St. Vital ward candidate Q&As

What would you do to make transit service in Winnipeg more functional, reliable and safe for its users? What plans do you have, if any, to reduce car dependency in the city?

Council and the Mayor need to have more hands on abilities in how transit management manages transit!  Unions in transit also need to start working for the public their members serve!

Transit also needs improved funding models to ensure they are staffed at their capacity to get buses out on the road. Less office staff and management and more public facing service providers! Time to trim the fat at transit! We also need to expedite the addition of bike lanes. We need to create a scrap metal bylaw that prevents bike thief’s from profiting off stolen goods, no bikes should be permitted at scrap metal business. We also need to have a city run bike valet at all major shopping, medical and sports facilities.

What do you think the city should be doing to ease the housing and homelessness crisis? What specifically would you change about the city’s current approaches?

The city should prevent developers from going back on their plans for affordable units in their buildings. We see it time and time again, they claim to meet ratios to get the builds going then turn their backs on Winnipeggers who were looking forward to new housing options.

It’s time for the city to work for the people and. It the developers.

Public disorder has become a major concern among surveyed voters. How should the city best deal with it? The police budget is a major expense for the city, are people getting value for money?

I have personally witnessed the decline of Winnipeg and it began when the PC government fired nurses and cut important funding to front line supports.. We need to cut funding from the Winnipeg police and have them centralize from a single location with mobile trailers in high need areas.

We are not getting the value for our money and in fact the police have killed more civilians since 2014 than ever in Winnipeg’s history.

While poverty and addictions are largely another government’s responsibility, are there ways that you see that the City of Winnipeg could be doing more to solve these ?

The city needs to work with First Nation communities and other municipalities where people have moved to Winnipeg from, to look for support for their band members. This is a Canada wide problem and should not be on the shoulders of municipalities alone.

the city needs to go after shady landlords and cap rents for a decade until we see a stabilization. We also need to have employment programs for folks to be able to work in some capacity to earn some extra money. I think entrepreneurship programs might help. We need to lobby the upper levels of government for medically and controlled prescribed clean drugs, to eliminate the problems we see today.

Voters are concerned about the rising cost of living and affordability. What do you see are ways the City of Winnipeg could make life less expensive for residents?

Mayor Scott Gillingham destroyed faith in Winnipeg landowners when he inflated the taxes while services became worse and he played with our money for pet projects. We cannot have flighty governance and bandaid solutions. We need real long-term planning with a holistic view on healing our city. Free bus until they figure out the transit issues. Free 2-hour parking for people who go to their doctors downtown.

Free parking outside of hospitals.

Promote community garden and urban orchards to have food sovereignty.