Top stories of 2020

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This article was published 30/12/2020 (1766 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This list of Brandon Sun stories from 2020 represents what the members of the newsroom believed were the most important stories of the year in chronological order.

A common theme running through many of the stories on the list is COVID-19.

The pandemic has affected almost every aspect of life from work and school, to businesses, health, lifestyles communities and special events.

It has claimed the lives of hundreds of Manitobans, forced the cancellation of the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair for two consecutive years and forced local newspapers to shut their doors permanently.

While events like the record rainfall and subsequent flooding in Westman this summer were not caused by COVID, it affected how the government and communities were able to respond.

It was undoubtedly the single most important overarching story of 2020, but this list is focusing on single stories or series. Another article coming later this week will address the overall impact of COVID-19 and the lessons learned that can be carried forward into 2021.

Two of the stories on this list are important in the context of another important development during 2020. The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the United States and Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi in Canada, among others, sparked a global conversation about systemic racism and whether police should be defunded.

One of the stories looked into how much it costs to run and maintain the $400,000 armoured rescue vehicle purchased for the Brandon Police Service by the province in December 2019 and if a city of Brandon’s size needs a vehicle of that size.

The stabbing of a Black man in downtown Brandon by assailants who were allegedly uttering racial slurs brought the Black Lives Matter discussion close to home.

This feature also showcases some of the final work of veteran Sun and Winnipeg Free Press reporter Bud Robertson, who is now enjoying his retirement after decades in the industry.

Previous issues of the Sun have showcased the contenders for best Westman sportsperson and best Westman sports team of the year. The winner of the H.L. (Krug) Crawford award for the best individual sportsperson will be announced on Jan. 6 and the Mike Jones Team of the Year Award winner on Jan. 7.

 

Jan. 9 — BU nursing students punished after exam ‘compromised’

By Colin Slark

An entire class of second-year nursing students at Brandon University is facing disciplinary action over a final exam the school has deemed “compromised.”

“There is strong evidence to corroborate the fact that the 71:250 Nursing Foundations II course (Fall term, test II, Final Exam) was compromised by a large number of students,” reads a letter from the dean of the faculty of health studies at BU to the class.

The letter was given to the Sun by a source who wished to remain anonymous.

“Please be aware that any further acts of academic dishonesty and/or misconduct will result in more severe penalties being imposed,” the letter continued.

According to the university, there were between 46 and 48 students enrolled in the course in question, taught by Dr. Ali Salman.

 

Feb. 4 — Jail attack earns life sentence

By Erin DeBooy

A man who tried to kill a fellow inmate in jail only a week after receiving an 18-year sentence for shooting an RCMP officer has been sentenced to life in prison.

“I can come to no conclusion but that Mr. Racette-Beaulieu is a troubled and dangerous individual. He has shown himself repeatedly to be capable of serious violence and homicidal intent,” Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said in her decision on Monday.

“When someone like Mr. Racette-Beaulieu shows us he is dangerous and tells us in his own words he is dangerous, we should believe him.”

Therae Racette-Beaulieu, 21, pleaded guilty in Brandon provincial court last year to attempted murder.

Police were called to Brandon Correctional Centre on April 29, the court heard in December, after an inmate had been stabbed with a homemade shank numerous times by his cellmate, Racette-Beaulieu.

The two had recently become cellmates and had been getting along fine until another inmate with gang affiliations told Racette-Beaulieu the victim was “a rat.”

 

Feb. 5 — Hundreds protest proposed jail closure

By Drew May

DAUPHIN — Willi Budzinski isn’t sure what he’ll do when the Dauphin Correctional Centre closes later this year.

The correctional centre guard has a two-year-old child and a pregnant wife who is only four weeks away from her due date.

He has been a guard at the Dauphin Correctional Centre for the past four years, but right now the future is uncertain.

Last week, the province announced that the jail would close sometime in May.

“Probably, we would have to move out of the Parkland. I couldn’t live here anymore. We’d have to sell the house, uproot and go. Where else are you going to find a job for roughly around $70,000 a year in Dauphin?” he said.

