Urban forest, housing advocate first to seek Winnipeg council vacancy in Elmwood-East Kildonan

An Elmwood community activist who's pushed the City of Winnipeg to plant more trees and allow more infill housing is the first candidate to come forward in the Elmwood-East Kildonan byelection.

Emma Durand-Wood, a resident of the leafy, riverside Glenelm neighbourhood, registered her campaign late last week.

The Elmwood-East Kildonan seat on city council has been vacant since the death of former councillor Jason Schreyer in April. 

Durand-Wood said people familiar with her community advocacy work in Glenelm encouraged her to run for office.

"I like to get involved, I like to make things happen and they have placed their trust in me that that I could be someone who could be a good representative," she said Monday in an interview.

Durand-Wood is a writer and editor by profession who was trained as a library technician. While she does not describe herself as an urbanist — she prefers to use the term "localist" — she espouses several urbanist priorities.

She said Winnipeg has made a lot of progress in terms of providing more funding for urban forestry but must make more resources available to protect and replace trees.

She also said she'd like to see expanded hours for libraries, better amenities for parks and for the city to allow more secondary suites — both to create more housing and to make home ownership more affordable through the creation of additional revenue streams.

Durand-Wood said she has no political affiliation and does not consider herself a follower of any political ideology.

"I don't have a political background and I think of only what is right for the ward, what is right for the city at large," she said.

"I think to build a great city, we have to be able to work with everybody, and I really, really think everybody has common values, at some point."

Elmwood-East Kildonan has in the past elected councillors with political affiliations. Schreyer, who served from 2014 until his death, was affiliated with the New Democrats and the labour movement. His predecessor Thomas Steen, who served a single term from 2010 to 2014, was a nominal conservative who voted alongside former mayor Sam Katz.

Prior to Steen, the ward was represented for 21 years by Lillian Thomas, who was affiliated with the NDP. 

For now, Durand-Wood is the only registered candidate in the Elmwood-East Kildonan byelection.

In a Facebook post on June 27, the Winnipeg Labour Council said it has endorsed Carmen Prefontaine, a vice-president with the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Manitoba, but she has not yet registered for the byelection in the vacant ward.

The deadline to register and submit nomination papers is Sept. 19. The byelection is slated for Oct. 25.