The Manitoba Provincial Politics Discussion

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by thurmas

With the mayoral candidates likely being Gillingham, Klein and Chambers they are all rather bland milk toast candidates that I am not sure would bring any real change to city hall. I would likely support Gillingham at this point but I am open to changing my mind if someone offers a more compelling vision.

Gillingham and Chambers will be Bowman 2.0, so don't expect anything significantly different. Gillingham is a bit more of a fiscal conservative than Bowman, so expect further cuts to most municipal departments in order to maintain record police and pothole-filling budgets. Chambers might be slightly more progressive, but hasn't done anything to reign in police spending while on the board, so I doubt much progress would be made on that front either.

Klein's an overly conservative populist who is looking to make drastic and poorly thought out change for changes' sake, with little understanding about how government works at all. He's a classic "government should be run like a business" conman, which is doublespeak for cutting taxes and services to make life easier for the supposedly forgotten-about upper class citizens, medium sized, and large sized business in a city that already has the lowest average property taxes in the country, and among the smallest share of non-residential properties contributing to overall tax revenues.

There are currently no visionaries running for Mayor this year, and quite frankly, I don't blame any one of them for not being interested. Local voters lack a desire for positive change and instead prefer the status quo of keeping taxes low to fix roads and pay police officers large sums of tax dollars so they can afford to buy oversized homes in East Saint Paul while standing by and doing nothing as truck drivers park semis in the middle of our city. Hard to have a progressive agenda that addresses real social and infrastructure issues when voters will never vote for it, and the money doesn't exist under the current municipal taxation regime.

[bomberjet]

What can be done about the police union, and lesser extent, fire union? Those are the 2 most costly things Winnipeg pays for. Same with most other cities. But seems per capita Winnipeg mays much more.

Bust the union? Make and actual effort during negotiations? Put a meaningful effort into public consultations on the budgets?

I would vote for a mayor who has these items as priority #1. The other things we want will come once those costs come down.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Gillingham and Chambers will be Bowman 2.0, so don't expect anything significantly different. Gillingham is a bit more of a fiscal conservative than Bowman, so expect further cuts to most municipal departments in order to maintain record police and pothole-filling budgets. Chambers might be slightly more progressive, but hasn't done anything to reign in police spending while on the board, so I doubt much progress would be made on that front either.

Klein's an overly conservative populist who is looking to make drastic and poorly thought out change for changes' sake, with little understanding about how government works at all. He's a classic "government should be run like a business" conman, which is doublespeak for cutting taxes and services to make life easier for the supposedly forgotten-about upper class citizens, medium sized, and large sized business in a city that already has the lowest average property taxes in the country, and among the smallest share of non-residential properties contributing to overall tax revenues.

There are currently no visionaries running for Mayor this year, and quite frankly, I don't blame any one of them for not being interested. Local voters lack a desire for positive change and instead prefer the status quo of keeping taxes low to fix roads and pay police officers large sums of tax dollars so they can afford to buy oversized homes in East Saint Paul while standing by and doing nothing as truck drivers park semis in the middle of our city. Hard to have a progressive agenda that addresses real social and infrastructure issues when voters will never vote for it, and the money doesn't exist under the current municipal taxation regime.

There's no point in being a visionary mayor in a city where the mayor is elected in a strong fashion but simply functions as a vote on council with some control over the agenda. It's a similar issue in all Manitoba cities and RM's.

Until that changes we'll have garbage going into and coming out of City Hall. We've designed a perfect system to ensure gridlock and remaining decades behind the issues affecting our cities, tax problems or not.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

What can be done about the police union, and lesser extent, fire union? Those are the 2 most costly things Winnipeg pays for. Same with most other cities. But seems per capita Winnipeg mays much more.

Bust the union? Make and actual effort during negotiations? Put a meaningful effort into public consultations on the budgets?

I would vote for a mayor who has these items as priority #1. The other things we want will come once those costs come down.

Police have an Association, Union are the people they ensure remain in order.

We need a legitimate Police Board. We need a legitimate Policing budget. For this budget year Smyth went away with the number and then came back still in the high six figures above that number. The Police Board in that case needs to act as any other part of the Public Service would get, insist the budget is done properly or that manager is terminated. Instead they accepted the budget starting almost a million in the red.

Moving forward the top cop obviously can't handle the responsibility for the business (in the sense of managing budgets not profit) of policing. We need way more civilian oversight as we have on any other part of government. Professional managers run hospitals and all departments you can imagine. Why do we pull a cop off the street to manage one of the largest budgets with god knows what influence from his peers?

