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Inner-city councillor wants encampments banned from Winnipeg playgrounds, splash pads, pools

Inner-city councillor wants encampments banned from Winnipeg playgrounds, splash pads, pools

CBC18-07-2025
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The city councillor for Winnipeg's inner-city Daniel McIntyre ward wants to ban encampments in public places where children gather.
Coun. Cindy Gilroy has authored a motion to prohibit encampments at playgrounds, spray pads, community gardens, pools and community centre spaces designed for kids and their families.
Gilroy issued the motion Thursday at the final city council meeting before a six-week summer prorogation at city hall. She had previously pushed for more needle cleanup in city parks and said she has seen some progress as a result, albeit only in a handful places where funding was made available.
Gilroy said she is not trying to push people out of public spaces out of a lack of compassion.
"This is out of frustration of inaction. We have been having major issues around finding needles [and] drug paraphernalia and things that quite simply, if a child gets a hold of it, can easily die from," Gilroy said at city hall during a break in council's July meeting.
Some cities have designated areas where encampments are allowed and "could be monitored more, where they are safer for not only the public, but also the people that are living … within those encampments," she said.
Mayor Scott Gillingham said he will work with Gilroy but is not keen on designated areas for encampments.
"The public is frustrated. I'm frustrated. There's not enough housing units available to move people from encampments into housing with wraparound supports," the mayor said.
"When you've got encampments in playgrounds, it's concerning to residents and it's concerning to councillors."
Gillingham cautioned there are legal impediments to banning encampments.
"There's several layers of this. We know that other cities that have tried to ban certain locations for encampments have been taken to court. So there's legalities that we have to look at as well," he said.
Gilroy's motion will come before her council colleagues in September.
New library named after former councillor
A new library slated for Garden City Shopping Centre will be named after former Old Kildonan councillor Mike O'Shaughnessy, who served on city council for 31 years.
Council voted Thursday to name the new library the Mike O'Shaughnessy Library.
O'Shaughnessy originally sat on council from 1974 to 1980 and then again from 1986 to 2010, serving under mayors Stephen Juba, Robert Steen, Bill Norrie, Susan Thompson, Glen Murray and Sam Katz.
Council also voted Thursday to grant city transportation engineers nine months to plan a separated bike lane on Wellington Crescent, against the wishes of dozens of cyclists who have lobbied city hall for months to install the new lane more quickly.
There have been calls for the bike lane since cyclist Rob Jenner, 61, was killed on Wellington Crescent just east of Academy Road in June 2024 as he was cycling to work. He was hit by a speeding motorist who lost control of his vehicle.
Council also voted Thursday to create a possibility for people opposed to new smart water meters, which transmit usage data, to opt out of their installation, provided they obtain a medical exemption on the basis of exposure to radio waves.
The new meters are expected to be more accurate — old meters tend to underestimate water usage — and detect leaks more quickly than the analog meters.
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Over 200 candidates sign up for Poilievre's byelection — doubling previous record
Over 200 candidates sign up for Poilievre's byelection — doubling previous record

CBC

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  • CBC

Over 200 candidates sign up for Poilievre's byelection — doubling previous record

Social Sharing More than 200 candidates, mostly associated with a group of electoral reform advocates, have signed up to run in an upcoming federal byelection next month. The number more than doubles the previous record on a single ballot. Former Alberta MP Damien Kurek vacated his seat in Battle River-Crowfoot to give Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre a chance to rejoin the House of Commons. Poilievre lost his longtime Carleton riding in April's general election. A group known as the Longest Ballot Committee has been organizing candidates to run in byelections in recent years in an effort to push for electoral reform. The committee's organizers want to put a citizens' assembly in charge of electoral reform and say political parties are too reluctant to make government more representative of the electorate. As of Sunday evening, 209 candidates had registered to run in Battle River-Crowfoot, exceeding than committee's goal of 200. That's more than double the previous record of 91 which has occurred twice in the past year: during a byelection in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun last September and Carleton during the last general election. That number of candidates resulted in a ballot roughly a metre long. The massive ballots have resulted in delays in vote counting and have confounded some voters. Elections Canada told CBC News on Wednesday that it will finalize ways to minimize disruptions from the long ballots. "We are looking at ways to [simplify] things based on recent experiences with elections involving a higher-than-usual number of candidates. We will finalize our plans after the deadline for candidate nominations," spokesperson Matthew McKenna said in an email. Elections Canada has already had to make changes to accommodate the mammoth-sized ballots — mostly through early counting and bringing in extra workers. Although the Longest Ballot Committee has organized in two elections where Poilievre is running, the group has also targeted Liberal strongholds such as Toronto-St. Paul's and LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in 2024. But the advocates' efforts to push the limits of a ballot have sparked calls for changes, most recently from Poilievre himself which he refers to as a "scam." The Conservative leader wrote a letter to government House leader Steven MacKinnon on Tuesday, calling for legislation to change Canada's election rules in an effort to curb the long ballot protests. A spokesperson for MacKinnon's office said the Liberals share those concerns and are open to changes. MPs were debating legislation last Parliamentary session that could have implemented some of Poilievre's proposed changes — specifically to limit electors to only signing one nomination form. The advocates have voters sign multiple forms. Elections Canada head Stéphane Perrault himself made the suggestion in front of a committee of MPs that was studying a bill to amend the Canada Elections Act before Parliament was prorogued. Perrault argued that "certain penalties" should be imposed on individuals who sign — or encourage others to sign — multiple nomination papers in an effort to get as many candidates on a ballot as possible, though he didn't say what those penalties should be. The deadline to register as a candidate in Battle River-Crowfoot is Monday. Voters head to the polls on Aug. 18.

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