Budzinski was marching in a protest through Dauphin organized by the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union against the looming closure of the city’s jail on Tuesday. The union represents the jail guards and provincial employees at the facility.

Organizers said approximately 350 people came to the protest to march alongside union leaders, correctional officers and provincial politicians.

 

March 3 — New school contractor bankrupt

By Colin Slark

Work on the new Maryland Park School was halted Monday after the contractor in charge of the build filed for bankruptcy.

Fresh Projects based out of Winnipeg won the tender for the $22.7-million project in February 2019. On Monday, the company’s website, Twitter and Instagram accounts had all been taken down.

The provincial government’s Companies Office lists Fresh Projects’ current status as inactive and phone calls to the company’s office were not answered. Bankruptcy Canada did not have a record of the bankruptcy filing on Monday, but its database was last updated on Feb. 27.

After Monday’s public budget consultations, Brandon School Division board chair Linda Ross confirmed the company’s bankruptcy but said she did not have any additional information.

Ross was asked if she knew how this would affect construction, to which she said: “Not in a good way.” She added that she imagines that this will mean a delay in construction.

Division secretary-treasurer Denis Labossiere said that all on-site work has been halted after the division was informed of the news at 11 a.m. Monday. The division has yet to receive official paperwork regarding the contractor’s bankruptcy.

 

March 13 — First Cases of COVID-19 hit Manitoba

By Bud Robertson

Westman residents are being urged not to panic after the province reported its first case of COVID-19.

This was followed by two additional cases.

“I want to be clear that we are not helpless against this virus,” Manitoba’s chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, told a news conference in Winnipeg Thursday that was broadcast for reporters outside the city.

“Fear and panic will not help against COVID-19, but our preparedness and credible information will,” he said.

A woman in her 40s, who lives within the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority catchment area, tested positive for the coronavirus. It is believed she was exposed to the virus while travelling recently to the Philippines and is now recovering at home in stable condition.

 

March 28 — Pandemic puts wedding bliss on hold

By Erin DeBooy

As COVID-19 continues to leave the world in a state of uncertainty, Bobbi Pilling’s wedding dreams have become a nightmare.

The bride-to-be has been nervously watching COVID-19’s spread since January, but as soon as the first case was announced in Manitoba, things escalated rapidly.

Pilling and her fiancé, Eric Van Santen, have now been informed that — due to the province’s state of emergency — their liquor permit has been cancelled, Pilling said, and their April 25 wedding must be postponed.

“It was devastating. This whole thing has been so devastating,” said Pilling. “Obviously it was all very much out of our control, but at one point I felt myself fighting the world, just thinking that this can’t be happening and wanting to change things. It’s just so much out of my control.”

Pilling and Van Santen were engaged in February 2018, originally planning to get married in May 2019.

They found out they were expecting a child shortly after and decided to postpone the wedding to this year.

 

April 16 — PMH records first COVID-19 death

By Bud Robertson

The tragedy of COVID-19 has hit closer to home, with Prairie Mountain Health seeing its first related death, public health officials announced Wednesday.

The woman, who was in her 60s and had underlying medical conditions, was in hospital but not in intensive care at the time, Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief public health officer, said during the daily news conference.

Her death is Manitoba’s fifth during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mayor Rick Chrest offered his “sincere sympathies” for the family and friends of the woman during Wednesday’s COVID-19 City of Brandon livestream update.

Her death, he added, is “a sobering indication of the impact of this terrible disease.”

This is the first time a person who died of COVID-19 in Manitoba had not been in intensive care prior to their death.

 

May 9 — Brandon business closed by health order

By Drew May

A Brandon business is the first in the province to have an emergency health hazard order issued against it during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Manitoba Health’s list of establishment closures, the unnamed body art business on 12th Street was closed on Wednesday for contravening the March 31 public health order that shut down all non-essential businesses.

The closures report says the business also did not get public health approval to operate in the first place, as required under City of Brandon bylaw.

Dr. Brent Roussin, the province’s chief public health officer, described the business as a tattoo parlour and said no fine was issued against the business. If the business violates the health hazard order it will face more severe penalties.

“Violation of that order has very stringent penalties under the Public Health Act should it be violated,” he said.

