 2022 with three provinces. Manitoba is now going to be the next province to see bus routes added. The result will likely be routes that connect Winnipeg and Brandon and go beyond to the Saskatchewan border. The route east through Kenora and on to Thunder Bay would likely next. 

The key to Flixbus's success has been hiring local expertise, routing through airports, bus depots and train stations and keeping prices affordable but not building, owning or managing infrastructure like Greyhound did. The goal is to set up routes where air travel is not practical or cost effective and where car travel is inconvenient such as flying home and the last leg being a bus ride a few hours away.

Flixbus and others like it are helpful after the crushing blow of losing decades long service. It gets worse as the population ages. My seniors just might not be able to drive to go visit their kids or grandkids. An affordable bus from places like Dauphin or Brandon or Steinbach or Kenora might be perfect. There will be many communities still left out. And worse, the cargo trailers that Greyhound towed have not made a comeback. However, maybe this is the start of something new for buses in Manitoba.

Manitoba's One Federal Cabinet Minister 2025

Mark Carney's cabinet is Canada's version of trimmed down. It is 28 full ministers and 10 junior ministers plus the prime minister. The only minister from Manitoba will be Rebecca Chartrand, newly elected in Churchill - Keewatinook Aski. She will be attending her first full cabinet on Sunday.

Most previous cabinets have numbered up to 40 full ministers. The previous Carney government had Terry Duguid as Minister of Environment and Climate. He was dropped from cabinet altogether and Winnipeg has no cabinet representation at the table.  It might be the first time the city has had absolutely no cabinet spot in a government.

In fairness, Chartrand has lived in Winnipeg and will know the city well. However, her cabinet remit of Arctic and Northern Affairs. The western economic development minister is located in Alberta. It means important decisions for Manitoba that the Feds are involved with will be at the behest of a Calgary minister.

There are six elected Liberals in Manitoba. The Carney government has members of parliament in every province so this is reflected in the cabinet. Saskatchewan's solely elected Liberal MP has a junior cabinet spot as Secretary of State for rural development.  Alberta has one full minister. That is three for the entire prairie region. It means Winnipeg, Edmonton, Regina and Saskatoon will have no representation at the cabinet table. 

In a smaller cabinet, not every city, region or territory will have a seat at the inner cabinet. And if the cabinet numbers 40 people, as it has in the past, does being there give the cabinet member a budget or responsibility to do the job? One effective way to get Manitoba's message across is for the six MPs to meet regularly as a caucus to argue for important matters to Winnipeg and the province.

It is important to remember that while the Liberals MPs are there to represent their riding that they should remember to advocate for the province as a whole. Likewise, is good to work with the province and the municipalities to push through policies and projects important across the board. The competing interests in Canada among the MPs will be tough. 

The new prime minister has said that projects of national unity are critical. It will be important to identify how Manitoba can be part of those projects. It could be that the focus on Churchill and the north could be a boon for the province and Winnipeg itself. Hydro connections to Nunavut, port improvements for imports and exports. Could Churchill be and LNG port? For Winnipeg, it could be moving the CP and BNSF rail lines to Centreport as part of improvements to rail transport. It would open huge areas to housing in parts of the city.

It will be interesting to see what priorities Carney has out the gate and how our one cabinet minister will handle their portfolio. His focus on the economy is a good one as this is where most Canadians seem to worried about the most.

Poilievre vs Carney and Threat of Western Separation

What a difference a few months and an external factor like Donald Trump can have on electoral fortunes. Pierre Poilievre seemed to be sailing into one of the most massive majorities in Canadian history for the Conservatives. Justin Trudeau was determined to go into the next election until the opposition said they were going to pull the plug at the earliest opportunity. This led to a flurry of Liberals saying they were not going to run again next election. With cabinet holes to fill, he looked to move the Finance minister Chrystia Freeland to some other position to bring in, allegedly, Mark Carney into Finance. 

