Aug 15 2024- Media Misinformation Masks Metro's Plan20-50 Mess

The Great Canadian Talk Show

Episode 15 has the latest about growing opposition to the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region board attempt to take over development planning from 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 detractors 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." In interviews, she's mystified why people are opposing the proposed edicts of planners and insists the plan doesn't mention 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 conditions on member municipalities later.

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.

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.

47.25 Hear the objections filed by Keystone Agricultural Producers. They flagged inaccurate maps and narrow definitions that prove WMR planners and their aspirations for a 'circular economy' have no idea about the ag sector and thought politicians alone should develop policy for wetlands and farms.

Five segments were done by Winnipeg TV and radio, and not a single opponent of Plan20-50 was spoken with or named. 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 - 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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