Brandon
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Posts posted by Brandon
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12 hours ago, bluto said:
Just saying:
It's messed up how they can name Kelly but not the accuser.
Considering the internet has several public articles about Toronto hiring the first woman assistant strength coach for the team, it was only a 2 second google search to find the answer.
After seeing the pictures of her I would more then likely wager that a narcissist like Chad Kelly would hit on a very beautiful young lady.
I do agree @bluto that innocent until proven guilty and that she could just be trying to play victim and screw the company and him out of money. But if I were a betting man , I'd feel way more comfortable putting money on this being the truth.
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7 hours ago, Rich said:
Does anyone know if the vacancy rate of downtown has recovered since the pandemic? I know there has been a mix of companies that have gone completely back to in office and some that have stayed hybrid remote (which require less overall office space).
Significantly worse and this is why the City/Province is trying to force people to come back to work downtown. I can only speak looking in from an IT perspective, but with everything moving to the cloud and without the need of having IT equipment on site and the ability to staff your positions across the country (or world). The need for a physical building decreases every day.
On one project that I was involved with they moved 100 staff out of a floor in a building downtown to work from home and the cost savings was approximately 5 million per year. It is so much cheaper for a company to buy desk/chair and pay for everyones internet then for them to maintain a building and the infrastructure.
QuoteWondering if it is time to come up with a new vision of a downtown that isn't primarily focused on a 9 - 5 work crowd. The need for all those business to be focused in a small area seems to not be what it once was.
It needs a radical change, they need to make downtown an area that people want to hang out or preferably live in. They attempted to revive downtown in the 80's with Portage Place failed and retail now is even further dead so retail is out of the question.
My radical idea to revitalize downtown is the following:
1 - Zero tolerance on public intoxication/drugs and pan handling harassment. It's absolutely critical that they crack down on this before anything else. Ideally the Federal Gov't/Provincial Gov't would update the justice system so rather then sending people to jail they would be forced to get clean at a rehab facility. Build a rehab facility out of town (NIMBY naturally) where people can get clean and healthy. I just came back from Mexico and when we went to the downtown for tourists I saw plenty of security and was approached by zero drunk/methed up people. I felt significantly more safe despite seeing a guy with an AK-47 protecting the jewelry store.
2 - Close down motor traffic on Broadway from Donald to Osborne from May - September or maybe even year round. Make this our version of Sparks St in Ottawa. Have street festivals and restaurants with extended patios in the summer. The city has loads of parking nearby and make this a place that people to visit and walk up and down the strip.
3 - All 3 levels of the Gov't work with buying Portage Place and making this a University of Winnipeg International students destination. From what I understand Portage place was designed so that condos/appartments can be build on top of each end. The U of M have a large amount of international students coming in with huge money behind them crowding into houses and attending schools. Get these students to come downtown with their big money and live in the housing that will be build atop Portage Place. It would be in close proximity to the current U of W and the injection of cash from young 18 - 30 year olds living downtown would be a huge boom that would help fill out all those empty buildings along Portage.
4 - Launch a new "touch the universe" / science museum / childrens / agriculture Manitoba museum. The current childrens museum we have is absolutely garbage. Over the last five years we visited a number of other childrens museums in the States that were heavily packed full of tourists and families. It wasn't like they were doing anything insanely expensive but had really fun interactive activities and educational. 5 or so years ago I was fortunate to attend the Opaskwayak Indigenous days and they had really neat little activities such as learning how to bead , cook, hunt, dance , etc... It's a huge miss opportunity to do something similar in town with fun interactive stations. They could have a section on farming with large interactive exhibits which many other childrens museum already have. Etc... A place to bring families to Winnipeg or into downtown for the local citizens.
But alas all of that cost money and Winnipeg is broke and is extremely poor so it would require the Feds to pump in huge dollars.
