LETT
New ideas will be fruitful by trimming costs across the board, increasing efficiency, selling naming rights and — one of Woodstock's greatest hits — eliminating all consultants' contracts. This is a classic case of paying for dollars in savings that might produce pennies.
It's not surprising the best-of-the-rest come from Kevin Klein, who served on council and spent a brief time in the provincial government. But even then, his math is vague and wobbly.
For example, Klein wants to expand the Alternative Response to Citizens in Crisis program, which pairs medical professionals with police officers. That's a good idea, but he has no idea how to pay for it. (And his website refers to the program as ARCH, when it is really ARCC.)
Klein also wants to deploy nine "advanced care paramedic" SUVs that will respond to the vast majority of wellness checks and low-acuity medical calls. This, Klein argues, will end the practice of dispatching a truck and entire firefighter-paramedic crew, which is costly and cumbersome.
Those are potentially solid ideas, but they fall apart in two major ways. First, the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg union does not want to stop dispatching firefighters to medical calls. As a result, Klein has just lost the UFFW's support.
Second, he rather casually suggests the province will pay for the advanced paramedicine vehicles and increase in ARCC staff. No one can say that wouldn't or couldn't happen, but it's unlikely, given the fact the NDP is fighting its own battle to control costs.
Polling has shown that Gillingham, not surprisingly, is out in front among committed voters. And turnout in municipal elections is so tragically low, it's hard for other candidates to engineer an upset.
Klein likely had the best chance to make this a legitimate two-horse race, but he made a couple of tragic mistakes. He entered very late, and he got into a mudslinging competition with another candidate for reasons that no one can explain.
Voters may not like Gillingham, and may curse the fact that there aren't more legitimate candidates, but if more people turned out to vote, then this would be a better race.
As it is, the people who don't vote will end up getting the mayor they deserve. Even if it's by default.