 

May 20 and May 23 — Daughter on Call employee tests positive for COVID-19, according to memo/Daughter on Call incurs health order fines

By Drew May

An employee of a Westman-based private health-care business recently tested positive for COVID-19, according to internal messages obtained by The Brandon Sun.

However, the business owner, CEO Gail Freeman-Campbell, denies that one of her employees tested positive for the virus.

Daughter on Call is a health-care business that sends home-care workers into the community in Brandon and Westman to care for seniors.

It also operates several personal care homes in the region.

The Sun was originally contacted on May 14 by a former Daughter on Call employee, saying the organization had a COVID-19 case among its employees and another worker had been exposed. The caller said she was a friend of the COVID-19 patient.

•••

By Drew May

Daughter on Call was fined more than $5,000 for failing to comply with a public emergency health order.

According to a list of Manitoba Health protection reports, the Brandon-based home-care organization received two separate fines, both for $2,542.

The first fine was issued on May 15 against one of the organization’s residential care homes in Brandon. The fine is for failing to comply with the public emergency health order, “namely direction given to take immediate and adequate precautions to control or minimize the risk of transmission of a communicable disease.”

The second fine was issued on May 21 against a Daughter on Call residential care home in Carberry. According to the provincial list, which is published online, the fine was issued for failing to comply with a May 14 Medical Officer of Health’s health hazard order.

 

June 24 — Brandon has first socially distanced grad

By Colin Slark

The altered graduation ceremonies put on by École secondaire Neelin High School were unlike anything the participants and organizers had ever seen, but that didn’t deter their enthusiasm.

On Tuesday, the school welcomed all of its graduates to the Keystone Centre, where small groups of students and their loved ones took turns crossing a small stage to grab their diplomas and take photos.

Starting at 9:30 a.m., those groups lined up in the Keystone Centre’s Manitoba Room, with green tape clearly marking the two-metre social distancing separation needed between them.

When strains of “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1” started playing over the public address system, that was code for a group of students to make their way into the adjoining UCT Pavilion, where the stage was set up, lit by green and white lights in school colours.

Upon entry, students made their way to stage left to line up and await their name being called as family members lined up in front of the stage in clearly marked socially distanced positions.

 

June 30 and July 2 — Record rainfall submerges Brandon/Second wave of rainfall hits

By Colin Slark

Not content with sending only one sign of the end times in the form of a plague, Mother Nature sent Brandon another on Sunday in the form of a record-setting amount of rainfall.

By Monday morning, the rain had stopped after dumping 155 millimetres on the city, but the storm’s effects lingered as roads, highways and buildings remained flooded.

According to Mayor Rick Chrest, whose own basement needed to be bailed out, the storm was the first instance of the city’s emergency warning system being used in a non-test situation since it was installed in 2004.

Chrest said the city called extra public works staff Sunday afternoon in preparation for the storm. He’d also heard lots of stories of neighbours helping each other in the storm’s aftermath.

•••

By Michèle LeTourneau

RIVERS, RAPID CITY, MINNEDOSA and SPRINGHILL — An expected second wallop of thunderstorms and rainfall hammered several communities in southwestern Manitoba Tuesday night, worsening flood zones in areas already struggling with drenched land and homes.

The Brandon Sun revisited hard-hit areas it stopped at on Tuesday. The localized scenes of devastation, in comparison to sunny green fields along what highways remained open, seemed incongruous. The occasional watery stretches of road also belied what many residents struggled with — total loss. Emotions veered from tears and shock to laughter, as neighbour helped neighbour and humour kept everyone working at the cleanup, and filling and piling sandbags to protect against the relentless advance of water.

Sometime in the early evening of Wednesday, a notice went out from the Rural Municipality of Whitehead, which includes the towns of Kemnay and Alexander.

“The Province of Manitoba has notified the RM of Whitehead there is the possibility the Rivers dam may break. The Little Saskatchewan and the Assiniboine rivers are rising rapidly. This notice is a warning that the situation may change quickly and you may need to evacuate as you may have no way out or your residence may be directly affected,” according to the notice.