Freeland's resignation was the moment that Trudeau found there was just not enough support in the caucus to carry on. And Mark Carney, who opted not to jump into a cabinet with a lameduck PM. He just had to wait till a leadership convention was called. A prorogued Parliament and a leadership convention was a re-set from how 2025 began. As interim PM till the leadership was decided, Justin Trudeau probably had the two best best months an outgoing leader could have. Carney became the PM and had streamlined cabinet sworn in. However, support for Liberals had been steadily rising every time Trump imposed or threatened tariffs. By the time Carney became PM the Liberals had pulled numbers not seen in years.

Oddly enough, even though the Conservatives said they were going to bring the government down, they haven't seemed unprepared this far. They have not been able to adjust to the constant changing campaign that Trump's proclamations bring. Carney has not been perfect thus far. Some of his MPs have gotten in trouble. Some he has removed including his own seat and some he stubbornly keeps in place. One recent MP stepped down after he defended him. It is early in campaign and not uncommon for leaders to have a few candidates who don't work out. It remains to be seen whether these incidents hurt Carney. Or Poilievre. Generally, most people don't pay attention to these incidents.

Preston Manning suggests that anything less that a Poilievre majority win is a vote for Alberta separation. This is the same type of blackmail that Quebec has used over the years. Sad that it comes from Manning who has generally been considered to be not be as extreme. It could be that speaking to the volatile male base of the party makes him presume such an outcome. The enormous gender gap in what polls are saying could make for some surprises. Some men are just not opposed to Liberals. They are angrily opposed. However, if that is the case then it can be said women are even more resolutely opposed to Conservatives. 

This is something to keep in mind when voting on separation takes place. What do women think about this? Truly. A landlocked Conservative province separating? Most polls suggest that only a small minority want a 51st state in Alberta. That same percentage is in Quebec in terms of 51st state. The most recent polling on separation from Canada in Alberta stands at about 20. Still a minority view. Manning's 

If Poilievre is having a hard time figuring an angle with Carney, it is the same problem with all the opposition leaders including Blanchet from the BQ. The more Trump fills the airwaves, the more a unity movement grows. For the moment it is in support of Carney since he is the prime minister. And as such, Carney's response generally has the backing of all the premiers. It is enviable position to be in during the election. Usually the caretaker role is less pronounced. However, it can be said that the authority to respond to an emergency overrides this. Looking like a prime minister is what many Canadians are looking for. 

The premier of Alberta flirts with separation but also calls it nonsense. She knows the polls show it to be a possible loser for her. Danielle Smith already has enough problems in the province as she breaks the crockery. And yet Poilievre does little to distance himself. The person he does need help from his Doug Ford from Ontario and yet never seems to ask. Ford has found it easier to deal with Trudeau and Carney.

At this point in the election, it is clear that neither the premier of Alberta or Poilievre are interested in talking about separation of Alberta or Quebec. Even flirting with it is likely to do harm in Ontario. And that is where he need seats. According to polls, the heavily Conservative Alberta has a loathing for any Trudeau Liberals going back 60 years. However, when they've elected two Conservative majorities, they have felt pretty miserable about that too. 

The polls could be the most off we have ever seen in Canadian history given the crowds turning up for Poilievre. However, Winnipeggers know that just because we loved and turned up in numbers for Phantom of the Paradise, it didn't mean it was a blockbuster. 

It is possible that Carney's French might hold him back or that he stumbles badly in upcoming debates but the desire for stability is something the electorate craves. Poilievre has said he will disturb that but he has said everything is broken. That message is tone deaf when the public fears the country will be carved up by external enemies. Many take a dim view that Conservatives may in fact desire that outcome. For this reason, the polls have been reflecting a new dynamic not seen in Canada ever.

Three weeks are left in the campaign and the only thing we can say is that it is volatile out there.

