Winnipeg Comeback 2022 Part 1

Above is Market Avenue, home of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. 

In 2019 it seemed that Winnipeg and much of the province was on the cusp of a sustained economic growth period. Sure, weather was and always a possible factor but the diversified provincial economy seemed solid and several businesses were in expansion mode. Approvals for several buildings were made and construction was starting. And all this built on top of a stable economy already. Manitoba looked poised to enter its 150th birthday with a confidence not seen in some time.

It was not to be. By March of 2020, all of North America was shutdown with Covid 19. The brief celebratory time at the beginning of the year quickly turned to a sense of dread with the type of worldwide shutdown the likes the world have rarely seen. At the height of it, we saw our dystopic future of empty streets, office buildings and schools.

Above is Winnipeg City Hall. The city's 150th birthday comes soon.

Many families lost people as a result of Covid or because of what it has done to our health system. My family suffered horribly. My dad never recovered from Covid and we lost him in July. My mom hasn't walked since her release. And now she is in lockdown again. It is down to primary caregiver now. 

It wasn't a secret my parents had Covid. For too many the disease was something you only whispered at a family dinner like "cancer" as if that alone would make it go away. It was too easy for people to dismiss it by saying they had never heard of anyone getting it. It is awful in January of 2022 and it is spreading at a rate that is hitting everywhere.

Above is the empty space where city parkade and Public Safety Building once stood. Red River College downtown campus in background. The space could transform the area and further enhance Princess as well as King as a dynamic area of the Exchange and Chinatown.

But this isn't looking at how bad the last 18 months have been or how 2022 feels like a continuation of what has passed. This is about the comeback for Winnipeg and Manitoba in 2022. While there is no doubt that that many small businesses have taken it repeatedly on the chin, some developments and business start-ups continued through the pandemic. The tallest tower in the city has been under construction through the entire time and should be open to new residents soon.

Likewise, towers on on Assiniboine were finally completed for lease or purchase. The Medical Arts converted to residential, the former United Grain Growers on Main converted and industrial conversions to residential on Waterfront are in progress. It is easy to lose track of the projects whether they be on Princess, on Broadway or near the art gallery. And those are the ones just downtown. 

The above is Chinese Cultural Centre which now overlooks a piece of prime property where the parkade and Public Safety Building Stand.

Driving down Sterling Lyon by Seasons has been non-stop multi-unit construction on industrial land. Seasons of Tuxedo and surrounding area have seen a huge spike in commercial and residential building. Hotel construction took place even as the pandemic continued. And Kapyong is now cleared of all buildings and awaiting the next step. One thing it won't be is a big mall. There is no market for another. It will have some retail but will feature more residential, recreational and cultural buildings. It will likely have a hotel as well. 

For the entire pandemic there were either brand new or re-furbished grocery stores built. Two new Red River Co-Ops on Sterling Lyon and Pembina Highway. New Save on Foods on Pembina. Every Safeway re-done. And No Frills and Freshco conversions from other grocery stores. Tens of millions spent in short order. The above pictures show Red River Co-Op shortly before they opened. Visible are the new apartments and condos coming as well.

Shopping malls were also getting additions from Kildonan to Polo Park or refreshes like Garden City and Grant Park. Tens of million spent again even as some of these buildings were at reduced capacity or even closed at some point. The reason: A bet on the future.

The pictures below are the recently completely Save on Foods and the still under construction movie theatres for Famous Players at Kildonan Place. Each hit over the last years has via department store closures has been responded to by a multi-million investment by its owners.

Princess Avenue has been particularly busy throughout the pandemic with building activity. The above pictures are old and new residential construction. Many of the new conversions are leaving room for commercial activity. In this case, the first floor window show another location for Harrisons Coffee. Given the amount of multi-unit housing in the area plus Red River Polytech, this could be a busier street than it has been in years. And in the 1970s and 80s, there were a number of businesses that operated in the area. Industrial, retail and restaurant. The thing that was spotty was residential. That has all changed now.

How it all connects is not known yet. The new campus building for Red River along with residential/retail still doesn't have a fully returned to work and school crowd back. And no one knows what the return to arts and festivals will be like. Has their been any permanent change to pattern of behaviour previous to 2020? If we are lucky, no. And by that I mean, will people return downtown for work and entertainment?

The new Innovation Campus Manitou a bi Bii dazigae has just been built off Princess and really hasn't had a chance to shine after in person learning was halted again. It may really only be in September of 2022 where we see attendance near normal in schools. And from there, we could see activity along Princess quite different from 2019.

As a car dominated city, it can be intimidating just getting out of the car to go get groceries. It is for this reason that some new developments are literally built beside a grocery and a pharmacy. In the case of the new luxury Taylor Residences, it built between a Sobeys and a Walmart. It is probably easier to walk than to find a parking space a hundred meters. away.

In front of the Walmart on Taylor itself more multi-unit residences are going up. It is hard to imagine someone needing their cars to drive the distance you would often park away from the store entrance on a busy day. Alas, some older neighbourhoods used to have grocery and pharmacy options that were walkable but those have since closed. Some suburban places never had them at all and it is a few kilometers hike.

River Heights has a few specialty grocers and convenience store but a senior would be hard pressed to be able live without transport compared to say...Osborne. It wasn't always that way. Up till the 1990s, there were three or four grocers along Academy Road. Now, one specialty shop. My parents, like a lot of seniors, had few options to move to a multi-unit place for senior assisted living in the area. Once you can't live in your house or need to downsize, you have to move out of the neighbourhood. This has to change.

According to census data, Winnipeg's population growth slowed even before during the pandemic. Immigration from outside Canada kept it from going into free fall. There was sturdy growth 2016/17 of 2%. It triggered a building boom of office, apartments and housing and the feeling was that 2020, Manitoba's 150, it would culminate in a period of growth and prosperity. The pandemic of Covid 19 changed that for Winnipeg. 

In fairness Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have also seen population declines during this time but the fact that Winnipeg's started earlier is concerning. Brian Pallister became premier in 2016 and while Winnipeg was experiencing robust growth that year, the relationship between mayor and premier was frosty over the direction of the city. Much of the time communication channels were simply closed as the Progressive Conservative pursued health, education and other reforms while cutting service and as well as taxes.

A look down Fort Street as a crane dismantles another crane as Winnipeg's tallest building reaches completion.

The cuts to universities and healthcare have led to faculty and doctors leaving Manitoba. The cancellation of the CancerCare addition, multiple programs in health and wage freezes in post secondary education made it easy for professionals to shop their skills somewhere else. And they did. The pursuit of ending the deficit made health care particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. The ER and Urgent Care closures came just as the need for them could not be greater.

The Conservatives did see some big investments ushered in on agriculture and a few other areas but the austerity measures and tax cuts hurt both Winnipeg and the province because it is people that will help bring back a measure of prosperity. And if they leave they are not investing, not paying taxes and not helping the economy here.

A change in leadership has come with a flurry of announcements of policy shifts and investments in healthcare provincially. But these will take time and the pandemic is still hurting meaningful change till then. With an election in two years, the PCs have never been more unpopular. But will the NDP be ready to run the shop? There was a reason they were defeated in 2016. They purged five cabinet ministers who were seeking to change the directions of the party on policy. And when that didn't happen, the electorate purged the party.

We don't have the same advantages of other provinces with oil like Alberta and Saskatchewan. Now do we have the port and resources as well as climate of B.C. Ontario and Quebec have the industrial base. Manitoba has only one sizeable city compared to other provinces who usually have two or more fair sized cities. Even with all that, we punch above our weight with head offices and family businesses and diversified economy. 

Fanquest Winnipeg 2019

This is the third year for Fanquest in Winnipeg and second at Red River College's downtown campus. It runs Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to 6. With the hiatus of Comic Con this year, a number of people will be looking for events where they can celebrate their interest in genre media and music. Fanquest fits in nicely with the remaining genre conventions of Keycon and Ai-Kon.

Costumes, gaming, panel discussions and special guests abound for the event which will inside Red River College's Exchange campus. It will be busy in the area with nearby Jazz Fest taking place so be sure to that into account when heading downtown.

Cosplay and costumes are one of the main reasons to come to Fanquest and it is quite the mix of sci-fi and fantasy inside. Attendance has grown and the convention looks to see a thousand people pass through the door versus last year's 750.

Weather forecast for Saturday looks a little wet so some Jazz Fest and Red River Ex attendees could have a place to go till the weather clears!

Money and Public Officials

The controversy over public officials (both elected and unelected) in regards to money and privilege is an old story but a good one. There has been some piling on and some defending of the various offences. This is par for the course.