“Please have your bags and important items ready to go on very short notice.”

 

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July 23 — Hydro forces families’ eviction

By Bud Robertson

Twenty-three families in Glendale Mobile Homes Park in Brandon have been told they have to move their homes before the end of October 2021, when a 10-year licence with Manitoba Hydro allowing access to the properties expires.

“This isn’t morally right,” Bill Fraser said as he stood near his wife Stephanie on Wednesday, a day after they and the others received a letter from the owner of the park, Kenny Choy, informing them of the situation.

“It’s just unnecessary hardship,” said Bill, who stays at home to care for their six children, ages 15 to 4. Stephanie is a nurse in a Brandon care home.

The mobile home was purchased in 2010. They have been trying since last year to sell it and move into something larger.

Stephanie said she was aware of access issues before the letter came out, but didn’t know they would have to take their trailer and move before the end of next year.

 

July 25 — Minnedosa man recovering from ‘fireball’

By Bud Robertson

MINNEDOSA — Mark Olenick dived into the shallow water in his flooded basement to escape the inferno that suddenly engulfed the room.

On Thursday, the 36-year-old concrete finisher rested on a couch in his parents’ basement as he recounted the harrowing ordeal that sent him to Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg on June 29 with first-, second- and third-degree burns over 40 per cent of his body.

Like many others in the flood-stricken community, he and his wife Cherisse had been struggling to keep water from overtaking their home.

“We spent all day monitoring and sandbagging as much as we could and pumping the basement out,” Mark said as Cherisse and her sister Stephanie Shaw sat nearby.

With the nearby river flowing over its bank, they had packed up as many of their cherished belongings as they could and had taken them to his parents’ home just up the street.

 

July 29 — Bulk of calls to birthday parades/Emergency services birthday parades by the numbers

By Drew May and Colin Slark

Brandon police’s armoured rescue vehicle was deployed on three days for firearm searches in its first six months, but also to approximately 28 birthday parades.

The Sun filed freedom of information requests for each instance the vehicle was deployed since police acquired it in December 2019. Documents show that as of June 24, it was deployed on three days for five separate search warrants around the city.

In those searches, police seized a total of five rifles, one loaded shotgun, two airsoft rifles, one CO2 handgun, 100 rounds of ammunition, bear spray and approximately 0.6 kilograms of cocaine, according to city documents.

The first deployment was on Jan. 16 to the 300 block of 15th Street. The ARV was deployed again on March 18 to three locations: the 1000 block of 10th Street, Meadowlark Trailer Court, and the 600 block of 16th Street. The third deployment was on March 20 to the 300 block of Maryland Avenue.

The BPS filed “numerous charges for firearm and drug-related offences” from those search warrants, according to the city’s accessibility and privacy officer, Ian Richards.

•••

By Colin Slark

When Brandon’s emergency services said demand had exceeded their expectations when they wound down their popular drive-by birthday parades for children in May, they weren’t kidding.

According to documents obtained by the Sun, making these parades possible took a lot of time and resources from emergency services.

Police and fire personnel carried out 156 of these parades between April 6 and May 31, spending the equivalent of one day, one hour and six minutes on parades during that time period.

During this time, parents could request police and fire vehicles to drive by their homes with lights flashing as a way to try to make birthdays special when parties became impossible due to health risks.

 

Aug. 9 and 10 — Tornado claims lives of two teens/Twister devastates Virden-area farm

By Colin Slark

Two Melita teens have died after a tornado touched down in southwestern Manitoba Friday night.

RCMP confirmed an 18-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman were in a vehicle that was swept up in the tornado and thrown into a field. Emergency responders found the teens dead. They are believed to have been ejected from the vehicle when the tornado touched down near 83 and Road 50N in the RM of Pipestone after 8:10 p.m. Friday.

Another man, a 54-year-old from Sioux Valley Dakota First Nation, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries when his vehicle was also picked up by the tornado. He was taken to hospital after his vehicle was found about a kilometre away from where the man and woman were pronounced dead.

Virden RCMP is still investigating.

The tornado carved a path of destruction, according to those who witnessed it.