Instead the city will be to scared to fight the homeless/drunk/panhandling epidemic and will suggest cheap stupid ideas such as opening Portage and Main and will continue to stall on making any drastic changes and downtown will continue to rot.
For fun I include a few pics of Sparks street to show what it is like:
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6 hours ago, GCJenks said:
Have you ever been down Hastings/East Hastings in Vancouver/Burnaby? Makes our downtown look like the Garden of Eden and it's cleaned up from what it was 10 years ago. I do business with 3 locations along that strip and it is not uncommon for the metal roller shutters to stay closed all day while people work inside and the rear parking areas are 10ft fences with barbed wire on top.
Winnipeg is in no way the worst downtown in the country and is not what keeps people from coming here. Weather, ignorance and the perception of what it is like here are what keep people away.
Yes most big cities do have terrible areas within downtown that normal people would avoid at all costs , the "bad" area. But would you say 100% of Vancouver downtown is like this? I have never directly gone to East Hastings so I can go only go by stories and the videos on the net, but from what I understood it is a small area full of heroin addicts and it's terrible... but then you cross the tracks or move a few blocks and you are back to million dollar beautiful buildings and back to normal people. It's funny that you say Garden of Eden.... I have gone to Stanley Park and it's a beautiful area that I found completely safe so... yes Vancouver does have a garden of eden lol. Vancouver downtown has large areas with a huge amount of foot traffic and extremely nice and expensive places to live. Clearly far more people desire to visit and live in downtown Vancouver then Winnipeg and it's not because of "perception".
Once again... I challenge you to name me any area of Winnipeg downtown that is the "hot" place to visit and where at all times it has foot traffic and people wanting to live. Winnipeg downtown from every corner is dead and a dump. Maybe the Forks if that counts as downtown is the only area with a pulse.
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6 minutes ago, Mark H. said:
I read those too - you're referring to them without the proper context
1. All Canadian museums operate as non-profit organizations
2. Most Canadian museums are primarily funded by both governments and foundations
1 - Yes but in the context of tourism and attracting people, extremely poor ticket sales is an indicator that it is not bringing in tourists. So it is a complete failure in that regards and in the context of "profitability" it's an even bigger failure. I didn't even go into the scandals within the museum and the racism issues it has experienced within. In all facets this museum is a huge fail.
2 - I pointed this out earlier.
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22 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:
The old post a gif because you can't prove me wrong.
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2 hours ago, HardCoreBlue said:
Again I would add the crew they run with as a source of their knowledge.
How about the source being the official CMHR year end report of the financials and futures.
Boy it really is getting tiresome always being right.
Also the earlier comment about the suburbs... Any normal person driving through our downtown can clearly see it is a dump. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional and suffering from denial.
Face it, downtown is a dump and Winnipeg is not a place where people want to come and visit. It's the truth.
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17 minutes ago, Mark H. said:
The article you posted indicates that they achieved over 90% of their paid attendance target.
During the development of the Museum and after receiving the money from the various levels of Gov't they dropped the forecasted attendances considerably from the lack of interest and public response of the museum.
It went from an Asper vanity project to the city/province/feds trying to salvage the money pit that it became.
A more recent update on the financials :
QuoteThere continues to be much uncertainty in the revenue and expense projections for the planning
period as the ongoing impact of the pandemic and the length of recovery is still very much
unknown. Future additional funding support related to COVID is also uncertain.
The projections assume that revenues will take five years to recover to pre-COVID levels. They
provide for the human resource capacity to be rebuilt under the new CEO and will allow the
CMHR to invest in the work to address systemic racism and to rebuild the trust of staff,
stakeholders and the public. The projections also include development of on-site and online
programing to allow the CMHR to deliver on its mandate. These assumptions result in deficits
for the four years after 2022-23, totalling $24.4 million.Not every museum is going to turn a profit but when you have a museum that isn't bringing any tourists and where it depends on free tickets or kids in school to fill it up. It is a money pit. The latest angle that they are doing now is pushing "online visitors" which is useless for the city. Someone visiting the web page is not bringing in any tourists dollars.
