Air Canada to Winnipeg: You Suck!

[Malthus]

Anyone here from Winnipeg? BB perhaps?

Air Canada caused a stink by moving their pilots from a downtown hotel to one near the airport. Ostensibly for safety reasons but they've managed to offend everyone in the process. That should be their new slogan: Air Canada. We offend everyone!

According to Air Canada, apparently downtown Winnipeg is a haven of crime and villainy, especially with displaced flood victims (most of whom are native) staying downtown. Air Canada says "we'll come back in a year when they're all gone." Winnipeg has won its share of violent crime capital awards but the locals say it's really not that bad ...

... and naturally enough the first nations are screaming about the racism of the decision.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/03/f-winnipeg-crime-air-canada.html

[Barrister]

Downtown winnipeg: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.   You must be cautious going there.

[Malthus]

Downtown winnipeg: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.   You must be cautious going there.

I'm not sure which would be funnier - if Air Canada was wrong in its analysis and getting so much shit for it, or if Air Canada was right in its analysis, and is getting so much shit for it. 

[Barrister]

Downtown winnipeg: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.   You must be cautious going there.

I'm not sure which would be funnier - if Air Canada was wrong in its analysis and getting so much shit for it, or if Air Canada was right in its analysis, and is getting so much shit for it. 

I have followed this story, and obviously I do have my sources in Winnipeg.

Part of the problem is Air Canada did get some facts wrong - blaming the flood victims in particular.  Downtown has always been like this, and there's no link between a few flood relocation victims and increased crime.  That also of course opened them up to racism allegations.

But that being said, I would not recommend staying at a downtown hotel unless you have specific business downtown.  After 5pm when all the offices close it's not a pleasant place.

But then again I'd say the same thing about downtown Edmonton.

[Malthus]

Downtown winnipeg: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.   You must be cautious going there.

I'm not sure which would be funnier - if Air Canada was wrong in its analysis and getting so much shit for it, or if Air Canada was right in its analysis, and is getting so much shit for it. 

I have followed this story, and obviously I do have my sources in Winnipeg.

Part of the problem is Air Canada did get some facts wrong - blaming the flood victims in particular.  Downtown has always been like this, and there's no link between a few flood relocation victims and increased crime.  That also of course opened them up to racism allegations.

But that being said, I would not recommend staying at a downtown hotel unless you have specific business downtown.  After 5pm when all the offices close it's not a pleasant place.

But then again I'd say the same thing about downtown Edmonton.

I can just see the mayor's office reply.

Winnipeg to Air Canada: 'you are racist and wring about the reasons our city's downtown is a shithole. Fact is, it has always been a shithole'. 

[Barrister]

Downtown winnipeg: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.   You must be cautious going there.

I'm not sure which would be funnier - if Air Canada was wrong in its analysis and getting so much shit for it, or if Air Canada was right in its analysis, and is getting so much shit for it. 

I have followed this story, and obviously I do have my sources in Winnipeg.

Part of the problem is Air Canada did get some facts wrong - blaming the flood victims in particular.  Downtown has always been like this, and there's no link between a few flood relocation victims and increased crime.  That also of course opened them up to racism allegations.

But that being said, I would not recommend staying at a downtown hotel unless you have specific business downtown.  After 5pm when all the offices close it's not a pleasant place.

But then again I'd say the same thing about downtown Edmonton.

I can just see the mayor's office reply.

Winnipeg to Air Canada: 'you are racist and wring about the reasons our city's downtown is a shithole. Fact is, it has always been a shithole'. 

It might be getting better.  With the newish arena and 15,000 fans flooding downtown 41 nights per year more businesses seem to be opening in the area, so it won't be just homeless winos downtown after 5.

It's very location-specific, as well.  The exchange district has a number of upscale restaurants / bars, and it is just a couple of blocks from the seediest hotels you've ever seen on North Main.

[Neil]

You can hardly blame them.  Unemployable Indians should be avoided.

[Valmy]

Wait it is too dangerous to go out in downtown Winnipeg after 5PM?  Where do you guys keep your restaurants, bars, theatres and clubs and the like?

[Neil]

Wait it is too dangerous to go out in downtown Winnipeg after 5PM?  Where do you guys keep your restaurants, bars, theatres and clubs and the like?

If it's anything like Edmonton, they're moving to the periphery.

[Barrister]

Wait it is too dangerous to go out in downtown Winnipeg after 5PM?  Where do you guys keep your restaurants, bars, theatres and clubs and the like?

There is a small corner of downtown (the Exchange District) that does indeed have a lot of restaurants and clubs.

But for the most part they are located in the areas around downtown.  Not the true suburbs, but the older urban neighborhoods.  Which is where they've go to in Edmonton as well (Whyte Ave).

Come on - much of north america was like this not too long ago.

[Ancient Demon]

Anyone here from Winnipeg? BB perhaps?

Me. 

According to Air Canada, apparently downtown Winnipeg is a haven of crime and villainy, especially with displaced flood victims (most of whom are native) staying downtown. Air Canada says "we'll come back in a year when they're all gone." Winnipeg has won its share of violent crime capital awards but the locals say it's really not that bad ...

Yes, yes it is.

... and naturally enough the first nations are screaming about the racism of the decision.

First Nations scream about everything.

[Malthus]

I guess I'm not going for a vacation to downtown Winnipeg any time soon. 

[Barrister]

I guess I'm not going for a vacation to downtown Winnipeg any time soon. 

I wouldn't recommend it, no.

[HVC]

I guess I'm not going for a vacation to downtown Winnipeg any time soon. 

You could do what Craig Ferguson of the late late show did. He locked himself in his hotel room for fear of going outside and out of boredom shaved his entire body. And this was during the pass out drunk coke head phase of a man who grew up in the rough area of glasgow, so if he was afraid to walk the streets that tells you something

[Barrister]

An article about downtown Winnipeg from Malthus' hometown Toronto Star:

Winnipeg Rises
Published 1 hour 12 minutes agoEmail Print Rss Article
Photos (3)
 
Karen Burshtein
Special to the Star
WINNIPEG—I was at a park with a friend and her baby the other day. I watched as the new walker took a few hesitant steps toward a shiny toy, her face a mixture of pride at her independence and a little trepidation at the unknown.

I perceived something similar in the faces of Winnipeggers last week as they took first steps en masse along Portage Ave. before an exhibition NHL hockey match: a little fear — and a little excitement. You see, Winnipeggers haven't done downtown for a long time.

Even when the ice finally lets go of the pavement, and you can walk the wide expanse of Portage Ave. as God and urban planners intended, downtown Winnipeg has been mostly a ghost town, especially at night. There's been nowhere to go, a point Air Canada seems to have made with its recent decision to have airline workers stay over at a hotel near the airport rather than sleep downtown. City officials have understandably reacted with outrage.

Downtown certainly has come a long way. But there was a time when it was THE place to be.

In the '60s and '70s, my grandmother dressed up when she went downtown. Everyone did. The stretch along Portage Ave. between Eaton's and The Bay was brimming with city verve. Then Winnipeg became a victim of the doughnut effect, as urban scholars call the exodus of city dwellers to the suburbs.

Today, Winnipeggers, finally hip to the idea that a city can't be a city without a centre, are watching as downtown enters what can only be called a new era. The most obvious impetus was, well, we all know because Winnipeggers have been shouting it loud enough: The return of the Jets.

The effect of the Winnipeg Jets' departure in 1995 on the collective psyche cannot be overstated.

To the myths of Winnipeg as a place of irrepressible creativity and biblical mosquitos was added the subtext of hockey losers. For years, the city has been chanting for its return. All of a sudden it happened.

Then things started moving fast. Projects once debated, and left to fester, were officially announced one after another.

A happy consequence or a happy coincidence?

Stefano Grande, executive director of Downtown Winnipeg Biz, a public/private downtown development venture thinks it's the latter.

"Many projects had been in the pipeline before the Jets were being announced, including a new entertainment district," he said. "What the arrival of the Jets does is coincidentally legitimize these plans."

The MTS Centre, opened in 2004 where Eaton's once was. Home to the AHL's Manitoba Moose, it has also been one of the most successful concert venues in North America. The new environmentally innovative Manitoba Hydro Building on Portage Ave. building has started bringing back office workers to the heart of downtown.

To the east, boarding the historic Exchange District, a waterfront condo development is bringing empty nesters downtown. A new apartment complex on Portage Ave. is also in the works.

The Forks, with its fabulous, revamped Children's museum and world-class SkatePark, is another example of downtown Winnipeg's sudden growth spurt. The elegant Provencher Bridge and the Canadian Museum For Human Rights slated to open in 2012, are vying to become city icons, usurping the Golden Boy that sits atop the Manitoba Legislative Building.

But the ball really began rolling after the Jets returned. The Metropolitan Theatre, a long boarded up heritage building, purchased in 2006 by a Winnipeg businessman, was given a $1.5 million grant by the city to transform it into an entertainment venue. The city coughed up the money with the stipulation the project be completed fast; 2013 is the projected date.

A chic Alt Hotel from the Quebec-based Germain Group was announced (though not opening till Sept 2013), its location incorporating the old Mitchell Coop building on Portage Ave. It's across from the MTS Centre.

Still, the hotel group's director of development, Hugo Germain, says, "Winnipeg was on our radar screen already."

The arrival of the Jets is "nice gravy but we'd been visiting the past three years."

Education and culture

Farther down Portage Ave., another chapter of the revitalization of downtown is taking place, a direct result of the University of Winnipeg's downtown campus expansion. The school's growth offensive has spawned the new Buhler Centre for Faculty of Business and Economics at the corner of Portage Ave. and Colony St. and the Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex.

Within the striking Buhler building is the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, home to many of the artists who make up Winnipeg's vibrant art scene. The building is next to the modernist Winnipeg Art Gallery; together they form a mini art hub on Portage Ave.

At this end of Portage Ave., cool places to eat and hang are also opening. Stella's Cafe and Bakery, a favourite city breakfast and brunch place recently opened a location on the main level of the Buhler Centre.

Most exciting is Pop Soda Coffeehouse and Gallery at Portage Ave. and Furby St., which opened in September. The 7,000 sq-ft. cafe/restaurant also bills itself as an informal cultural community area offering studio spaces or just walls to paint on. Hipsters and students lie in hammocks or sit on retro couches reading or listening to Jazz. Owner Christine Boss took over a storefront that had been abandoned for 30 years.

"We thought they needed us down here," she says. "I definitely see a lot of little business revitalizing the area."

http://www.thestar.com/travel/northamerica/article/1066447--winnipeg-rises