As 2026 gets underway, the City of Winkler is celebrating—or preparing to celebrate—the completion of three major capital projects that have been on its to-do list for years.
“We got the water plant online now at budget, maybe a little bit under budget, our wastewater treatment on time, on budget, and our arena project on budget, and we’re desperately striving to keep it online as well in terms of time,” Mayor Henry Siemens said as 2025 came to a close.
Both the water and wastewater treatment facilities went into operation in the past few months, while the major renovations at the decades-old Winkler Centennial Arena are slated to wrap up, hopefully, sometime in February, transforming the decades-old building into a much more modern facility.
“We’re really proud of how hard our staff have worked and our contractors have worked with us to be able to move three projects of that size along at the same time, bring them in all on budget, and at least two on time. And the other one, if it won’t be on time it will be just slightly delayed,” Siemens said.
“This sets Winkler up for the next 15 to 20 years,” he noted, pointing to fact the community now has water and wastewater treatment capacities to a population of 25,000 (Winkler is currently sitting at around 14,000 residents).
Also on the wastewater front, work is moving forward on figuring out how Winkler/Stanley, with their new extra capacity, can help neighbouring Morden while it waits to get its own wastewater project off the ground. The provincial government last fall announced $4.5 million in funding to support a temporary line from Morden through Stanley to the Winkler treatment plant.
“We’re dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s to try to make that work, because it’s unfortunate when our neighbour down the road is in a tough place,” Siemens said. “We’re hoping that we’re able to find a way to work together with Morden to provide some temporary relief there as they finalize the rest of their project.”
That kind of regional cooperation has very much characterized the past number of years, the mayor reflected.
“We’re heading into the final year of our mandate in Winkler, Morden, and Stanley,” he said of the upcoming municipal election.
“We’ve worked together on many things and recognize that we can do more when we do things together,” Siemens said, pointing in example to things like the ongoing Boundary Trails Health Centre expansion and the recently completed Stanley Community Pathway between the two cities, not to mention ongoing partnerships when it comes to things like the MSTW Planning District and S.W.A.M.P., the regional landfill.
“We have this hope that as we look at other things that we can find ways to do more things together that make sense,” Siemens said.
Other ongoing projects along those lines include conversations and research into things like the viability of a regional airport and regional policing.
“If there’s an opportunity, we want to explore it as much as possible so that we can continue to find ways to serve our communities better,” Siemens said of the idea of a regional police force. “That could come through a variety of different ways—enhanced services, specialized units … but we want to make sure that we also look at the specifics of it and does it make sense and where could it make sense.”
Likewise, a new airport better able to service larger aircraft has long been an identified need.
“Neither Winkler nor Morden airports today are able to serve the growing needs of users,” Siemens said, sharing that they’re currently looking at what a regional site might look like, what it could cost, and what funding partners exist beyond the municipal level.
On a more local level, Siemens is proud of the City of Winkler’s work on things like the Main St. renewal project; ongoing maintenance to the bike and walking paths, most notably along the south dike but also a new connection all the way into Reinfeld; as well as ongoing financial planning and restructuring that should have the city on good footing for the future.
“As council, one of the biggest things that we’re proud of is the fact that we’ve been able to work with our administration to develop a three year budget, which allows our staff to plan a little bit for some of these projects,” Siemens said. “It also allows us to get closer to our goal of having no capital expenses, no capital debentures that go for more than 10 years.”
Lowering the borrowing terms on high-value projects saves the community millions of dollars in interest payments.
“We’ve worked very carefully on our asset management plan to make sure that we understand what we have, to make sure that we understand the plan for when it needs to be repaired, renewed, or replaced and that we’ll be ready for it,” the mayor said, noting this kind of long-term planning also ensures council is able to save for these purchases years in advance, lessening the burden on taxpayers in the future when big-ticket costs do come up.
With so many large-scale projects crossing the finish line, what’s next for Winkler in 2026 and beyond?
Discussions continue with local pickleball aficionados about what the future of that sport might look like in Winkler, Siemens said.
“We are continuing to have really good conversations with the pickleball group … they have some tremendous ideas and our staff are working together with them,” he said. “We’re not at a place that we’re imminently building an indoor facility, but there may be some opportunities that we can enhance existing facilities, potentially.
“What we want to do is make sure that whatever happens, that the group has something that’s useful to them and that’s affordable to their users, and, as much as the City of Winkler is involved, is affordable to our community.”
Consideration is still being given as well to the Winkler Dog Park, which was dismantled while work was underway on the adjacent water treatment plant. In the years since, no suitable location was found elsewhere in Winkler, and so it looks likely the park may reopen at the same location as before.
“We’ve asked our staff to consider is there a way we can put it back beside the water treatment plant?” Siemens said. “There’s less space there now than there was before, but is there an opportunity to configure that in a way that works? We’re waiting to hear back from them.”
The city is also awaiting the first year’s worth of usage stats from the Winkler On-Demand Transit system.
“It’s been growing every month and we’re starting to find already that we’re at a place where there are several time slots during the course of the day that we can’t reasonably expect more growth,” Siemens said. The service is a three-year pilot project designed to give the community data it can use to design a more permanent transit system to meet the identified needs. “At our annual planning session in January we will take a look at what’s next. At this point in time, we either invest more into it—and we’re in the middle of the pilot study, of course—and we have to start considering what would happen afterwards.”
City staff are also hard at work on several master plans for growth, including one addressing water drainage throughout town that will identify the areas worst hit by flooding and what needs to be done to fix them, as well as what needs to be done to ensure new developments aren’t suffering similar challenges.
Looking back and looking forward, Siemens says he’s proud of what Winkler has accomplished of late—and what’s still to come.
“This year, from a City of Winkler perspective, similar to much of the community, was really hectic and really busy, but a lot got done on our major capital projects, and it feels good to be towards the end of them.
“I want to thank the community for their involvement, for their engagement,” Siemens said. “Whenever we have projects that we’re working on, [I want to] thank the community for the time to work on those projects to get the answers that are needed.
“It’s an exciting time to be involved in leadership in Winkler.”
