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Two weeks after an early winter storm walloped the province, Manitoba Hydro says power is back on for all the communities that lost it.
Hydro adds that not all of its work is done yet, noting that Little Saskatchewan First Nation, Lake St. Martin First Nation, and Dauphin River are being powered by generators.
According to the Crown Corporation, workers have replaced over 4,000 wood poles over 11 days and repaired 950 km of lines. Over the course of the storm, there were 266,000 outage reports.
Premier Pallister has expressed his gratitude for hydro workers, private contractors, and others who helped with the massive cleanup effort.
The out-of-town crews from Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Minnesota began to leave the province on Wednesday.
More work needs to be done including the cleanup of broken poles and other broken equipment that crews left behind to expedite the repair timeline.
People who come across the materials are asked not to touch it, so no one mistakes more recently damaged equipment for what was left behind.
Hydro is also urging people travelling off-road to keep an eye out for the materials, as they may become a hazard to people riding ATVs, dirt bikes or snowmobiles, cross country skiers and hikers.
Livestock producers are also asked to try and keep their animals away from the broken equipment.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
The government of Manitoba has announced the first dates for the first round of Crown land lease auctions.
The auctions are being held on:
-Nov. 27 at the Brandon Manitoba Agriculture Office
-Nov. 28 at the Minnedosa Ukrainian Hall
-Nov 29 at the Dauphin Provincial Building
-Dec. 3 at the Swan River War Veterans Community Hall
-Dec. 5 at the Ashern Manitoba Agriculture Office
-Dec. 6 at the Dugald Community Hall.
The auction system is part of the changes to the Crown Land Leasing Program that came into effect on October 1st of this year, much to the dismay of producers.
Newly appointed Agriculture Minister Blaine Pedersen says the new auction system is a fair and transparent approach that will create new opportunities for new or young farmers to have access to the public assets.
More information on the auctions can be found at the Manitoba Agriculture website.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Take Action on Radon is a coalition of national health organizations and they’re working with the RM of Dauphin to give out 100 free radon test kits.
CAO of the RM of Dauphin, Nicole Chychota, says Radon is a naturally occurring gas.
“It comes from the ground and typically what happens is in the winter months, when your home is closed, radon can come into your basement and build up in levels that may be unsafe.”
Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. The Canadian Cancer Society also reports that 1 in 4 homes in Manitoba have higher levels of radon than Health Canada standards. The Prairie Mountain Region is of higher concern as up to 41% of homes have higher levels of the gas.
Radon-related lung cancer is responsible for more Canadian deaths than motor vehicle collisions, house fires, carbon monoxide poisoning and accidental drowning combined.
Chychota says kits are only available to RM ratepayers currently.
“We are requiring people to sign up for them in advance of our awareness event.”
If there are kits available a week before the November 5th event, they will open up applications to other municipal ratepayers.
A radon test kit has instructions on how to use it, but basically, residents pick a location for it, leave it for over 91 days, return the device and wait for the test results.
Homeowners should take action to reduce radon levels if they are high by consulting a certified radon reduction specialist.
If you live in the RM of Dauphin and would like a radon test kit, call 204-638-4531 or visit the Municipality for advanced registration.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Manitoba Hydro is asking the public’s assistance in helping for possible future weather events.
The Crown Corp is asking anyone with photos of the Thanksgiving snowstorm to send them in.
Hydro is asking specifically for pictures of the snow and ice accumulation anywhere in Manitoba during the course of that weekend.
Hydro hopes that, by collecting data and documentation, they will be able to improve the system’s resilience against future storms.
If you have any photos you’d like to submit, you can send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Hydro asks that you indicate where and when the photo was taken.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
As a result of Premier Pallister’s cabinet shuffle, there’s a new provincial Ag Minister.
Blaine Pedersen, the former minister of infrastructure, is the new head of the newly created Department of Agriculture and Resource Development.
The expanded department will now focus, on top of agriculture, on natural resources including, watershed districts, GROW programming, forestry, mining, fish, and wildlife management.
Minister Pedersen is excited about his new role.
“It’s a real honour for the Premier to tap me to do this; I’m looking forward to getting into the department and understanding what’s going on here, and it’s going to take a while to familiarize myself because we have an expanded role now,” said Pedersen. “It’s a really good fit for agriculture here.”
Pedersen adds that his farming background will help him in his new role, as well as the connections he made as the Infrastructure Minister and the Minister of Growth, Enterprise, and Trade.
Former provincial Ag Minister Ralph Eichler is now the Minister of Economic Development and Training.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Cleanup from the storm over the Thanksgiving Weekend has been costly for Manitoba Hydro, to the tune of 110 million dollars.
Damage was done to poles, transformers, cross arms and lines, and even nuts and bolts have had to be replaced in some situations.