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2 minutes ago, iHeart said:
so you're saying the line of food isn't connected to the restaurant chain despite using the same logo (btw one of the Kelvin's Perk's is selling the salsa that's why I brought it up)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi's
It has the full story of who owns what on wiki. Apparently it was Hep-A outbreak! I can see why they never recovered from that.
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Watch him post a sad face tweet when he is cut and Rourke is brought in to replace him.
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2 hours ago, wbbfan said:
I know for a fact that happened a bunch as recently as the early to mid 90s. Few guys with dealership jobs who didn’t sell cars but showed up for company events and public stuff.
Well it appears Kenny Lawler was given a "promo" vehicle from a local dealership... I'm sure it still happens around the league.
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5 hours ago, Fatty Liver said:
Speaking of Mike Sellers, looks like his health is failing and his family is asking for help.
Terrible news
I would of thought that retired NFL players had some kind of enhanced medical coverage? If not then they should.
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3 hours ago, iHeart said:
And you're right I'm not but so many people have fond memories (my mother included) I'm not sure if my mother remembers the drinks more
I remember going to the Regent location and it was always busy and it was your standard tex-mex which at the time was good since back in the 80's Winnipeg didn't have nearly the amount of diverse food options. I remember them using super soakers and shooting Tequila into peoples mouthes.
The owner sold his franchises in town and the people/group who took over had no idea how to run a restaurant and destroyed the business within a few years. Eventually the new owners lost the franchise and changed the name to something else (name escapes me) and the place closed soon after.
In the States during the early 2000's Chi-chi's had e-coli at several restaurants or something along those lines and the company died. Eventually someone used the name to sell Salsa and Chips and I used to see it at the grocery stores in Fargo.
Modern day if you go to Paradiso in the States it is kind of close to the same experience as Chi Chi's.
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2 minutes ago, Mark H. said:
In the years before Covid, there were several organizations that sponsored the attendance of schools at the Manitoba Museum. It was not free, the museum was still getting paid. This is a fact - I take my grade 11 group to the museum every year.
Yes but the goal for a museum is to bring in tourists. Get people from outside of Winnipeg to spend money in Winnipeg.
The Calgary Stampede attracts people from around the world... they inject money into the local economy. The CMHR doesn't do this at all.
I'm assuming the Fed Gov't covers the losses every year so thankfully it doesn't fully burn the local economy.
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2 hours ago, JCon said:
Incorrect. Student visits make up ~10% of the overall attendance.
Wow so students make less % then the amount of comped tickets that are given out. That's a bad thing. Wait until you find out that the Gov't also pays for a large amount of the tickets in which they give away which are not counted in the "comped tickets".
Older article - https://winnipegsun.com/2015/06/06/human-rights-museum-attendance-dwarfed-by-zoo-other-museums
Pre Covid - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/canadian-museum-human-rights-senior-staff-1.5469043
QuoteAccording to the museum's 2018-19 annual report, the museum welcomed 291,346 visitors during that fiscal year, falling four per cent short of its target of 303,500.
Of those visits, 94,626 — or 31 per cent — were paid admissions, according to the annual report. The museum hoped to collect admission from 100,000 visitors that fiscal year.
Those poor attendances also don't factor in the novelty of visiting a new building... the initial rush of interested people.
Post Pandemic the attendance has further dropped. I'm not even going to get into the corruption and other issues the place has, but it has been a huge miss on bringing in tourists.So once again... I stand by what I say because I know I am right. Numbers do not lie.
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I've always assumed that lots of players had back room deals with local companies... I.E. Take a smaller salary on the books with the club.... meanwhile Adam Bighill gets paid an additional large amount of money from his "part time" job in the city.
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2 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:
Citation (s) please.
