Smiling image of former Winnipeg mayor Brian Bowman unveiled at city hall

The image of a smiling Brian Bowman, wearing a Métis pin on his blue blazer, is now a permanent feature of Winnipeg's city hall.

An Andrew Valko painting of the former Winnipeg mayor, based on a photo by Ian McCausland, will soon grace the south wall of the council gallery, alongside the portraits of the city's 42 previous leaders.

Bowman, who served as mayor from 2014 to 2022, noted at the unveiling ceremony that the most recent images in the gallery illustrate the desire of Winnipeg voters over the past three decades to elect a wider diversity of leaders.

"It's not the most diverse group of people over the 150-ish years the city has been around. That's changed in recent years. The last four portraits all broke new ground," Bowman said Monday during a chummy, lighthearted ceremony outside the mayor's office.

Bowman noted how Winnipeggers chose Susan Thompson as first woman to sit in the mayor's office in 1992. She was followed by Glen Murray, who in 1998 became the first openly gay mayor of a major city anywhere in North America. 

Murray, in turn, was followed by Sam Katz, who became Winnipeg's first Jewish mayor in 2004, and then Bowman, the city's first Métis and first Indigenous mayor.

"I don't think any of them were elected primarily because of that. They were the right people for the job at the time," Bowman told an audience of current and former city officials

"But when I would take children around the gallery and talk about former mayors, I would highlight the capacity for positive change Winnipeggers have demonstrated in numerous elections. City hall really is for everyone."

Current Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham, Premier Wab Kinew and former premier and city councillor Gary Filmon — all friends and close associates of Brian Bowman — took part in the ceremony.

Bowman said Filmon served his political mentor as well as a model of poise in public life. He called Kinew a valued adviser whose election as Canada's first First Nations premier serves as another achievement for Winnipeg, a city Maclean's magazine called the most racist in Canada only months after Bowman took office.

Bowman also praised Gillingham, a former St. James councillor, as a trusted ally at city hall.

The politicians who are still serving returned the plaudits.

"Brian Bowman is a fundamentally decent person, someone who walks through life with a lot of enthusiasm and integrity," Kinew said.

Gillingham praised his predecessor's efforts to promote reconciliation as well as his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, which consumed most of the Bowman's second and final term in office.

"Political leaders are forced to deal with situations during their time in office. They're not your own making: Unforeseen circumstances, situations and events that are thrust upon the agenda and demand days, months and even years of focused attention," he said.

Gillingham then held up a photo of Bowman wearing an N-95 mask and joked that was the real portrait.

Bowman returned the favour by revealing he sends Gillingham snarky texts at least once a week complaining about getting stuck in road construction, potholes and the absence of brown sugar from grocery stores.

"When I was mayor, we won the Grey Cup," Bowman wisecracked.

"In politics, you sometimes get credit for things you don't deserve, and you sometimes get blamed for things you don't deserve and I'm having fun with that."