Canada 150 celebrations to shave a sliver off Winnipeg's spending plans
Bartley Kives | CBC News | Posted: March 6, 2017 11:48 PM | Last Updated: March 6, 2017
Sesquicentennial funds for 6 recreation projects, including a spray pad already on the city's books
Canada's 150th anniversary will allow the City of Winnipeg to shave $425,000 off its spending this year.
On Wednesday, Mayor Brian Bowman's inner circle will consider a report to formalize federal spending on six capital projects in Winnipeg as part of the Canada 150 celebrations.
One of the projects is the $1-million spray pad at the Old Exhibition site in the North End. Pending council approval, Ottawa will now pick up $425,000 of the tab. The city plans to reduce its capital spending by the same amount, according to a report to executive policy committee.
The federal government is also topping up a Valley Gardens spray pad project by $250,000, taking the budget up to $850,000.
Ottawa is also $500,000 on Seven Oaks Pool renovations and a total of $300,000 on three other recreation facilities as part of Canada's sesquicentennial celebrations.
Conciliator to assist CUPE 500 talks
The City of Winnipeg has called in a conciliator to help reach a labour agreement with its largest union.
Winnipeg and the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500, which represents 5,070 city workers, have been bargaining since January. The last CUPE 500 contract expired in December.
CUPE 500 president Gord Delbridge said the city requested a conciliator and both sides have agreed to continue talking.
Conciliators do not have the power to compel either side to accept an agreement.
Siloam Mission faces heritage designation
Winnipeg may give the building that houses Siloam Mission a heritage designation.
Council's property and development committee will consider a report recommending heritage status for the Canadian Fairbanks-Morse Company Warehouse, a concrete-and-brick structure that's stood on Princess Street since 1911.
Siloam Mission moved into the premises in 2005 and opposed the heritage designation, which it sees as an obstacle to its $14-million expansion.
"We are concerned that designating the building as a heritage building would make the cost of the project untenable," a representative for the shelter wrote to the city in 2015, when Siloam had a more ambitious, $31-million expansion plan.
In a report to council, heritage planner Rina Ricci says the structure is good example of an intact early 20th-Century Winnipeg warehouse designed in the Romanesque Revival style, one of only five known Winnipeg structures designed by Montreal architects Brown and Vallance and an integral part of the Princess Street streetscape.