u/Leather-Paramedic-10

A Winnipeg mother says she is terrified to go for a walk after her three children were struck by a car at an intersection Monday afternoon. The mother believes the crash was preventable and is calling on drivers to be more cautious.

“Honestly, I am terrified to go outside now with the stroller and my kids,” said Brooke Pascal, a Winnipeg mother.

Pascal says her family was waiting on the sidewalk here when they saw a car speeding their way.

When she realized the car was not stopping, she tried to pull the stroller further from the road.

That’s when she says the car didn’t stop at the red light and mounted the sidewalk.

“There is no reason that car was moving as fast as it was,” said Pascal.

Pascal’s daughter was hit the most. She was taken to hospital and had stitches on the back of her head. Her face was covered in bruises. All three of Pascal’s children were taken to hospital in stable condition.

“The car hit my kids. And they flew 20 feet from where they were at,” said Pascal.

The driver and the passenger in the car were taken to hospital in unstable condition, but later upgraded to stable.

Pascal says she’s still waiting for Winnipeg police to interview her about the incident.

Winnipeg police said the driver was issued a ticket and that, when necessary for investigative purposes, arrangements may be made at a later date to conduct interviews. But Pascal says, since the crash, she has a hard time going outside with her children.

“I am always on high alert. My son is always on high alert when we go out. It’s really scary,” said Pascal.

She’s calling on Winnipeg drivers to be more cautious and hopes this doesn’t happen to someone else.

“Pay attention to the families on the sidewalks and not to be so reckless with your driving,” said Pascal.

---

By: Sofia Frolova

Published: October 2, 2026 3:41 pm.

A committee of Red River Valley municipalities is proposing farmers who don't follow best practices to protect their soil from erosion could pay for cleanups after future storms hit.

The cleanup from May's windstorm is still not done, after municipalities ran out of money.

Four rural municipalities in southern Manitoba are still waiting to hear whether they will qualify for provincial disaster financial assistance after topsoil blew off fields, clogging hundreds of kilometres of drains.

"I think most farmers realize what the solutions are, but if there's no consequence, they're going to continue doing it the way they've done it in the past," Montcalm Coun. Harold Janzen said.

He has been farming for over 50 years and owns Marsh River Farms east of Morris.

Janzen's fields held onto most of their topsoil because he leaves crop residue in the ground, even adding shoulder crops in the fall to let small roots take hold before planting his cash crop in the spring.

Having a law similar to Alberta's, putting the onus on property owners to prevent soil loss, would be good for Manitoba, he said.

"If we can expect more of these two-day windstorms, any of our municipalities can't afford to subsidize, (and) the ratepayer can't be subsidizing the cleanout of the ditches," Janzen said.

The rural municipalities of Montcalm, Morris, Emerson-Franklin and Rhineland all asked for disaster financial assistance after May's windstorm. None have received a reply from the province.

"The province has no further update at this time," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

"Manitoba continues to review municipal requests related to the windstorm, a decision to establish a program has not yet been made."

Each RM has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, which they said is a huge hit to their budgets because of their small populations.

Emerson-Franklin has a population of 2,500 people. The RM paid $200,000 that wasn't in its budget to get only three-quarters of its drains cleared before it halted the work, chief administrative officer Tracey French said.

Rhineland's CAO, Michael Rempel, said it has paid $350,000 to remediate 136 separate sites in a municipality with 6,000 people.

Most agriculture producers adjust to changing climate conditions. More farmers are burning off less residue and planting shoulder crops to hold onto the exposed soil in fall and spring.

Brunelle Sabourin's data-gathering company in St. Jean Baptiste, 75 kilometres south of Winnipeg, is helping farmers prepare for El Niño, which could produce a warm, dry winter and set up conditions for another dust storm.

Antara Agronomy is telling its farmers to leave more crop residue to protect the topsoil from a freeze-thaw effect that breaks up dirt.

"All of those soil aggregates and leaves kind of a fine powder on top of the soil surface. And that's what we saw this spring with those really extreme winds, is a lot of that soil started moving," Sabourin said.

Antara has a series of small weather stations measuring wind, precipitation, soil moisture and more throughout fields in the south Red River Valley.

Combined with new cultivation equipment, Sabourin said farmers he works with are able to adjust how they treat their soil, field by field.

He said that affects more than only yields and profits.

"We don't want to do anything that has a negative effect on the land because when a farmer looks at their legacy that they want to leave and pass down to the next generation, we want to leave everything in better condition than when we took it on," Sabourin said.

WATCH | Potentially putting onus on property owners to prevent soil loss: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7359196

---

By: Christopher Gareau · CBC News

Published: Sep 25, 2026 8:13 PM CDT | Last Updated: 12 hours ago

People pack a church basement in Osborne Village to play a game of bingo at a place that offers food, programming and resources for people in need, including those who are homeless.

It's a segment of the population that a majority of Winnipeggers are losing compassion for, the results of a survey suggest ahead of the Oct. 28 civic election.

"It's pretty sad, you know. It's really very sad," said Rick Dubois, who used to be homeless. "We're living in Canada. We shouldn't have a homeless problem."

The online survey conducted by Abacus Data for CBC News in August asked 687 adults in Winnipeg, from a cross-section of demographics and backgrounds, about their views and priorities in the upcoming civic election.

Among those surveyed, 59 per cent strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, "I'm starting to lose my compassion for people experiencing homelessness or using drugs in public."