•••

By Kyle Darbyson

SCARTH — Though eyewitness reports suggest it was only active for 10 to 15 minutes, Friday’s tornado in southwestern Manitoba cut a devastating swath of destruction through farmland near the community of Scarth, killing two people, injuring another, and leaving one property in particularly bad shape.

Giovanni Colangelo runs a grain farm right off Highway 83, roughly 16 kilometres south of Virden, which stood in the direct path of the twister that started to take form around 8 p.m.

Manitoba storm chaser Jordan Carruthers saw the tornado bear down on the property from afar and witnessed the savage wind chew up bits of Colangelo’s grain silos.

“Quite a few grain bins from the farm were tossed into the field across the road,” he said. “I think that one farmyard was likely the only property that really got hit. Other than that, the tornado was in the field the entire time.”

 

Aug. 24 — Widow angered by ambulance change

By Bud Robertson

A woman who lives just outside CFB Shilo says her husband might still be alive had an ambulance from the base been sent out to help him.

Instead, Dean Pirie was put on life support and declared brain dead after being transported to hospital on Aug. 9 by an ambulance from Brandon, his widow, Donna Pirie, said Saturday.

Dean, who was 55 when he died, suffered from COPD. Pirie said he was having trouble breathing and needed oxygen.

She said she called 911 and waited for help to arrive in Sprucewoods Trailer Park, about two minutes outside the base.

“It seemed like hours waiting,” Pirie said.

Rather than seeing an ambulance from Shilo, one from Brandon finally arrived about a half-hour later, she said.

Pirie said her husband was dead for eight minutes while being transported to Brandon Regional Health Centre.

 

Aug. 25 — Maple Leaf workers call for Brandon plant shutdown

By Colin Slark

Maple Leaf Foods workers in Brandon are calling for a two-week shutdown of operations at the local plant in an open letter sent out Monday morning to members of the media.

The letter, which was released with the help of migrant worker advocacy group Migrante Manitoba, calls into question the provincial government and Maple Leaf’s assertion that cases of the virus are not being transmitted at the plant.

“The claim from the Maple Leaf President and CEO as well as the provincial government that the employees’ cases are linked to community gatherings and interactions, and are not linked to the plant is unacceptable,” the letter reads. “Many of our co-workers have limited interactions with the community outside of the facility while seeing confirmed cases rising. It is clear that the spread of COVID among workers at Maple Leaf is a direct result of our employment at Maple Leaf, and the working and living conditions we endure while working for this company.”

This open letter represents the thoughts of approximately 200 workers at the plant, Migrante Manitoba organizer Miwa Marcelino said. According to him, copies of the letter have been sent to Premier Brian Pallister, Health Minister Cameron Friesen, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew, Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Reg Helwer and Brandon East Progressive Conservative MLA Len Isleifson.

Maple Leaf has suspended pork exports to China because of the outbreak and required some employees to work mandatory overtime last Saturday out of concerns for the welfare of the hogs waiting to be processed in Brandon.

Other demands made by the workers include a deep cleaning of the entire plant, ensuring that every employee gets tested for the virus and job security and wage protection for staff during any shutdown.

 

Sept. 3 — Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba pushed to financial brink

By Matt Goerzen

What was supposed to be a year of celebration has instead turned into one of desperation for the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba.

The pressures brought on by the cancellation of three of its major events this year — and with the very real possibility that next spring’s Royal Manitoba Winter Fair will also be cancelled — the non-profit organization has been pushed to the financial brink. Without significant financial aid from either public or private sources, there is a very real danger that the Provincial Ex will have to close down next year.

“No one should ever be afraid to ask for help, and with the pandemic going on we were unable to hold our three annual events that we normally do,” Provincial Exhibition president Greg Crisanti told the Sun earlier this week, during a meeting between the Sun and members of its board. The meeting also included past-president Brent Miller, vice-president Kathy Cleaver and office manager Rhonda Woytkiw.

“We are a not-for-profit organization. All our money does come from those large events, and some smaller events that we put on throughout the year. But we truly need some help, and we wanted to be able to ask for help now before it was too late.”