For the stats? Stats Canada and if you don't feel like going through the massive stat sheets that they have then you can google search. Seriously you've never heard Winnipeg being called Murder Capital of Canada before? It's always a joke when the numbers come out between Winnipeg and Edmonton exchanging the title.
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5 minutes ago, Stickem said:
A shooting everday in Van....The drug trade has an ongoing war that threatens passersby almost daily....That does not happen in Winnipeg, as I follow the local news quite closely....Sure the Peg has it's problems but not like Vancouvers....I don't know who compiles shootings ...followed by a stolen car fire to cover evidence, but I assure you Van is a helluva lot worse than the Peg in that respect...Just face it violent crime in general is rampant across the country...When one politician said the country is 'broken' , he's very close to the truth
But the stats say otherwise, yes Vancouver with a much larger population will have higher totals. But per capita Winnipeg has more crime. Also Winnipeg has had a drug war for over 10 years downtown. Remember what I said... media only reports a tiny fraction of the crimes that are commited around town.
For the larger cities Winnipeg, Regina, and Kelowna are always near the top for highest crime rate in Canada. Thompson and its crime rate is insanely high.
Just now, HardCoreBlue said:And/or its the crew he runs with as a reason why.
Once again stats don't lie, the museum is not well attended. It's a draw for only a niche part of the population. Not opinion it's fact.
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17 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:
Quiet or not, most crimes occur after dark. Hence, people stay away from downtown. These, per capita stats can you provide a link?
Stats Canada over the last 20+ years. Have you never heard Winnipeg always battling Edmonton for Murder Capital of Canada?
14 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:That has nothing to do with anything. The Jets have 42 home game averaging 13,000 fans a game. That's 546,000 that come downtown. Throw in Moose games & concerts & maybe another 150,000 & it's three quarter of a million people.
My point is we really shouldn't care what people in Toronto think. They keep saying this is the year the Leafs win the Stanley Cup & we just laugh.
546 000 tourists visit Jets games? Or would you say it's predominately people who reside in Winnipeg who go to the game and then immediately goes home? Apples and Oranges comparisons.
14 hours ago, Mark H. said:That's too funny - maybe they don't want to meet you? 😄
Need I post about how the attendance at the Human Rights Museum is significantly lower then what they had projected, losing money, and how they are struggling to get people into the door. It's a niche attraction and not something that will bring a large amount of tourists into the city. It's been a huge bust so far hence why people always joke about making it into an indoor waterpark to salvage all the money that was lost constructing and maintaining it.
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30 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:
If anyone (like Bluto) thinks Toronto is better than anywhere else then they're either very naive or clueless. With homelessness at an all time high every city now has a problem. Urban crime is increasing. Last time I looked, I didn't see any demonstrators blocking bridges into Winnipeg's downtown like what's happened in Toronto. And yet, in high crime Winnipeg no one is threatening skaters on the Red River like what happened at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto or the shootings of Jewish synagogues or private Jewish schools in Montreal. Now, maybe that'll spread as the war in the Middle East goes on but right now, where's the problem? In our 3 biggest cities. Toronto, Montreal & Vancouver.
You make the mistake of getting your info from the news/media. I remember the time several years back when Trump was arriving in Canada and the news reported a massive riot and how stores were locking up shop and boarding up the windows. The news made it out like it was a scene from the movie the Warriors. I was on the scene of that so called riot and it was 25 hippies who held signs for 10 minutes peacefully and then walked away. The news isn't reliable. CBC being by far the worst.
Per capita Winnipeg has far more crime then those 3 cities. Where you find poverty you find crime, that's why Regina and Winnipeg have higher crime rates and the worst homicide rate across Canada. A large factor is that these cities have a large indigenous community which many come from insanely dangerous places. Thompson often is the worst city in Canada for crime. What the news/media reports is probably only 5% of that total incidents of serious crime. Talk to a police officer , someone in justice, or even folks who work at hospitals and in ambulances. Soooooo much really messed up and bad things happen that people are completely unaware of. I assume this is done on purpose to not freak out the general population. The stories that I have heard are horrendous and people would be horrified if they knew about what goes on.
Statistically you are wrong and Toronto is a safer place. You are more likely to be killed here in the Peg.
24 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:It would appear that you haven't visited other cities either if you think that other city's downtown are any better. Come to Calgary or Edmonton & check out how deserted they get once offices close for the day or on weekends. .
I did say Edmonton and Buffalo are comparables to Winnipeg and if that is what we are comparing with then that's extremely sad. Bottom of the barrel.
I have not been to Calgary in a few years, but I have been to at least 20 other cities and each of them were light years better then Winnipeg. My co workers from Edmonton who came in last year said downtown visually is similar to what they have with the buildings and the size... but the overall safetyness and cleanilness was much better in Edmonton.
Also Winnipeg downtown is deserted during the days now since many people are working from home, when I drive through downtown down Main and up Portage , I can count maybe 20 working class people on the streets? It is super quiet these days.
Also....
QuoteEach year, Stampede Park hosts over 1,200 business, tourism, sporting, hospitality and community events and welcomes more than four million guests.
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12 minutes ago, wpgallday1960 said:
Globe and Mail rated Winnipeg as the 3rd most livable city in Canada. It has its problems, especially downtown, but so do many cities.
Regina is ranked #4 so.......
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2 hours ago, Mike said:
Manitoba? Sure. The best part about Winnipeg in the summer is how close it is to other places.
I genuinely can’t think of anything I can do in Winnipeg in the summer that isn’t a Bomber game. Go to the Forks for the annual Canada Day machete attack? Ride my bike around, weaving through all the homeless encampments?
I love summers in Winnipeg but it’s not because of Winnipeg. It’s because in two hours or so, I can be at my cabin that isn’t in Winnipeg.
I like when people say Winnipeg in summer is great and then list off going to Grand Beach, Country Fest in Dauphin, going to Clear Lake for hikes, etc.... The Province itself is really nice when you get out of the city and head a bit North where it isn't just flat prairies.
During summer we always struggle to find things for the kids to do in town.
The good:
Assiniboine Park - The gardens are still a hit with my girls, the area is safe , and plenty of space to do a wide variety of activities. Kildonan Park is also decent but could use something new (maybe a new play ground) since it's mostly just one big walking trail. Rainbow Stage is still good.
Zoo - I really hope this summer that they ditch the robot dinosaurs... it's played out. The rest of the zoo is still well kept and worth a few visits per year.
Tinker Town - Great value and well kept and clean and it will sadden me in a few years when my kids age out for it. If only they could expand with 10 more adult rides.
The mediocre:
The farms which technically are outside of town, they are decent but it would be nice if one stepped up and just have a bit more to it. Deer Meadows is close but I feel that they still need 5 or more attractions.
The Forks - This place is going down hill fast. The inside is great and the food court area and the shops are still solid. The outside area has taken a serious dive and I've seen far less people walking around. I think the many stabbings and attacks (such as the Ukranian refugee being stabbed by 15 year old girls) has turned away people.
The bad:
Downtown has absolutely nothing to bring me as a family or even my wife and I to come visit. Even on the sunniest summer days the downtown is DEAD. No reason to go.
Lack of festivals - Folklorama seems to be fading away and post pandemic it seems to be a shell of its former self. It's over priced and generic and I wonder if it will go away similar to the old Taste of Manitoba festival where the prices ended up driving people away. All the big festivals are spread around the province, it would be nice to have some big ones in town that are fun and exciting and provide better experiences (I.E. Not waiting 1 hour in line like at the teddy bear picnic).
Lack of patios - This city is really missing out on having a stretch of restaurants with patios. Corydon had attempted to do this a while back but the NIMBY's squashed the idea of having a string of restaurants with large patios as they didn't want the noise. What this city has now sucks, Saffrons is a dump and I personally don't find sitting at a Boston Pizza in a concrete parking lot with dirt blowing into my food as a relaxing patio experience. Maybe do something radical like sell off part of Kildonan Golf Course and make it an entertainment area where you keep the greenery and then have restaurants with patios and more?
No water park. Grand Prix is way over priced and very dull. The city has a few good indoor places for kids but not much when it comes for outdoor. Harbour View would be a good place for the city to inject some money as it's dying.
Museums - Museum of Man and Nature is still good. Childrens Museum is fun for 15 minutes only and then it sucks, Touch the Universe is a complete joke and an embarrassment. I still haven't met anyone who has gone to the Human Rights museums and the Art Gallery is geared towards the seniors. The Leaf is a huge swing and a miss, that place has one good room (first room) the rest is absolute garbage. The butterfly room up top is a huge decline in quality compared to the butterfly gardens at the zoo. My kids were hugely disappointed when we visited and I can't see any reason for us to ever go back. Massive missed opportunity.
Overall safety - I know it's not nearly as dangerous as American cities, but still I HATE having to be on the aggressive when I am downtown. I shouldn't have to threaten people in order for them to back off. After visiting Montreal last summer it really hit me hard on how bad our downtown has fallen apart. I was out in Montreal on a Wednesday night and they had a Jazz festival, Just for Laughs, some other festival (can't remember) and the streets were jam packed of people dressed nicely walking around. I remember going with for a walk with a co worker at like 10:30 pm on that same night and still seeing streets full of people and the restaurants and shops all open and full of people. The place felt alive.
I wish this city had some pride and cleaned up downtown and at least make it look pretty and make it safe. I don't consider putting up tents at the Air Canada building next to Portage place where people are pissing and pooping on the ground as "pretty". It's extremely embarrassing when I have co workers who fly in (usually from Ottawa/Toronto) and they take the tour down Portage and Main and 100% of them say "WHAT A COMPLETE 5HITHOLE!". When I lived in Ottawa they had a no tolerance for begging and being drunk in public (homeless) and they removed them from the area. It's getting really bad with the bus shelters and it is starting to bleed outside of downtown to other areas. You can't expect regular people ever desiring to be in an area where they are unsafe and around unsettling people.
Yes many other cities have homeless and drug issues... but to me it feels like Winnipeg is the only city that has thrown in the towel and has gave up and let these people rule the streets. It's a cancer that has spread is taking it over and driving people further out to the Burbs and beyond.
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25 minutes ago, Geebrr said:
This is bullshit. Winnipeg is a great place to live.
Compared to Regina & Edmonton maybe... but anywhere else nope. Worst downtown, worst infrastructure, low paying jobs, high crime, bad geography, terrible winters, etc... Winnipeg used to be a great place to raise families because of the low cost of living, but that gap between Winnipeg and the bigger cities has shrunk over the years so we can't even claim that anymore.
Most young educated professionals graduate from University and move away immediately. It's a great place to live for incoming immigrants coming in as we do have large communities that can help them out when they first move to the country.
Yes many downtowns are decaying, but Winnipeg is the only place I've ever gone where after 5:00 pm the downtown is desolate and a complete ghost town minus the homeless walking around or sleeping in bus shacks. People who try to compare other downtowns in saying that they are the same clearly have not visited other cities and seen the night and day differences between us and them.
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30 minutes ago, bluto said:
I don't think that anything which I've said is controversial in the slightest.
This discussion is going a bit far afield, so I'll bow out here.
You have not said anything controversial, it's just some folks are sensitive and don't want to hear that they live in a city that isn't desirable.
Winnipeg has the worst of both worlds.... downtown is completely dead way more then other cities are. For the outdoors folks our scenery and geography is extremely bland and dull. Basically the only plus Winnipeg has is a large variety of restaurants and an above average zoo.
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in Winnipeg Jets Discussion
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Winnipeg is a poor city, with inflation and the rising cost of everything it will be a forever challenge to fill those seats at those prices.