Looking Back — Nov. 8, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/11/2023 (1042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SIXTY YEARS AGO

TransAir Limited announced that fare reductions will go into effect this week on oneway fares between Brandon, Dauphin and Yorkton, Sask. New fares are: Brandon to Yorkton $12; Dauphin to Yorkton $9 and Dauphin to Brandon, $6.

Ross Mitchell of Douglas was named to succeed Elwood Downie of Wawanesa as president of the Manitoba Stock Growers Association.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

Manitoba Pool Elevators announced record net earnings of $5,670,157 for the fiscal year ended July 31 and patronage dividends to farmers more than twice as high as the previous year.

Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt today was sentenced to a minimum of two-and-a-half years in prison and $10,000 while five other conspirators received lighter sentences.

FORTY YEARS AGO

City council decided to delay its proposed anti-smoking bylaw after being told it could cause restaurants to lose money.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

The Provincial Exhibition’s two-year-old Fall Fair has become a hit. Exhibition general manager Don Green said preliminary figures show about 40,000 people attended the four-day event, up by roughly 5,000 or 20 per cent from the previous year.

Coming soon to the streets of Brandon will be the latest in laser technology, making it easier for police to nab speeders. Recently the Brandon Police Service purchased a laser speed measuring device that gives police the ability to target individual vehicles within or behind a group of vehicles — something that couldn’t be done precisely with the old radar devices.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

Brandon’s last voice at the provincial cabinet table doubts his New Democrat government will be able to move Assiniboine Community College to an 115-year-old heritage site on the North Hill. Brandon West MLA Scott Smith, the province’s new industry minister, threw cold water on a three-year-old plan to move the growing college to the former Brandon Mental Health Centre by revealing that it will cost between $30 to $60 million to put the college in the aging facility.

Two additional cases of West Nile have been reported in individuals outside of Winnipeg. It is likely these individuals became infected in August. The total number of reported human West Nile virus cases in Manitoba is 141 — 35 confirmed and 106 probable. As of Oct. 30, 47 horses have tested positive for West Nile virus. Mosquito and corvid surveillance ended on Sept. 30. Sentinel chicken surveillance ended on Oct. 24, while human and horse surveillance is continuing.

TEN YEARS AGO

The city is on the hook for another $30,000 as it continues to assess possible contamination at the vacant lot where it tore down the Brandon Inn. Councillors approved $32,693 to pay for a second phase of environmental assessment of the suite of properties at their meeting earlier this week. When the city bought them, the properties included a hotel and a parking lot at the corner of Ninth Street and Princess Avenue, but previously housed a gas station and possible a tannery, city engineer Ted Snure told city council.

Local dispatchers who handle emergency calls for wide rural swaths of the province will get a major upgrade to their mapping tools, after city council voted to spend more than $300,000 on a computer-aided dispatch system at Monday’s meeting. The upgrade was sole-sourced from Bell Canada and will expand capabilities that already exist in the city to rural areas.