Nickel Belt News Volume Volume 58 59 Number • Issue 3411
Friday, March23, 16,2019 2018 Friday, August
Thompson, Manitoba Thompson, Manitoba
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Receiver takes over management of Forest View Suites from owners who are unable to pay their debts Polar Bear Properties Ltd. owes nearly $25 million, including $1.5 million to the City of Thompson BY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
ings and property, though the Manitoba Municipal Relations property assessment of the buildings for 2019 values the land at $812,500 and the buildings at $15,689,100. Most of the money that Polar Bear Properties owes is to the Royal Bank of Canada – a total of $23,130,300. The City of Thompson is owed $1,364,424 in unpaid property taxes, $115,748 for water bills, and another $19,232 worth of unspecified debts. The owners also owe Thompson Fire & Emergency Services $8,004 and Manitoba Hydro $193,739. Other companies and organizations owed money include Armour Management, which manages the properties, Bell MTS, the Impact Security Group, Northern Laundry, Shaw Cable, the Thompson Recycle Centre, Wilson’s Business Solutions and the Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News. In a list of frequently asked
duties include continuing the management of the suites under the current property manager or another one without interruption to current and future residents, as well as the job of administering the process to sell Forest View Suites in an orderly and transparent basis under court supervision. Debts are frozen at the amounts they were as of July 31. Polar Bear Properties acquired Princeton Towers in early 2009 from the Sheiner Group, a Montreal-based real estate investment firm, and Silver Management Group Ltd, an Ottawa-based residential and commercial property management company. Those companies had purchased the towers less than two years earlier, on April 2, 2007. Polar Bear Properties attempted to sell off individual one- and two-bedroom apartments as condominiums for $164,900 and $184,900, respectively, in 2009.
Book a way to preserve and pass on memories of growing up in Churchill
The company that owns Forest View Suites, better known by its former name of Princeton Towers, has been placed into receivership because it is unable to pay back money it borrowed to run the business. Ernst & Young was appointed by the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench as the receiver of the assets of Polar Bear Properties Ltd. and Manitoba numbered company 5409676 Manitoba Ltd, which have owned the apartment buildings at 364 and 424 Princeton Drive since 2009, after a July 31 hearing. Forest View Suites consists of 275 apartment units in two buildings. Polar Bear Properties Ltd. and 5409676 Manitoba Ltd. owe nearly $25 million to creditors and said that as of July 31 they had about $65,000 in cash, $170,000 in accounts receivable, and $28.5 million in the form of the build-
Nickel Belt News file photo Ernst & Young was appointed July 31 as receiver of Polar Bear Properties Ltd. and 5409676 Manitoba Ltd, owners of Forest View Suites, more commonly known by their previous name of Princeton Towers. questions on Ernst & Young’s website, the receiver explains that receiverships are a way for secured creditors (such as the bank that holds a mortgage on a property) to recover amounts they are owed in the event the company defaults on its loan payments. “To put it simply, the Debt-
ors financed the acquisition of the Suites with debt and have been unable to meet the repayment terms with their lender. The Receiver will assume the role of executive management of the Debtors and expects to carry on operations of the Suites seamlessly and without interruption to residents.
Residents are not required nor does the Receiver recommend that residents pursue alternative living arrangements.” Ernst & Young says specific inquiries from residents should be directed to management onsite or emailed to service@ armourmanagement.ca. As receiver, Ernst & Young’s
B.C. murder suspects left behind video message for their families Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky, the B.C. men suspected of killing three people and sparking a Northern Manitoba manhunt near Gillam that ended when they were found dead by self-inflicted gunshot
wounds, left behind a “last will and testament” video on a cell phone, the Toronto Star reported Aug. 19. Thirty seconds of the video was shared with the suspects’ family members. It reportedly outlined their
wishes for their remains, bid goodbye to family members and detailed a last will and testament, according to an unnamed family member, who did not see personally the video. The bodies of McLeod
and Schmegelsky were found Aug. 7 near the Nelson River after a largescale RCMP search that lasted nearly two weeks. The search began when a vehicle belonging to 64-year-old Leonard Dyck,
who was killed in northern B.C., was found abandoned and burning near Fox Lake Cree Nation July 22. RCMP said the men had been dead for a number of days at the time their bodies were discovered.