Dubois, who now volunteers at the church with 1JustCity's Oak Table program, suspects what neighbours in condos sometimes see outside the building might have something to do with these views on homelessness.

People gathered on the sidewalk, including one person who had a shopping cart overflowing with belongings, as he spoke to the CBC.

"Like this right here," Dubois said. "Take a look."

People are losing compassion because homelessness is "in their faces," he said.

Mike Green lives nearby and said this summer, he often saw people face down on the boulevard outside the church building, which is now known as the Augustine Centre.

He said he can understand why some people are losing empathy, but he still cares, despite the concerns about vandalism, discarded needles and people in crisis in his neighbourhood.

"Certainly that is happening, and I don't blame people who are losing their perspective, but I do think that's wrong," Green said.

Green acknowledged he is frustrated by what he sees as a lack of a plan to help people and address some of the issues in his neighbourhood.

"I have lost faith in the different organizations that are meant to be supporting them," he said.

He's concerned about what he sees as competition for funding and different approaches to dealing with homelessness and getting people housed.

A majority of the respondents to the Abacus survey feel neither social agencies nor governments are doing a good enough job dealing with homelessness.

Only about a third of respondents said the agencies are doing an excellent or good job, a little more than one-fifth felt that way about police, less than one-fifth of respondents felt the province was doing a good job, and only eight per cent had good things to say about the city's response to homelessness.

Because it was an online survey, a margin of error for the Winnipeg results can't be calculated. A comparable random survey would have a margin of error of 3.74 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

#City policies stigmatize, advocate says

Lorie English, executive director of the West Central Women's Resource Centre, isn't surprised by the survey results.

"I think it's an unfortunate outcome of some of the policy choices that we've seen made, particularly by the municipal government and the City of Winnipeg," English said.

She cited the ban on homeless encampments in certain public spaces, including near playgrounds, parks, schools and daycares, and the police crackdown on open drug use.

"Often when we take steps to marginalize, criminalize, stigmatize people who are experiencing homelessness, it increases people's apathy towards these really complex issues," English said.

She challenged people to prioritize the lived reality of those who are homeless over their own discomfort from seeing the problem.

"It's hard for people to see suffering, and I think that's understandable," English said, but when "we couch policy in safety language," people should ask whose safety is being talked about.

"Are we talking about the safety of people who have homes to go to, who have access to a vehicle, or are we talking about the most marginalized in our community, who are actually the least safe in our city?"

English defended social service agencies, which she said are unified and working together. The problem, she said, is that agencies are underfunded and stretched beyond their capacity.

Jennifer Moore Rattray, End Homelessness Winnipeg's CEO, agrees with that sentiment and spoke against policies enacted by the City of Winnipeg.

"Housing is a human right. Shelter's a human right. If we don't have other places for people to go, what are we doing? We're just moving people around and making their own lives more difficult."

A lack of investment in affordable and social housing over decades is to blame, she said.

"It's not an easy fix," Moore Rattray said. "And I think for people to see unsheltered relatives day after day is difficult for them, so I can only guess that that is part of the reason for the survey results."

Some said it's difficult to see public spaces permanently altered where homeless encampments have been set up, like along the banks of the Red River in Point Douglas near Waterfront Drive.

One area resident lamented to CBC News about damage to vegetation, holes dug in the soil and trash left along a cycling and walking trail.

Tim Barnfather has similar concerns about the banks of the Assiniboine River.

"I'm not so concerned of them camping, or I haven't been. I'm more concerned of the garbage, the lack of respect for the land," Barnfather said.

He said he's a compassionate person and still has empathy for people who are homeless, but he doesn't see an easy solution to the problem.

At Public Domain, a live music venue, restaurant and bar on Portage Avenue between Sherbrook Street and Furby Street, general manger Brenden Gali said helping people who are homeless or high on drugs often falls on businesses like his — including administering naloxone several times a week.

People using drugs in the entrance or crowding around the venue's back door when shipments are coming in are a couple of the challenges that come with operating on the West End strip, he said.

"I don't think I've become uncompassionate in any way or have lost any compassion," Gali said. "I've definitely become desensitized to what to expect and what to do when I'm facing someone who's maybe overdosing."

Occupying a space in the area does require supporting the neighbourhood, he said, but he hopes to see policies from mayoral and council candidates that make the community healthier for everyone.

It's not just in Winnipeg — Abacus also asked people in Brandon, Steinbach, Selkirk, Thompson, The Pas and Flin Flon about homelessness and addiction.

A majority — three-fifths of respondents in the Manitoba-wide survey — strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, "I'm starting to lose my compassion for people experiencing homelessness or using drugs in public."

A margin of error also can't be calculated for the Manitoba online survey, which 1,608 adults participated in. A comparable random survey would have a margin of error of 2.44 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Back in Osborne Village, 1JustCity executive director Craig Wynands is concerned that, with an election looming, people's views could affect future funding and policy decisions surrounding homelessness and addiction.

"I would really worry that those systems of support and services might be impacted, and then that has a, obviously, a life-and-death impact on folks that really rely on those services."

Dubois credits the services at Oak Table for helping him out of homelessness.

He said it's important to give back and went around in his wheelchair during the day's bingo game to smudge program participants.

Dubois said whoever gets elected in October "needs to step up" and focus on building more affordable housing.

WATCH | Growing apathy toward homelessness and open drug use, survey suggests: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7350433

---

By: Josh Crabb · CBC News

Published: Sep 21, 2026 5:00 AM CDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago