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A provincial regulator has stepped in to help residents find new accommodations after a Norwich, Ont., retirement home gave just over two weeks’ notice of its closure.

The Retirement Home Regulatory Authority said the abrupt closure of Trillium Care Norwich contravenes the Retirement Homes Act, which requires a 120-day notice to residents.

“Our priority is the protection of the home’s 18 residents and we continue to use all our regulatory powers to ensure their safety and well-being,” Raymond Chan, a spokesman for the regulator, said in a statement.

The retirement home in the community south of Woodstock, Ont., sent an email to clients on Oct. 25 saying it would be abruptly closing on Nov. 11 and urged those affected to contact Ontario Health at Home.

“Due to an emergency lack of financial resources necessary to sustain daily operations, we must close the facility. This decision was not made lightly, and every effort was explored to prevent this outcome,” Davyd Yushkin, the home’s manager, wrote in an email to residents.

The owner of the retirement home declined to comment when reached by The Canadian Press.

Chan said the regulator understands the impact on the home’s residents and is working to help them find new care and ensure they are able to access emergency resources.

“These situations are very infrequent,” he added.

Family members have been voicing their frustration over the sudden closure and the scramble to find new homes for their loved ones.

Miranda Guitard said her husband’s grandmother moved to the home in May after being diagnosed with dementia. She said there were red flags soon after, including a sudden rent increase and missing paperwork.

Guitard is urging families who are researching retirement homes to get as much information as possible and also learn about the Retirement Home Regulatory Authority.

“Find out where you’re sending your family member,” she said.

“Just because it’s a retirement home and there’s nurses and (support) staff there and it looks like this wonderful space, it can end up not being a good experience.”

Guitard said her family is also anxious about the status of a police investigation into alleged fraud committed at the retirement home.

Ontario Provincial Police said there’s an ongoing probe involving a retirement residence in Norwich, but they did not publicly identify the home.

The OPP said in August that “multiple victims” at a retirement home are alleged to have lost a total of over $50,000.

The Trillium Care Norwich building was also listed for sale in April 2024 for $2 million, with assurances the tenant would sign a five-year lease, according to a Realtor for the listing who said the property is still on the market.

Raymond Cho, Ontario’s minister for seniors and accessibility, said in a statement that his thoughts are with the residents affected by the sudden closure and that they “deserve to live with dignity and respect.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2024.

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WINNIPEG – Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew didn’t make any commitments Friday on possible new municipal taxes in Winnipeg.

Kinew said he has a good relationship with Mayor Scott Gillingham and will listen to city hall. But he made no promises when asked whether he would approve new taxes being floated by the city as options to solve a revenue crunch.

“We’ll definitely be a listening government, as we always are,” Kinew said.

The city has commissioned a polling firm to ask people whether they would prefer to see Winnipeg get more money from the province, cut services, raise property taxes by more than 3.5 per cent or impose new municipal taxes. Any new taxes would require approval from the Manitoba government.

Among the items floated for a possible new municipal tax are liquor sales, vehicle registration, items ordered online for delivery, vacant homes, commercial parking and land transfers with an exemption for first-time homebuyers.

“Our city has grown by 65,000 people in the last three years,” Gillingham said Friday.

“There is greater demand for city services across the city. We have not seen a corresponding revenue increase.”

Gillingham said the various tax scenarios are hypothetical, and public response to the poll is expected in a week or two.

“Once we have that information, it’ll give us a better sense of how to guide our discussions with the province of Manitoba.”

The former Progressive Conservative government froze municipal operating grants for several years before boosting them by an average of 28 per cent in 2023. The NDP government, after winning last year’s election, has committed to annual increases of two per cent.

That hasn’t prevented Winnipeg’s fiscal situation from becoming more serious, Gillingham said.

The province has yet to agree to an earlier request from the city for a $1-a-month fee on all phone bills in order to upgrade 911 services. The city had counted on the money for this year’s budget.

Kinew was noncommittal on that fee as well on Friday. He said he’s open to discussions with the mayor but must also keep people’s cost of living in mind.

“The average person is coming out of a period of high inflation. Interest rates are coming down, but they’re still high … so we’ve got to keep life affordable for the average person out there,” Kinew said.

Municipalities have said for years that they need new funding that better keeps up with the cost of providing services. Municipal property taxes don’t automatically increase in line with the economy, unlike so-called growth taxes at higher levels of government such as income and sales taxes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

WINNIPEG – RCMP have identified a toddler whose remains were found in a barn in Manitoba this past summer.

Mounties said Xavia Skye Lynn Butler would have been between one and two years old at the time of her death but did not say when the girl died.

Her remains were located in a barn on a property near Grahamdale, about 200 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, on June 3.

Her death is being investigated as a homicide.

RCMP said the last time investigators have been able to physically place Xavia was approximately a year before her remains were found, and there were no missing person reports filed about her in that time.

Sgt. Paul Manaigre said the girl was from Pinaymootang First Nation but had lived on the property at one point in her life. Police are still trying to determine if she was living there at the time of her death.

“She would have been with different family members at different times of her life. That’s what we’re trying to ascertain through a timeline,” Manaigre said Friday.

“There’s a long period of time that we’re not aware of … we want to narrow down the time frame as to when she was with family, when she wasn’t.”

Manaigre said Xavia was not in the care of child and family services.

Natalie Anderson, a relative of the girl, said she took care of the child for a period after she was born.

Anderson said she last saw Xavia in March 2022 when the girl went to live with other family members.

Anderson learned the girl had died after police found her remains, she said.

“Xavia was perfect. She was happy. She was loved. She was my chunky monkey,” Anderson said.

“I want her story known.”

Premier Wab Kinew called the case “absolutely tragic.”

“When we think of such a young life being lost and that the circumstances are being investigated as a homicide, this is one of the worst things that can happen, bar none,” Kinew said Friday.

“As a provincial government, when something like this happens in Manitoba, it makes you stop and take stock of what is happening across this land and resolve that … we will have an attention towards preventing incidents like this from happening again.”

Early details of the case bear some similarities to the death of Phoenix Sinclair in 2005. The five-year-old girl was not reported missing and, nine months after she was killed, her body was found near a landfill at the Fisher River Cree Nation north of Winnipeg.

Her mother, Samantha Kematch, and Kematch’s common-law husband, Karl McKay, were later convicted of first-degree murder, and the death led to a public inquiry.

Mounties are looking for any photos of Xavia taken after March 2022 and are asking anyone who saw the girl after that date to contact them.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2024.

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