 

A New Core Area Initiative

 

Considering how important the Core Area Initiative was from 1981 to 1991, it is odd to think it has faded from many memory. The big thing is that for all public money from the city, the province and the federal government, it attracted a ton of private money as well. The territory it covered was expansive over downtown and into Osborne Village. The $196 million was spent on such a variety of things that had impacts in so many areas that helped Winnipeg for decades to come. Certainly without the program, we might not have see The Forks develop nor Portage Place.

And while Portage Place is derided as a failure, it got the parkade built that has been the funder for The Forks for decades. No lie. Money from that parkade kept The Forks afloat. It is also the most attractive feature for the Chipman/Thomson bid. The $3 million or so revenue from the parkade will help pay for their purchase and support the True North Arena.

The connectivity of all the different areas of development and renewal has to be understood to assess it's success. The example above with the Portage Place parkade. Quite simply without it, there would not be the money needed to keep The Forks going through the roach patches. Portage Place investment helped other private interests such as Air Canada, Investors Group and Relax/Holiday Inn from setting up shop on north Portage.

So was Portage Place a failure? The apartments, commercial building all around it say no. As a mall, it has faded. But on the bones of that development, residential and medical towers will go up. The problem with Winnipeg's downtown, as has been described many times before, is that it is fairly spread out which means there are large gaps where there is open space usually of parking lots. A city like Toronto, for example, has much closer distances between city and provincial government offices, central hospitals, universities and shopping. Winnipeg seems to be blocks away from everything.

The plan for the Core Area Initiative redux has various interest groups thinking it mostly will go to this or that. Bike interest groups believe it should go to bike lanes down every street. Business Improvement Zones believe it should go into street beautification programs. This ignores how widespread and how much leverage the old CAI had in getting millions upon millions from the private sector for work small and large. It wasn't supposed to go to one group to gorge themselves on. What is the point of bike paths on every street if there are houses on it?

The 1981 to 1991 CAI triggered so much downtown development but it also renovated tons of housing improvements from Osborne to Centennial. Unlike the 1960s urban developments the feds did across Canada that cleared land for major developments or concentrated a big low income housing project, money was allocated over a longer time to a larger variety of projects and social services and to a greater size area. There could have been a risk of diluting everything but the key always was to leverage other investments in the area in terms of people and money.

As mentioned before in this blog, 1980 was a horrible year for Winnipeg. The deep recession hit here early and hard. We lost the Tribune, Swift's and Canada Packers plant and thousands of jobs all within a few months. It was a deep recession and a long one. It hit all of North America but places like Winnipeg lost their place in Canada. Edmonton and Calgary with resources to pull themselves out of the slump, surpassed us in population and we saw head offices migrate there over the 1980s from the city.

The north part of Portage was always the poor sister of the south of Portage. The Eaton's and the Bay and stores on the south side were still a going concern. Movie theatres were still well attended downtown. However, the north side was often video and pinball halls and adult theatre. There were a few areas of strength like Kennedy Street which had Stagewest Dinner Theatre, Benjamins nightclub and a few other businesses but the northside was losing buildings to fire and there was a worry of steady decline extending to the south side.

This wasn't an idle concern. St. Vital Mall and Kildonan Place were very recent additions to suburban malls and population in the suburbs was booming. That is not to say there were no malls going up downtown. Winnipeg Square and Eaton Place went up just as the 1980s were starting. To a certain extent those malls achieved what they hoped for those areas of town. Winnipeg Square was a fine business mall with a very large parkade and Eaton Place gave Eaton's a new lease of life and additional parking while preserving the catalogue building.  However, neither mall was going to be able to forestall the difficulties elsewhere in the downtown.

Despite a very diverse economy, Winnipeg was in for a a much slower growth rate than our western neighbours. Population was leaving in steady numbers for the oil economy of Alberta. And for retirement, Winnipeg couldn't beat Vancouver's temperate climate. Still, as many will attest to Winnipeg was a good place to live in but in need of a plan.

At the time, Lloyd Aworthy made the jump from provincial politics to federal politics and became a powerful cabinet minister in the west. Some of that came as a result as being one of the only Liberals in the west. As an urban studies academic, he was well aware of what most cities were facing across Canada. Winnipeg became  a petri dish to see what would happen over a ten year period.

