MITIGATION TRUMPS INSPIRATION FOR MANY VOTERS THIS FALL
REBECCA CHAMBERS
BY the time I next write in this paper, it will be Halloween morning and much will have changed. We will know the results of the civic election. We will also know the outcome of the Alberta (pre)separation vote.
Like many of us, I've been following these issues in tandem through our paper and via other sources, and it's left me feeling rather uninspired about our collective future. We seem to be in damage-control mode, which leaves us with very little to look forward to.
In Alberta, the sentiment seems to be "things have gone too far" and need to be stopped. Just what those things are varies from person to person, and their degree of factuality seems to fluctuate as well. Generally, it's that external forces are no longer acting in our best interest, and must be stopped. That's where the vision ends, though, and we're becoming nearsighted (or even entirely blind) to possibilities for the future; for considerations of what we want our lives to be like a generation or more from now.
Here in Winnipeg, apparently, we're still excited about widening Kenaston Boulevard — a promise made four years ago by a mayor who hasn't delivered on it anyway. His most-recent announcement pledged improvements to communication with citizens from our 311 service, so we'd get notifications in real time regarding the status of our various complaints and issues with how the city is run in the first place.
Oh, goody. So inspiring. This means instead of having to phone or log into the city website to see why I still don't have a replacement garbage bin six weeks after I asked for one, I'll get an automated text that says the same thing. In my case, that message was, "Just wait longer." All this while the mayor brags about our top ranking when it comes to lowest property taxes of any major city in Canada. We get what we pay for, and it isn't worth the bragging rights.
And in the other mayoral candidate corner we have Kevin Klein and Mike Vogiatzakis publicly competing over who has the least professional integrity and the most questionable friends by accusing one another of offering or fielding bribes tied to their positions, then pointing fingers and shouting "pants on fire!" at the other.
The rest of the candidates for mayor are a collection of perennial oddballs and hopeful upstarts who do not have the same resources or reach as these front-runners, to the detriment of all of us hoping to mark an informed ballot.
In the meantime, citizens are expected to vote with pride and conviction, but it's hard to know just what we're supposed to be anticipating with our vote. What great promise lies before us? What transformational leadership? What, beyond "stopping the bad stuff," can we look forward to? What will flood into the space opened up by solving some of our problems?
These are the realities springing up to blur any coherent vision for our city. While they may not entirely impede effective civic leadership, it makes for a place where forward-thinking strategies simply can't take root.
We aren't in a financial position to have a Zohran Mamdani-like candidate waltz into city hall and start doing things that make sense for our well-being. But surely we citizens are entitled to a glimpse into what mayoral hopefuls think a thriving Winnipeg looks like? And not just for areas south of the CP rail yards, but for citizens in all walks of life across the city.
Bragging about low property taxes is, as the young folks say, "not the flex you think it is," when the city's physical and social infrastructure rots away. The Arlington Bridge is now dismembered with no plans for a replacement. The Louise Bridge, brave but also exhausted, trembles under the strain of connecting the city for a staggering 115 years, again with no forward-thinking plan in place. City pools and recreation centres continue to close, and even be put up for sale. The thin threads of the transit system that tenuously tied our city together have been stretched and frayed with the network overhaul, and open drug use outside of schools is just another day in the 'Peg.
This apathetic lack of vision and an emphasis solely on damage control is a troubling trend across politics right now, and Winnipeggers deserve better.