 

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Sept. 5 — Racial slurs preceded stabbing

By Colin Slark

Two women have been arrested following a Thursday evening altercation that saw a man get taken to hospital for emergency surgery after being stabbed five times near the Kristopher Campbell Memorial Skate Plaza in downtown Brandon.

Four women and a man described as Indigenous by bystanders started a fight with a Black man by yelling racial slurs at him at approximately 7:40 p.m., Staff Sgt. Bill Brown said in describing the incident during a Friday afternoon media conference at police headquarters.

A physical altercation followed, after which the Black man sustained five stab wounds and was taken to the Brandon Regional Health Centre by a passerby before police arrived.

Brown said the victim is expected to make a full recovery.

The Brandon Police Service forensic identification unit and major crimes unit were called to the scene to investigate. Police report that a patrolling officer later found a woman on the 800 block of Rosser Avenue with blood on her clothes and a knife with blood on it in her pocket. A second woman was also arrested in connection to the incident.

In a video of the incident taken by a bystander provided to a Sun reporter, the stabbing victim is seen engaged in a fight in the middle of Princess Avenue with three people before eventually pinning one of them to the ground.

 

Sept. 10 — Naloxone use on the rise

By Drew May

Brandon paramedics’ use of anti-overdose medication has jumped dramatically so far this year over 2019, a trend addictions advocates blame on more overdoses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Local paramedics administered naloxone, which is used to counter opioid overdoses, during a response call 19 times in all of 2019, but as of Aug. 25 had used it 28 times so far in 2020, according to numbers provided by the City of Brandon.

While that represents a huge jump, addictions advocate Kim Longstreet said the real number of overdoses is much, much higher.

“The kits have been more and more given to the community of people that use and they are using it amongst themselves to save each other,” she said.

 

Sept. 16 — Student taken by CFS after nosebleed

By Colin Slark

The Brandon School Division is reviewing an incident from last week after a student needing to go home was picked up by Child and Family Services rather than one of her emergency contacts.

An eight-year-old student at George Fitton School got a nosebleed on her first day back to school, according to her mom, who contacted the Sun on Tuesday.

She was given permission to clean up in a bathroom and said she didn’t feel well upon returning to class. The child’s mother said the school’s principal was called and her daughter taken to the school’s isolation room as per COVID-19 policy.

The child was left inside the isolation room without instruction, she said, adding that her daughter relayed she was told by school staff to remain in the room. The mother described the isolation room as a closet with only a chair in it and a door with a small window in it.

The school then tried to reach the girl’s mother to have her come pick up her daughter but unbeknownst to staff, she was attending a class at the Elspeth Reid Family Resource Centre and was required to turn off her phone.

 

Sept. 24 — Community mourns loss of its Plaindealer

By Kyle Darbyson

After a 128-year publication run, the Souris Plaindealer will no longer be appearing on local newsstands.

On Sept. 3, Glacier Media permanently shut down four regional papers in Manitoba’s southwest corner, including the Melita New Era, Reston Recorder and Deloraine Times & Star, after months of suspending their publishing schedules due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the shuttering of these papers didn’t come as a surprise to Souris reporter Darci Semeschuk, she told the Sun on Sept. 12 that the Plaindealer’s demise still serves as a big blow to the town of approximately 1,800 people.

“I’ve been with the Plaindealer for 23 years, so it’s kind of the lifeblood for our community,” she said. “Souris is a small town … and a lot of people depend on the paper, something tangible, something in their hand that they can hold and read.”

Souris Mayor Darryl Jackson was similarly disappointed with this turn of events, saying that the Plaindealer has successfully managed to connect local residents, businesses and organizations since he started living there in 1980.

 

Sept. 24 — Brandon dealing with influx of homeless people

By Drew May

Social services are coping with a new influx of homeless people to the city after shuttered camps in Winnipeg drove people to Brandon over the summer.

The Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation saw a concerning rise of new people registered in its homelessness database over the summer months, said executive director Carly Gasparini.

“What we’re seeing is individuals who aren’t already in our system popping up at a much more frequent rate than we ever have,” she said.

