In Episode 15 you’ll hear the latest about growing opposition to the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region board attempt to take over development planning in the city and adjacent rural areas. The media- which has no clue about the ongoing legislative process- takes cues from the WMR narrative to smear critics of Plan20-50. Then, a crime report with a follow-up to Marty’s column in the Winnipeg Sun about the struggle of West End businesses to fend off criminals.
Part 1- A brief reminiscence of the Peter Kapusta era of Duffy’s Taxi as the company moved this week to new digs. It’s a place quite familiar to old-timers, the former Salisbury House at Notre Dame and Ingersoll. A few imitations of dispatchers get slipped in.
Then, an important message about our Season 5 Funding Drive. Your support is crucial to producing our unique investigations, special interviews and news-breaking Sun columns. A copy of Retropeg awaits our donors- and contributors over $250 will receive a very rare hardcover version!
17.13 Part 2- Leading up to the public hearing in Niverville, the media gladly let the WMR label opponents as “misinformed” and “confused” without speaking to a single opponent. The Free Press wasn’t alone in spreading false information. CJOB’s Fake News coverage – Mayor Gillingham was not “whisked away”- gets particular attention, but Global TV and CTV Winnipeg also failed to ask hard questions.
Here’s our preview of the session – and our report to the Sun about the scene when 500 people showed up to be heard.
25.00 You’ll hear new details about how it was postponed- and the surprising discovery of the identity of the panicked WMR official who needed Don Woodstock’s help to try to calm the angry crowd.
In the aftermath, Metro dispatched executive director Jennifer Freeman on a media blitz to spin what the plan “isn’t about.”
Over the course of 4 interviews she got coaching and tried to refine her messaging, but it’s easy to drive an “electronic vehicle” through it. There are certain words critics raise about the plan she won’t dare mention.
Freeman failed to monitor public reaction to revelations from the first public hearing on July 25 and prepare for the Niverville turnout. In interviews, she’s mystified why people are opposing the edicts of planners and insists the plan doesn’t actually mention their various concerns.
But as Marty explains, it doesn’t have to be “in the plan” right now- as it will enable the WMR board to add binding restrictions and mandatory conditions on member municipalities later.
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36.10 – While Freeman and Gillingham urge opponents to “read the plan”-it was their own failure to hold proper public consultations that directly led to what they call “misconceptions.”
They have the misconception that a normal person can glean what is really going on, as the plan is full of jargony language, kum-ba-ya cheerleading, and illustrations that never show what their plan looks like in the dead of winter or depicts any homeless on the street. It also doesn’t explain how the WMR board operates – or why the town of Niverville was forced to join the group.
Meanwhile, Selkirk has opted out, and other RM’s may soon follow as rules designed to regulate growth in Winnipeg would hamper their own communities.
The attempt by Freeman to solicit sympathy by repeatedly mentioning that the WMR started in 1998 thanks to Susan Thompson and has taken years to develop the plan may score points with the enviro-lobby or the urban planning cult, but no one who is going to be affected cares.
47.25 Hear the objections that Keystone Agricultural Producers filed. They flagged inaccurate maps and narrow definitions that prove WMR planners and their aspriations for a ‘circular economy’ have no idea about the ag sector and thought politicians alone should develop policy for wetlands and farms.
In summary – Five segments were done by Winnipeg TV and radio, and not a single opponent of Plan20-50 was spoken with or named. That’s why ActionLine.ca is the leading, trusted source to learn more. Coming up in the Sun- drilling into Plan20-50 and the ‘dirty words’ the WMR won’t discuss that are buried in their paperwork.
55.00 – Part 3 – Some feedback to our Plan20-50 reporting, including: “Ramming their agenda down the peasants throat is not going to happen anymore.”
Crime and Public Safety Update– readers add some examples of other Arlington-area businesses afflicted by crime; Coun. Ross Eadie blames crime as the North End Biz has now lost its last bank while almost 50% of member businesses have closed since 2010; on Selkirk a 15 year old was almost hacked to death by a punk on Saturday night yet a murder charge wasn’t laid; and in EK, 2 cowards in their mid-20’s used a bat to rob and beat a newly-arrived Ukrainian mother and her 14 year old son two weeks ago.
We wonder what refugees are told about the roaming gangs of goons they might encounter in Winnipeg.
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