Winnipeg Minute: Issue 125

Winnipeg Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Winnipeg politics

📅 This Week In Winnipeg: 📅

• Today marks a special milestone for Winnipeg Minute: this is our 125th issue! For 125 weeks, we’ve been keeping an eye on the news, agendas, policies, and decisions coming out of City Hall so you can stay informed about what’s happening without having to spend hours following it all yourself. We’re grateful to everyone who reads Winnipeg Minute, shares it with a friend, and takes the time to respond - your support helps make this work possible. Winnipeg Minute is funded entirely by readers like you, so if you find these updates valuable, please consider making a donation to help us keep watching what’s happening at Council and bringing it to your inbox every week.
  
  
• The Board of Revision begins hearing property assessment appeals today at 9:00 am at 510 Main Street, and it will sit every weekday this week. The Board has 16 hearing sessions scheduled from today through Friday, running at 9:00 am and 1:00 pm across three boardrooms, with 161 appeals listed against 2027 assessments. Forty-five of those are set down for today alone, and four have already been withdrawn. Each sitting is docketed with a single class of property rather than a mix, so the appeals move through in blocks. The properties range from houses on streets such as Chestnut, Cathedral and Ruby, to apartment buildings on Pembina Highway and Wellington Crescent, industrial sites on Oak Point Highway and Logan Avenue, and commercial buildings on Main Street and Portage Avenue. The Board is an independent quasi-judicial body appointed by City Council and made up of citizens who are not City employees, and it can rule on a property's assessed value, its classification, and whether the assessor was right to refuse a change to the assessment roll. It has no authority over taxation or City services.
  
  
• Transcona Councillor Russ Wyatt was charged Monday with sexual assault over an alleged incident in October 2023. The 56-year-old was already facing sexual assault charges laid in March involving a different complainant, and was stripped of his seats on seven City committees and boards in a 14-0 Council vote in April after refusing Mayor Scott Gillingham's call to step away from his duties. None of the charges have been proven in court, and Wyatt's lawyer says he is innocent. Against that backdrop, Mayor Scott Gillingham will ask City Council in September to formally request changes to the City of Winnipeg Charter, the provincial law governing the City, so that Council has more options when an elected official faces serious criminal charges. As the Charter stands, a councillor automatically forfeits their seat only after conviction for certain offences, and Council has almost no ability to act while a case is still before the courts. Gillingham wants the Province to review which convictions should trigger automatic disqualification, to create temporary measures for members facing serious charges, and to re-examine eligibility rules for municipal candidates. The temporary measures he raises include removal from all committees and boards, mandatory remote participation in Council and committee meetings, or administrative leave in the most serious circumstances. Gillingham says any such power should be narrowly defined, should require the support of at least two-thirds of all Council members, and should be reviewed periodically once imposed. He is bringing the request forward in September so that the final decision falls to the new Council seated in November, and Premier Wab Kinew has agreed the legislation should be reviewed.
  
  
• Premier Wab Kinew has launched a 90-day feasibility study into moving freight rail traffic out of Winnipeg's urban core, with former federal Transport Minister Lloyd Axworthy chairing the work. The study builds on the Winnipeg Rail Relocation and Renewal Study that Axworthy has led since 2024, and will examine a potential route along Manitoba Hydro's southern transmission corridor, running east to west along the Perimeter Highway on Crown-owned land that is already cleared and serviced. It will look at three questions: how rail operations could be accommodated while protecting Manitoba Hydro infrastructure, what relocation would cost governments and railway companies, and whether the plan is operationally and commercially practical for the railways. CN, CPKC and BNSF will take part, along with municipal and Indigenous governments, CentrePort Canada, the business community, and rail customers and shippers. The study will also consider a Perimeter Highway greenbelt alongside the proposed rail and hydro corridor. Backers argue routing freight around the core would improve efficiency and reduce interactions with residential neighbourhoods, while freeing land for housing, green space and economic development.
  
  
• The Province, the City and CentreVenture Development Corporation have launched a $1.4-million grant program for downtown Winnipeg businesses called Storefront Success. Small and medium-sized retailers, restaurants, cafes, specialty shops and some non-profit organizations operating in a designated downtown area can apply for a share of the money. Eligible work includes facade and storefront improvements, lighting and signage, windows, entrances, patios and canopies, accessibility upgrades, landscaping, and interior improvements visible from the street. Applications are open now and will be accepted until the funding is fully allocated, with quarterly reviews at deadlines of September 30th, December 31st and March 31st. CentreVenture President and Chief Executive Officer Rochelle Squires says the program will help businesses create more welcoming spaces that attract customers and investment downtown.

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