So what did happen? The Forks was probably the most successful outcome. Extensive consultations, funding for river paths, a national park and the clearing of rails but not the buildings for a long term plan. And The Forks continues to add piece by piece. Still, without Portage Place's parkade providing money every year, The Forks would have failed economically. It is where it is now because of that money. 

Portage Place is considered a failure. However, that can only be considered true if only the mall is looked at in isolation. The Prairie Theatre Exchange is a successful long term tenant. The mall had the first IMAX Theatre for the city. The three movie theatres were gorgeous. The parkade was the best. Axworthy had wanted an arena but local merchants were more keen on a mall. By the time Portage Place went up Winnipeg was over-malled. Polo Park went through a doubling up with a second floor which only added to the problems of downtown malls.

Portage Place was not the first mall to falter in Winnipeg. That honour went to Unicity Mall. Other malls like Garden City suffered as well. The end of Portage Place as a mall is likely in 2025 when the east side becomes the Pam Clinic tower and the west side becomes a residential tower. It is the in between part that will be interesting.

Lloyd Axworthy has identified in 2024 what might make the federal government interested. He has indicated it could be the relocation of the CP rail yards or the Little Forks National Park proposal. Both have transformative implications. One is where the Seine River meets the Red near Higgins while the other is an enormous tract running east-west that separates the downtown from the North End. The size of it should intimidate. The Forks was an enormous reach for Winnipeg but once the rails had moved it opened up huge opportunities.

A new Core Area Initiative could have a broad geographic area. The 1981 certainly did. Not all the money has to be dumped into one area. Nor does a project have to be completed within the timeframe outlined. The Forks started very late into CAI. And it continues to this day. The first Core Area Initiative had a lot of components to it and helped a lot of areas leverage investments in other projects for years to come. In recent years there seems to be a rush to spend in one area lest the money disappears and the planning is awful and the execution worse. A lot of planning went into The Forks and that has contributed to it's success.

The Core Area Initiative of 1981 to 1991 was followed up by the Winnipeg Development Agreement/Partnership of 1994 to 2001 and the Winnipeg Housing and Homelessness Initiative of 2001 to 2012. The fall off of any plan up till 2024 is probably one of many reasons we seem to be ill prepared for what comes next in the city. Taking a dozen years off has left sustainability off the table. One of the things that CAI did was not just invest in infrastructure but in people as well. Nothing works though if you don't do both. Later development plans invested in people but not enough in infrastructure to support/leverage other investments in the area.

It is a tricky business building sustainability into an initiative. A program should have a beginning, middle and end. In other words, it isn't solely an entitlement programs like old age security or an income support system. The program should be set up to help in such ways like renovate a home, help someone buy a home, seed money for some street renewal, plans for a park, consultations on larger projects, fund a security system, establish patrol offices and so on and so on. The first CAI was very much like this. While it did try to be leaders in some projects, there was an effort to repopulate central areas of the city and create more reasons to come to the central areas. And that was usually done as a secretariat or clearing house in partnerships with many other groups and levels of government.

A new CAI would probably be a good thing. Unlike past decades though there seems to be groups looking to gorge themselves on money directed to them alone. This will cripple the program if one neighbourhood wants $200 million of work or one lobby group wants that type of work only used for them. Quite simply, one neighbourhood getting $200 million for housing will only beggar other central areas or $200 million of bike paths won't revitalize the larger community. The success of this program will be covering a lot of areas with a revitalization and re-population goal. And if there is a very large project such as rail relocation or the Little Forks proposal, know that it the initial outlay of money should large come from other sources. But for the consultation stage or smaller projects that help launch the project, it can be the start of something great as it was with The Forks.

What is needed is vision. The big question is whether the province or Feds will be turned off by other requests for billions for suburban roads that look like highways. It sends the wrong message if the city keeps supporting sprawl it can't pay for later.