From outsider to incumbent: Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman prepares for his political pivot
Winnipeg's mayor ran for office as an agent of change. The time will soon come to change that tune
Some time over the next few months, Brian Bowman is expected to attempt one of the more delicate manoeuvres in politics — the precarious pivot from self-identifying as an outsider and an agent of change to exuding the confidence of an incumbent who offers some form of stability.
This pivot may occur as early as March 23, when the mayor is scheduled to deliver his 2018 state of the city address to a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce audience.
It's more likely to occur around the beginning of May, when would-be mayoral candidates are eligible to register to run in the Oct. 24 election.
The pivot will not occur any later than September, when mayoral candidates must submit their nomination papers.
But at some point in the coming year, Brian Bowman will be forced to abandon any remaining pretense he's the new kid on the block at city hall, here to clean up the mess left behind by a scandal-plagued Sam Katz administration, and build a case he deserves to be awarded a second term as Winnipeg's mayor.
Ticking promises off his list
Over the past few months, Bowman has laid the groundwork for the change by checking off as many of his 2014 election-campaign promises and state-of-the-city pledges as he could.
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The downtown dog park that initially drew snickers from opponents has been completed on Assiniboine Avenue. Up to $3.5 million has been earmarked toward improvements at Portage and Main, as a prelude to reopening the intersection to pedestrians at some point in the future.
And new vehicle-for-hire companies such as Uber and Lyft are coming to Winnipeg as soon as March 1, mainly because new provincial legislation is supported by this mayor.
"I've never felt more energized about this role as I have over the last year," Bowman said the week before Christmas in an interview in his office, claiming his city council is accomplishing more on the policy front than the Katz administration.
"We've been really busy, we've been working very hard and I've been energized by that."
A tale of two Brians
If that is the case, then announcing a re-election run ought to be a slam dunk. On Broadway, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has already signalled he'll place his name on the provincial ballot again in 2020 — and he's not even halfway through his first term.
Bowman conceded he can't explain why he doesn't get the re-election question out of the way and simply declare his 2018 candidacy right now.
"That's a great question I can't answer right now. I'm having fun. I'm working really hard and we're delivering results for Winnipeggers," he said.
The most significant of the results cited by mayor was the negotiated settlement this year of collective bargaining agreements with three of the city's largest unions: the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500, the Winnipeg Police Association and the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg.
This trio of deals helped Winnipeg dramatically slow the growth of spending next year.
"We worked really hard to contain our costs," Bowman said. "We could have borrowed more. We could have increased taxes. We could have found ways to spend more many and typically that's what you do going into an election year."
Bowman is also eager to remind Winnipeggers the city plans to spend a record $116 million on road renewals in 2018. But overall spending on infrastructure renewal is going down dramatically, from $318 million this year to $246 million in 2018, with less actual cash and more borrowing devoted to the job.
'Putting a squeeze on Winnipeg'
The mayor noted flat provincial funding has given the city no choice but to limit its spending and make unpopular choices to raise hourly parking rates and Winnipeg Transit fares.
"The new fiscal reality that we face in the province is putting a squeeze on Winnipeg and Winnipeg taxpayers, no doubt," Bowman said.
Throughout the year, Bowman has made increasingly critical statements about the Progressive Conservative government. The mayor first began lamenting provincial funding decisions in May. That criticism intensified this fall after the mayor blamed the province for saddling Winnipeg with a higher share of both Winnipeg Transit and ambulance costs.
This led Pallister to revert to an old Gary Doer talking point: The City of Winnipeg already enjoys a generous provincial funding package.
"I give the City of Winnipeg hundreds of millions of dollars in reassurance every year. The City of Winnipeg has the sweetest deal in Canada. They have virtually no strings," Pallister said on Dec. 14. "I expect them to find savings."
Bowman, however, denies the cracks in his relationship with the premier are widening.
"There's always going to be healthy debate and dialogue between different levels of government. What I've tried to do is be as collaborative as possible. It doesn't mean we're going to agree on everything. But let's keep the lines of communications open," the mayor said.
The mayor and his critics
The mayor is more candid about the increasingly fractious relationship between his de facto governing party at city hall — the so-called "EPC + 2" — and council's unofficial council opposition.
Couns. Russ Wyatt (Transcona), Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan), Shawn Dobson (St. Charles), Jason Schreyer (Elmwood-East Kildonan), Ross Eadie (Mynarski) and Janice Lukes (South Winnipeg-St. Norbert) often oppose the mayor and his allies on contentious issues, while council speaker Devi Sharma (Old Kildonan) can no longer be counted on to back the mayor on every vote.
While the majority-opposition dynamic is no different than what transpired during the Katz administration, Bowman is eager to characterize the split as a recent phenomenon.
"We know we're going into an election year, so I don't think we should be surprised there may be some members of council who want to get some headlines or are doing what they can to get into the news," Bowman said.
The two towers at city hall
For their part, the opposition councillors claim they've been deprived of information by not the just the mayor's office, but Winnipeg's embattled chief administrative officer, Doug McNeil.
Wyatt has called on McNeil to be dismissed on more than one occasion, while Lukes has stated repeatedly she no longer has confidence in the CAO.
McNeil's handling of the Sterling Lyon Parkway extension — a once-obscure file that emerged this fall as one of the mayor's main sources of political exposure — has forced Bowman to not just defend the city's top bureaucrat, but portray the CAO's struggles as pushback from a stubborn public service.
"He knew coming in here his job was to effect some positive change, and he's doing that," Bowman said of McNeil, who has been accused by Lukes and former Winnipeg public works director Lester Deane of not doing enough to stand up for public servants.
The allegation is McNeil is too beholden to the mayor's office.
Bowman has rejected the notion his office is exerting undue influence. He said there is always dialogue between elected officials and senior administrators.
Whenever openness comes up in conversation, Bowman recites a laundry list of new measures intended to improve transparency at the City of Winnipeg, such as the establishment of an integrity commissioner, the live-streaming of council committee meetings and the creation of a voluntary lobbyist registry.
In 2014, Bowman ran for office on the premise he would come into city hall and change the municipal culture for the better. He has several more months to make the case he has in fact made this change, before turning around and urging voters to stick with the same name on the ballot.
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