The Pulse: March 7, 2023

Edmonton's Bonjour Bakery has planned for a long future in Old Strathcona with the opening of a purpose-built space on Whyte Avenue.

Yvan Chartrand has been operating Bonjour Bakery since 2009, renting space in an 80-year-old building along the busy stretch of 99 Street and 87 Avenue NW. But after his son Kenny joined the company in 2017 in the role of head baker, Chartrand started exploring real estate options that would provide more stability.

"Looking at the future, I thought for him, if I wanted to retire, and he wanted to take over, I'm young enough that I can still make a move to help, so the timing was right," said Chartrand.

It was important for Chartrand to stay in the area, and when he exhausted the possibilities of finding an existing building in the neighbourhood that would suit the bakery's needs, he purchased land five blocks south at 99 Street and 82 Avenue NW.

"Being on Whyte Avenue is a dream," said Chartrand. "My mother is from the Peace River region in northern Alberta and when I was a kid, I would hear about Jasper Avenue and Whyte Avenue. So being able to build a new building on Whyte is quite special."

The land purchase went through in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic ground everything to a halt. For a time, Chartrand did not know if construction would move forward. "I put a foot on the brake pedal because I didn't know which way things were going to go," he said. "Restaurants were struggling and our wholesale business collapsed. So we would decide (whether to build) based on our sales."

Fortunately, bakeries were permitted to continue operating throughout the pandemic. "Surprisingly for us, our sales stayed quite stable," Chartrand said. "People still needed to eat."

Last year, when he could see the pandemic waning, Chartrand finally initiated plans for the building. The one-storey, nearly 3,000-square-foot bakery opened for business on Feb. 1. The exterior offers a European flair, but the red paint is a nod to the many brick buildings on the street.

• The 2023 provincial budget put $3 million toward planning work to explore the renovation or replacement of the Edmonton Law Courts building, which was disrupted multi-day power outage on Jan. 3, prompting calls for a new courthouse. The province has funded a business case, due back in October, to recommend future options. The budget also puts $1 million toward examining the need for a new Sherwood Park courthouse.
• After pet ownership boomed during the pandemic, many Edmontonians have abandoned pets or surrendered them to shelters. Sgt. Brianne Grey with the Animal Care & Control Centre said one ongoing issue is people surrendering their pets while claiming the animal is a stray, which can earn you a ticket for providing misleading information to an officer. Shelters across the province are operating above capacity, said Grey.
• Edmonton police have charged Peter Wolf, a correctional program officer at the Edmonton Institution for Women, with sexual assault, unlawful confinement, and breach of trust after an inmate said she was forcibly detained and sexually abused in 2022. The charges prompted the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, a collection of organizations that work with women and gender-diverse people impacted by the justice system, to call on Correctional Service of Canada and the federal government to "finally address this persistent systemic issue." Wolf's first court appearance is set for April 11.
• pipikwan pêhtâkwan, an Indigenous-led public relations firm, has successfully adopted the four-day work week. Since 2021, the firm's 25 staff have worked about 33 hours per week in a remote setting. "I just see more collaboration, more teamwork and actually more investment in the company," founder Shani Gwin told CBC's Edmonton AM, explaining that productivity was unaffected and staff have been more determined and supportive.
• Volunteers from the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), the McDougall United Church, Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society and Human Concern International gathered to cook chili in the church's kitchen and hand out warm food and hygiene kits to vulnerable Edmontonians on March 5. The McDougall United Church and MAC have had a partnership for years that involves sharing prayer space and collaborating on community projects.
• Mayor Amarjeet Sohi appeared on Global News Morning's monthly Civic Matters segment to discuss the provincial budget and his upcoming meeting with Premier Danielle Smith. While Sohi said the 2023 budget was overall better than the last one, he remains concerned the provincial government "is not fully grasping the challenges" Edmontonians are experiencing when it comes to mental health, addictions and homelessness.
• The city has temporarily renamed 104 Avenue JUNO Way in celebration of the 2023 JUNO Awards, which are scheduled for March 13 at Rogers Place. The awards will be hosted by Canadian actor Simu Liu for the second year in a row.
• WestJet says its summer schedule will increase seat capacity to and from Edmonton by 44%. During peak frequency, the company will offer 11 flights per week from the Edmonton International Airport to Las Vegas, seven per week to Los Angeles, 35 per week to Kelowna, and 20 per week to Winnipeg.
• Budget airline Swoop is introducing new flights from the Edmonton International Airport to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos this summer. The routes will run twice a week at peak frequency and have a "lowest one-way total price" of $139 and $119 before taxes, according to a release.
• The 2023 Canadian Team Trials, run by Wrestling Canada Lutte, will be hosted in Edmonton from Dec. 15-17. Athletes will compete to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics in the events of freestyle wrestling, women's wrestling, and Greco-Roman wrestling. The event will happen at the Saville Community Sports Centre at the University of Alberta.

Episode 211 of Speaking Municipally updates a public art story that Taproot's civic affairs podcast has been paying attention to since June 2021.

That's when co-hosts Troy Pavlek and Mack Male first asked whatever happened to the public art that had been commissioned as part of the Walterdale Bridge project. They discovered artist Ken Lum was unhappy that his sculpture, The Buffalo and the Buffalo Fur Trader, had been in storage since 2016.

The city announced in August 2022 that it had decided not to install the piece for fear that it could be misinterpreted as a celebration of colonialism, but the words it chose got it into trouble, leading to an apology on Feb. 24. The August news release "referenced the removed Government Station LRT murals, implying by association that Mr. Lum's piece was 'pro-colonist' and this is an unfair and regrettable comparison," the statement says, going on to detail Lum's bona fides as an artist and an opponent of racism. "The City apologizes for any unintended harm to Mr. Lum's stellar reputation."

The sculpture has been transferred out of the municipal public art collection and will be displayed somewhere chosen by Lum, who told CTV he was "glad this chapter is over and that the work is going to a good home."

Male and Pavlek are looking forward to seeing the piece in nicer surroundings than the storage yard it has been sitting in. Pavlek noted that the initial idea was to have the buffalo and the fur trader on opposite sides of the river, staring across at each other.

"The piece doesn't work quite as well if the two are sitting beside each other at the entrance to some multi-use trail, so the location was kind of part of the art," he said. "I'll be interested to see what location they use."

Hear more about this, as well as how Edmonton fared in the Alberta budget, what's next for alcohol in parks, the sequels to various police-related stories, and the new fine for vehicle noise on the March 3 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast.