1) The Standards and Quality of Promoting SPs: EC vs Backpage
Blatant rip-off artists don't operate on EC. And would likely get spotted and banned fast by EC, cuz it's reputation is built on the pooning industry. Scammers would hurt them, so they push back. That makes it the best bet for Winnipeg, not perfect, but the best bet.
Backpage is the Wild West.....for everything. Management offers low costs.....and lower standards, so the rip-off artists come out. Posters and advertisers are monitored much less, if at all. The worst rip-offs on Backpage (and Craigslist) are actually the vacation rentals. There are endless ads, renting out non-existent residences in every city, that insist you wire a huge down-payment up-front right away via Western Union to their "accountant" in Timbuktu. And they get nasty when you call them out.
2) The Pooning Scene in Winnipeg: It sucks!
If you have lived or traveled ANYWHERE else (well, except Brandon) you KNOW this to be true. This topic has been thrashed to death here, why re-hash it? Sorry, but you must suffer with the rest of us.
Or better still, move away....
....and find....
a football team that wins (even Grey Cups), a hockey team that makes the play-offs, taxes that are much lower, public transit systems that work, MPs that have a dozen gorgeous girls sitting on couches batting their eyelashes at you before the one you choose leads you off to your choice of Roman/Burlesque/Egyptian/Hollywood/Banker's Chamber theme room, SPs that actually know how to give a real massage of your choice (shiatsu, Swedish, Thai or soft touch), safe places downtown to walk and park your car so it doesn't get busted into, roads without potholes, independent SPs that DON'T flake and keep really, really nice trick pads and serve alcohol, streets free of photo radar, EROS service in your new city, escort agencies that send over girls that really do look like the girl in the picture, decent beer, cops that actually fight crime instead of taxpayers/honest hard-working citizens, lively British- and Irish-style pubs, alternative newspapers that are actually cool to read and have page-after-page of pooning services listed at the back, even by subtype of service,
..... and find a climate that doesn't turn into the South Pole for 9 months of the year.
Did I mention it was a good idea to move away?