Politicians and public officials are custodians of taxpayer's money. Scrutiny should be expected.

The Canadian Taxpayer's Federation placed in its crosshairs the president of a local college. It is amazing what a freedom of information request can turn up. One Free Press columnist has said that the president should have known better in terms of the optics of buying golf shoes and expensing it. However, the same columnist also said that the CTF should have used journalistic efforts and asked for a response from the president.

My understanding is that the CTF asked the Red River Board for a response as they published. Does that count? Or does the response have to come before publishing?

The reason I ask is that the Free Press had an explosive story on privilege involving loading dock parking and the city's top official. It was revealed that he was not available for an interview and the story went ahead. Should the Free Press have waited? If there had been a response, would the story have been killed?

The Free Press sent a photographer to have picture evidence of the parking incident in February of this year. However, if you go back to June of 2012:

Who is this in June of 2012?

There is a pic there of a car and driver there that I thought was a certain city official.

I am not a journalist nor have the resources of one. I do call people asking for a response and in some cases I get one but I have also been brushed aside a lot times and in some cases outright lied to as revealed in documents received in someone else's freedom of information request. No hard feelings. I try but I don't have any power other than to write. I do care about accuracy and anyone who has read what I have written knows I try to be fair.

I do have an opinion about things and will continue to state it. I thought about publishing that parking picture when I saw it but I thought that the Free Press or CBC would have surely asked the question: Where are the mayor and councillors parking now that the Civic Parkade is closed? It took a while but the story came out.

I was on the phone many a time before the fire hall story came out trying to find out the disposition of the buildings. The real estate department probably got sick of hearing from me but it was where I first heard of the land swap. I didn't publish because I still didn't have all the pieces. And I may never gotten all the information because I am not a journalist.

It is tough being a journalist. I expect this is routine for them in trying to get information and not having access to it or being spun a tale or lied to. I have a lot of respect for the Free Press among other media in the city. This weekend alone I saw a great analysis of first round draft picks of the Winnipeg Jets compared to the rest of the league. In the same paper was terrific work on school division budgets. All that work came from a professional staff with intimate knowledge of the subject, good research and passion.

I know those stories came about because there was a dedicated professional staff writing and having experience and the power of their publication to get the information out.

There is a debate on Twitter about quality and circulation of print news.

Our family buys the Free Press and I pick up the Globe and Mail nearly every Saturday. The Sun and the Metro come free and in bulk to my work every day. I receive Maclean's every week and pick up a few magazines every month. I like quality and pay for it.

I know some people don't pay for content. They probably never will if they never have to.

But let's get back to whether the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation should have to wait for a response before publishing...

I think the answer is no. I don't consider the CTF to be a media group. They are an activist lobby group. They have asked for a response from Red River but I would no less expect them to wait to publish that I would have when Nick Ternette finally got the RCMP and CSIS security files on him after all those years.

The CTF and the late Nick Ternette made public their findings. They left the media to ask the questions.

The Free Press along with the rest of the news media have probably sold a lot of papers and got a lot of viewers and listeners as a result. There has been a lot of debate about what is fair and what is not for public officials in terms of money.

This is good.

Public officials should have their expenses vetted and then published. Government advertising should be vetted for political bias. Slush funds at all levels of government should be revealed and stomped on.

The elected and unelected officials ought not to worry about the information being out there or checked before approval. It makes for better governance. If the CTF wishes to make hay of some of those items, let them. I think the public is smart enough to know when criticism is warranted and unwarranted.

And if activists do make claims and publish them, the media should use their resources and staff to flesh out the story. Ask the tough questions and later in opinion pieces, come up with thoughts on the whole thing.

Last week was a good week for the media. News can break in many ways and this is one of them.

It is not for me to see how the media can monetize its product better. However, lobby groups, pollsters, activists and bloggers can be a good source of content for a professional journalist.

List Time - Arts, Culture and Entertainment

Here is a list of what I thought were major achievements in arts, culture and entertainment this year.

1. The Winnipeg Art Gallery announced a major expansion of their gallery. Not only is the art gallery an architectural treasure but it is the foremost exhibitors of Inuit art. It has been a good year for the gallery with an amazing painting donated, some great exhibits and now the expansion.

2. Le Cercle Molière’s new théâtre opened in October. Canada's oldest theatre on Provencher Boulevard gets the street presence that it richly deserves and the venue to continues presenting French plays and culture.

3. Plug-In Art Gallery and the University of Winnipeg get together for a major presence of a well know gallery onto Portage Avenue and and a continued expansion of the university eastward to downtown.

4. Astron 6, a moviemaking collective from Winnipeg markets itself in Toronto and lands a film deal for Father's Day, a horror film put together by famed studio Troma of Toxic Avenger fame. Look for these guys for more films over the years.

5. Manitoba Theatre Centre get a royal designation from Queen Elizabeth. The continued strong showing year after year for Canada's first regional theatre deserves a salute.

6. Manitoba Museum wins international award for Beneath the Seas and hosts a retrospective of Manitoba rock, country, folk and French language music in Alloway Hall.

7. The Great Canadian Talk Show is cancelled by Kick FM at the behest of Red River College. The timing after the civic election is suspect.

8. Oldies rock station is killed on CFRW and becomes 1290 Sports Radio, the second time in a number of years sports radio tries to make a go of it in Winnipeg. Not to be outdone, Curve 94 FM kills their alt-pop music format and goes oldies as Fab 94.

9. Bachman and Turner go back on the road. Randy Bachman and Fred Turner might not be in overdrive but they are back to making rock music on tour across Canada.

10. ITV Brandon goes off the air. After the death of CKX in Brandon, it looked like the only alternative to the print media was ITV Brandon. Now it too has gone off the air.

The Great Canadian Talk Show's Replacement

Tristan Field-Jones, host of Musings on Politics

The program Musings On Politics has been selected to replace The Great Canadian Talk Show in the 4 pm to 6 pm timeslot. It is hosted by Tristan Field-Jones.

It appears that Rick Baverstock, the producer of Kick-FM is trying to ensure the timeslot remains civic minded.

It is a lot to ask of the program to fill so many hours. Here is their webpage.

In the meantime, Red River College has announced a person as the contact in regards to the station and the decisions made. That person is KICK board member Graham Thomson at 949-8377 or gthomson@rrc.mb.ca . He is the Dean of School of Business and Applied Arts.

Sports Radio 1290 Finally Goes Local

They still haven't updated their website to include a schedule of their programming. You have to go to their facebook page to find out anything.

One good thing is that they are finally adding a real local component. Starting on Saturday, November 6, the Illegal Curve show on hockey will air from 10 am to 12 pm.

What is truly astounding is that Illegal Curve started off as a blog and then moved to Red River College's radio station Kick FM in 2009.

This move is huge step in giving 1290 Sports Radio a local presence. Hope to see more of this in the future.

A Quiet Man

Hiva Alizadeh, right side. CBC picture.

On Wednesday, Canadian police swept up an alleged terror ring linked to radicalized elements of the Muslim community opposed to Canada's involvement in Afghanistan.

There is still a lot unknown about the arrests of the three people in Ottawa and London. Police say there are three other unnamed people they are looking for.

We will have to see in the coming months and probably years how the accused came to be under suspicion and what evidence there is to suggest they planned terrorist activities. And it will be up to the police to prove the conspiracy allegations in court.

One thing is clear: There are Canadians who have been radicalized and who have gravitated to jihad against their fellow Canadians.

One person among those arrested lived in Winnipeg. Hiva Alizadeh attended Red River College and studied electrical engineering, had a home in St. Vital and had a relationship with an aboriginal woman who was a convert to Islam.

Those that knew Hiva Alizadeh are shocked by his arrest. Many say he was a quiet man who didn't talk about politics. From 2003 to 2009 he worked at a halal meat shop, attended school and lived in an apartment with his wife and child. His wife became more devout during their time in St. Vital and she went from a long dress and head covering to full niqab which left only the eyes exposed.

Was this the beginning of a change within the man and the family to something radical? We may never know the full motivation but it is important to know why some people are drawn to the siren call of jihad and would rather fight than using freedoms they have in Canada to call attention to wrongs they feel need remedying.

A quiet man who quietly rages against the society he lives in and quietly plots to act against it violently is a pretty scary concept.

We must know where the radicalization takes place. It seems obvious that those who feel the same things are drawn to one another. How? It seems obvious that those who have these feelings of rage are guided by someone who manages to keep them below the radar while working together? Who?

After the arrests of so many would be terrorists in Canada over the years, I don't know if we are any closer to knowing what makes a terrorist in Canada.



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