Neepawa takes its future into its own hands

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This article was published 23/01/2025 (239 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 70-something man with cigarettes on his breath and wrinkles in his face stands from a seat inside the Brandon Sun lunchroom. In leaving an interview, he suddenly reveals that his wife will die soon from sickness, and he is planning to sell his home and move to Brandon.

When asked to talk about the story, the man turns his back and walks away. With a bit of eye contact and hesitation, he says, “It’s raw.”

A week later, the man declines again to talk about the subject. Over the phone, he ends by saying the only reason he is selling his home and looking at city life is, “because I am forced to.”

The man’s story is one of many in rural Manitoba. The rural areas of the province have seen a continuous decline in population since the ’60s, driven by smaller families, death and moving away, according to Brandon University professor Doug Ramsey.

The man is not alone — a common reason that people move away from rural areas is that they enter late stages of life and look to cities to fulfill their changing needs, said Ramsey.

“Where do those retirees go? They tend to move to town,” said Ramsey. “Communities that have a health-care option and a senior centre option will inevitably be the places that people go. That could be a Neepawa or a Killarney, or it could be Brandon, right?”

While Brandon projects roughly 17 per cent population growth in the next 20 years, it’s not the only place that attracts relocation in Westman, Ramsey said. Many communities are focused on growth, including the Town of Neepawa, which has invested heavily in recent history.

Over the past 10 years, Neepawa has introduced a new RCMP detachment, a fire hall, a school, a college nursing program, and most recently, secured a deal with the province to house a new regional hospital.

The focus is the future, staff told the Sun in January. CAO Colleen Synchyshyn said the town has set out on a slew of projects because, “If we don’t plan and prepare for the future, we might as well order the truckload of tumbleweed in.”

The newest addition to Neepawa, a hospital, is now planned to open in late 2026 or early 2027, employing more than 200 staff, economic development officer Marilyn Crewe told the Sun. The 155,000-square-foot facility is one of the main projects ensuring Neepawa and surrounding communities attract people to the area.

In addition to the hospital, Synchyshyn emphasized a project in 2022, when rather than asking people at the provincial government to choose Neepawa, the town built a new police detachment and negotiated to invite the RCMP in. The building is now staffed and the town collects rent from the province.

The population of Neepawa has nearly doubled since 2001. Up to today, that growth has been driven almost entirely by immigration. But looking to the future, staff and councillors are leveraging that growth to build assets that attract employees, families and people from surrounding areas.

The town has taken growth into their own hands, she said: “We’ve done everything we possibly can.”

The long list of projects taken on by Neepawa includes opening a new middle school and a fire hall in 2019; in 2023, building a site for a licensed practical nurse program and striking a deal with a program at Assiniboine College; in 2024, buying 320 acres of land for development of residential, commercial and industrial buildings; to this day, negotiating with the province to get a vocational high school in town that can teach tradespeople like carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

In council’s chambers, the CAO said staff and council have hussled — it’s no coincidence projects are in motion. She said the new RCMP detachment from 2022 is the “envy” of detachments in rural Manitoba, and a surplus of applications come in while many other areas struggle to attract police officers.

“We could still be sitting here lobbying every day, saying, ‘When are you going to build our RCMP?,” said Synchyshyn.

Synchyshyn added she worked under a non-disclosure agreement for months while assisting the province in finding suitable land that could house a hospital. The agreement was used so that the province’s interest in the area could not be used against it, for example in bidding wars.

Mayor Brian Hedley told the Sun that the string of projects have been time consuming and stressful. He admitted that he personally wondered about whether he would have to retire into Brandon before he came onto council and witnessed the momentum, especially the new hospital.

“For the last 10 years council and administration have spent a significant effort in planning and executing those plans,” he said.

Ramsey, when asked about the new hospital, said it would make the area more attractive to retirees. He said it would likely even support nearby communities and make them more solid.

“I’d say the impact would be regional,” said Ramsey. “Because now, if you’re in Minnedosa even, you don’t feel the need to move to Brandon because you have Neepawa down the road. So it’s definitely a net positive for Neepawa … It stabilizes the region.”

But the pulling effects are the other side of the coin. In making Neepawa more attractive, other communities may feel the impact.

“When the decisions were being made to invest in either Minnedosa or Neepawa, the folks in Erickson were upset because they said, ‘Well, if you expand those, then we’re going to be in trouble.’”

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com