McLeod and Shmegelsky were also suspects in the killings of 23-year-old Australian Lucas Fowler and his 24-year-old American girlfriend Chynna Deese, also in northern B.C.
Reducing Rural Crime ct e l E
Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles has written a book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill.
eR EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Kelly
BY IAN GRAHAM
to write things that you have to figure out. It’s pretty clear Though she’s now written when I get through.” a book about her experienDeMeulles said she wrote ces growing up in Churchill, her book, titled Whispers in Addictions Foundation of the Wind: Stories from the Manitoba northern director North - Life in Churchill for Gisele deMeulles said writ- a couple of reasons. ing wasn’t something she “I just sort of thought, always thought she would you know what, this hisdo. tory, this stuff that’s in my “In my youth I never head, it’s going to be gone felt good204.228.2685 at writing,” she if I don’t write it down,” she votekellybindle@gmail.com said. “But when I moved said. “My kids are not go@KellyBindle to Thompson to get into ing to get it if I don’t do it Kelly Bindlework, and it’s something I’ve althe school of social at that point I had to write ways wanted my mom to kellybindle4mla.com for university and realized, do. My mom’s an elder and ‘Holy, I’m not bad at this, she’s an artist, she’s got so right?’ I certainly developed many wonderful stories bea lot of skill in university cause she always tells her and came out of there with stories at Parks Canada in a very strong skill in my Churchill and I’ve always writing and confidence in hounded her, ‘Please, just my writing. I write very put it on tape, I will write it clear and that’s it. It’s there. for you because your story Some people say it’s kind of is going to be lost,’ and she’s blunt or direct. I don’t tend never done it and I thought,
Bindle Thompson
pcmanitoba.com
‘Oh, I’m just as bad, right?’ I have all these stories and I need to capture them for my grandchildren really because they will be lost if I don’t.” She also has a reputation as a storyteller herself. “I had such a varied history and I would tell people stories and they would go, ‘That’s not true, is it?’ I’d go, ‘Yeah it’s true.’ They’d go, ‘You didn’t do all that, did you? You’ve got to be really old.’ I was like, ‘No, actually I did all that before I was 27,’ and they went ‘What?’” Looking back, some of those experiences are things she might not do again. “I did some pretty bizarre stuff like fuel hauls into the high Arctic at -35,” said deMeulles. “It didn’t dawn on me until after. That was a very dangerous thing to do. Being on a plane full of fuel
was not a very safe thing to do but I jumped at it. I thought that was exciting until the plane landed and they started throwing the fuel off and I realized, ‘Holy cats, I was probably sitting on a bomb.’” Another thing that spurred her on was the hard times facing Churchill since the Hudson Bay Railway suspended operations north of Gillam last spring. “It used to be a really thriving large community and it’s just dwindled down to such a small population now,” deMeulles says. Though she’s not there any longer, her parents and her sister and other family members still are. “My cousin owns the hardware store there,” she says. Because of that, deMeulles finds it hard to
Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham
For all the harsh weather swallow when people say that Churchill residents and the dangers of polar should just find somewhere bears, deMeulles said if it easier to live. had been viable she would “To say, ‘Those people have moved back to Churchchoose to live there. They ill in a heartbeat. should just leave,’ is quite “I miss the shoreline, I simplistic. It’s quite disre- miss the rock, I miss the spectful. If we were in the polar bears even though same boat in another area they’re very dangerous and I think we would scream I really miss the Hudson about that so why don’t they Bay,” she says. “When I go have the option to do that? back home, standing on the I think right now they’re Hudson Bay looking out on feeling like they’re pawns the bay, it just gives you an in a political game and that’s incredible sense. You feel so really sad for them because I small and you feel great.” think the people of ChurchNow that she’s got ill really want to thrive. one book under her belt, They’ve built their worlds deMeulles says she may try there. How would we feel to produce another. if someone came to you and “I have another book in said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to me,” she says. “It’s a darker leave your home community story, more about personand we’re going to displace al growth and struggles. you somewhere else and all Maybe in the next five years your loved ones and your it’s something I’ll focus on Authorized by the Official Agent for Kelly Bindle history is gone?’” doing.”
The PC Party of Manitoba, through our Safer Streets, Safer Lives program will defend the rule of law and the security of every Manitoban.