In June, the City of Winnipeg cleared out a homeless encampment near the city’s Disraeli Bridge. After the camp was cleared, Gasparini said many people came to Brandon, either in search of services or hopeful of a different environment.

“Once the encampment was closed in Winnipeg earlier this summer, almost immediately we saw this increase in people we didn’t know, we didn’t have a history on, we didn’t have a relationship with — clearly people were migrating here,” Gasparini said.

 

Sept. 24 — Water treatment sequestration cost city $224K

By Colin Slark

It cost the City of Brandon $224,451.10 to sequester workers at the municipal water treatment plant in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The measure was taken to safeguard the city’s water supply in case of disaster, with qualified workers stationed around the clock from March 26 until May 28.

The Sun received the total cost for the effort by filing a freedom of information and protection of privacy (FIPPA) request with the City of Brandon.

Of the nearly $225,000 spent on sequestration, the bulk of the costs came from overtime costs for the workers involved at $187,431.33.

The second-highest category of expense was the rentals of trailers for the staff to live in, porta-potty rentals and the rental of a fence to surround and protect the compound. Rentals cost the city $18,294.07. A total of $5,687.13 was spent on propane during the sequestration.

 

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Nov. 28, Dec. 1 and Dec. 5 — All is not right at Gambler First Nation

By Michèle LeTourneau

GAMBLER FIRST NATION – Gambler First Nation is in the midst of an ongoing and ever-growing invisible crisis.

“If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it,” said band member Darlene Gerula in one of many interviews with The Brandon Sun.

Gambler First Nation has a membership of just under 300 people, of whom roughly 70 live on reserve. There are 42 houses. Two of those houses were built this year — the first builds the reserve has seen in eight years.

Approximately two dozen longtime on-reserve band members — elders and young people alike — have reported mistreatment at the hands of a leadership that includes Chief David Ledoux, his wife Rose and their daughter, Kellie, one of two councillors.

This leadership has refused to answer any questions from members or from the Sun.

Allegations of mistreatment include homes being padlocked, homes left for years in disrepair (making them essentially unlivable), water withheld, threats of electricity withheld, health services withheld and repeated attempts at seizing houses to offer them to off-reserve members and supporters.

Gambler has hired a team of lawyers to handle its court actions.

Both prior to and after receiving Gerula’s email, the Sun repeatedly attempted to contact the band to visit and learn about the community. When we did place a call, we were told to communicate by email. Six emails have gone unanswered. We also communicated by Facebook Messenger, to no avail. For a brief time, we received statements from a marketing firm that acted as liaison. That firm is no longer involved with Gambler.

•••

GAMBLER FIRST NATION — The drive into Gambler First Nation, which is along the Assiniboine River valley approximately two hours northwest of Brandon, unveils a visually idyllic location.

Vern Kalmakoff — an off-reserve member and longtime Brandon businessperson — drove this Sun reporter to the reserve. As he approached the heart of one area on the reserve with houses, he pointed out Chief David Ledoux’s “compound,” as some Gambler members call it.

The large well-kept lot includes two impeccable-looking houses, a shed that looks better than the surrounding homes of Gambler members, and many, many vehicles — several all-terrain vehicles, a motorhome, a pontoon boat and assorted other vehicles — while two horses hang out at the rear.

Surrounding the compound are other members’ houses which, upon entry, are practically unlivable. The Sun visited several. Some were unfinished, though clearly older and not new builds.

This year was the first since at least 2012 that a new house had been built, according to former Chief Gordon Ledoux and several other Gambler members.

In one, the plumbing was in such disrepair, pipes were held up with a laundry detergent bottle. One had zero plumbing, and has not had water for two years.

Our first stop was to visit Sean Ledoux, David Ledoux’s brother, where Sean, frail and frightened, showed a video he had taken in February. Sean maintains he is terrorized by his brother. On Aug. 20, Sean received a communication from the income assistance administrator, Tara Tanner.

“I am writing this letter to remind you that the house you are living in is not safe and was deemed condemned. You have gotten letters and notices stating this as well. I am asking you to please find another dwelling that is considered safe for you to live in,” she wrote.

But Sean has nowhere to go. The Gambler First Nation reserve is the only home he knows.