Hydro wouldn’t say if customers should expect a rate increase to help with the costs.
There are under 1000 customers still without power.
The province has replaced 2826 hydro poles.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
The federal election was on Monday and Dan Mazier won the vote of the Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa riding for the Conservative Party, while the Liberal Party won a minority government. Kate Storey, the Green Party candidate here, expected that to happen.
“This is a very safe riding, so congratulations to Dan. Very proud of the campaign we ran as Greens, it was a clean campaign unlike many of the others and we probably suffered for that, but that’s what we have to do.”
Storey was also happy to see the Green vote go up.
“Climate change is our big issue, that’s not such an issue here in this riding, but it is elsewhere and we’re ready to hold the new government’s feet to the fire.”
Storey congratulates all the other candidates, adding she enjoyed talking to them and meeting people across the riding.
In the polls, she finished 4th with 2090 votes (5.4%) and the Green Party finished 5th with 3 seats in parliament.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
A house exploded in Brandon on Tuesday evening.
The front of the home was blown open with various items scattering out on to the lawn and neighbouring properties.
Manitoba Hydro says it was likely a gas explosion.
A 63-year-old woman is dead and a 63-year-old man is in critical condition from the blast, which happened around 8 o clock last night.
Nearby residents were evacuated briefly, and some said they could smell gas in the area.
Brandon Police and the office of the fire commissioner are investigating.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Brian Pallister has unveiled his new cabinet for his second term as Premier of Manitoba.
Along with some new faces, a few new departments have been created such as the department of Central Services, the department of Conservation and Climate, and the department of Economic Development and Training.
The new ministers brought in are Brandon West MLA Reg Helwer who will be in charge of Central Services, and Fort Richmond MLA Sarah Guillemard who will head up Conservation and Climate.
Some notable shuffles in Pallister's cabinet include Ralph Eichler moving from the Agriculture department to the Economic Development and Training department. Eichler is replaced by Midland MLA Blaine Pedersen. As well, Rochelle Squires was appointed Municipal Relations Minister, and Cathy Cox is the new minister for the Status of Women.
MLAs Heather Stefanson, Cameron Friesen, Cliff Cullen, Kelvin Goertzen, Eileen Clark, and Ron Schuler will stay on as ministers and keep the positions they held previously.
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- Contributed by Alec Woolston
Monday’s federal election saw the Liberal Party win a minority government.
Cathy Scofield-Singh, Liberal candidate for the Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa riding finished third in the voting but is still somewhat pleased with the result.
“Some of the communities have definitely shown that they are liberal and are very supportive of the plan of Justin Trudeau. I’m really excited with all the work the Northwest Metis Region has done, they reached out to all their community members and had done an awesome job.”
She wasn’t surprised by the result, adding this is a conservative area.
Scofield-Singh has a message for her team.
“I really want to thank the Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa Liberal Association, the team has been fantastic, Crawford Halliday and David Johnson who have helped me, Francis Chartrand and all the executives of the association have been wonderful to me and very supportive in the very short period that we ran. Considering that we really had less than three weeks to campaign in, I think we’ve actually done quite phenomenally.”
She finished with 5,103 votes or 13.2 %.
Scofield-Singh is ecstatic the Liberal Party is in government.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
The Government of Manitoba has named a list of winners for the 2018 Sustainability Awards.
After claiming the Sustainable Community of Manitoba award in 2017, the City of Dauphin was listed as an honourable mention for the 2018 awards.
The honourable mention was for the City’s effort in implementing new technologies and techniques to make the city greener.
Some of those initiatives include a large-scale rainwater catchment system to help reduce the amount of treated water used to water flower baskets and community baskets, the implementation of a way to recycle old mattresses, a way to recycle household appliances, and making repairs to reduce the amount of infiltration and inflow into the city’s sanitary system.
Another thing the city has done to help make the city more environmentally friendly is the building of bike lanes, and starting an active transportation plan.
“We’re on the right track, we’ve been working really hard at growing our community around green initiatives, and making our contribution to a clean environment,” said Dauphin’s community energy manager Steve Sobering. “It’s pretty satisfying to be recognized outside of the community.
Sobering adds that the city isn’t done when it comes to making Dauphin greener and more efficient. Part of the plan going forward is to slowly make the city’s fleet electric, by buying electric garbage trucks, street sweepers, and Zambonis, as well as replacing the city’s old HVAC systems with more energy-efficient ones.
The city is also installing Level 3 rapid chargers for electric vehicles.
Sobering is hoping that by seeing what a small city like Dauphin can do for sustainability, bigger cities will catch on and make their communities more sustainable.
The winner of the Sustainable Community for 2018 was the Fisher River Cree Nation.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