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

Police have an Association, Union are the people they ensure remain in order.

We need a legitimate Police Board. We need a legitimate Policing budget. For this budget year Smyth went away with the number and then came back still in the high six figures above that number. The Police Board in that case needs to act as any other part of the Public Service would get, insist the budget is done properly or that manager is terminated. Instead they accepted the budget starting almost a million in the red.

Moving forward the top cop obviously can't handle the responsibility for the business (in the sense of managing budgets not profit) of policing. We need way more civilian oversight as we have on any other part of government. Professional managers run hospitals and all departments you can imagine. Why do we pull a cop off the street to manage one of the largest budgets with god knows what influence from his peers?

Good points!

[bomberjet]

Whatever the hell it is, it needs to be fixed.

Edmonton is in a similar position. Currently the police in Edmonton are barring any media who ask them hard questions. They have no formal process or restrictions and can basically do whatever they want. The Police police themselves with little repercussion.

There needs to be an overhaul of policing. I am not against police by any means. But they need to be under control just like everything else. Fear mongering the budget and their wages is bullshit and we need to stop it.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Whatever the hell it is, it needs to be fixed.

Edmonton is in a similar position. Currently the police in Edmonton are barring any media who ask them hard questions. They have no formal process or restrictions and can basically do whatever they want. The Police police themselves with little repercussion.

There needs to be an overhaul of policing. I am not against police by any means. But they need to be under control just like everything else. Fear mongering the budget and their wages is bullshit and we need to stop it.

Both the WPS and WFPS seem to have a lot of money for TV and radio ads constantly promoting their cause!

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

Both the WPS and WFPS seem to have a lot of money for TV and radio ads constantly promoting their cause!

To be fair it is not the WPS and WFPS that put out those ads but generally the Unions that represent their members.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by dmacc

To be fair it is not the WPS and WFPS that put out those ads but generally the Unions that represent their members.

My bad, meant to add membership who all pay union dues which in turn are used for self promotion of their cause, get more money for their members at the expense of us taxpayers! Average firefighter is making over $100K and cops over $120K with lots making a much more! The cost of living here is low and salaries of both groups are way out of line!

[djforsberg]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

My bad, meant to add membership who all pay union dues which in turn are used for self promotion of their cause, get more money for their members at the expense of us taxpayers! Average firefighter is making over $100K and cops over $120K with lots making a much more! The cost of living here is low and salaries of both groups are way out of line!

Well, at least firefighters save lives and are on the scene of emergency calls before even paramedics often. The fact police officers make more money than nurses even is ridiculous. Police officer isn’t even in the top 10 of most dangerous jobs btw. One has a higher chance of being killed by a cop than the other way around, for example.

[P&M40BELOW]

I will vote for whomever says that they will clean up downtown. More foot patrols and permanently remove the campers out of the bus shelters. If real shelters are needed for the disadvantaged and homeless then they need to be built. However ignoring the drug addicted camping out all year in the bus shelters, just makes our city look like the people in charge don’t care. The worst example is when you routinely see barricaded bus shelters and elderly or young people standing outside in the cold waiting for a bus. Change needs to happen.

[Phil's neighbour]

Originally Posted by P&M40BELOW

I will vote for whomever says that they will clean up downtown. More foot patrols and permanently remove the campers out of the bus shelters. If real shelters are needed for the disadvantaged and homeless then they need to be built. However ignoring the drug addicted camping out all year in the bus shelters, just makes our city look like the people in charge don’t care. The worst example is when you routinely see barricaded bus shelters and elderly or young people standing outside in the cold waiting for a bus. Change needs to happen.

Something needs to be done. Went sofa shopping at Princess and McDermott a few days ago. The wall all the way along 100 Princess is lined with turds. And not dog turds. Must be quite the view of the open air bathroom through those lovely picture windows in the new condo development on the other side of the street.

[Labroco]

Glen Murray for Mayor!

Period!

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by Labroco

Glen Murray for Mayor!

Period!

Amen!

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

My bad, meant to add membership who all pay union dues which in turn are used for self promotion of their cause, get more money for their members at the expense of us taxpayers! Average firefighter is making over $100K and cops over $120K with lots making a much more! The cost of living here is low and salaries of both groups are way out of line!

I agree with you that the salaries are out of touch with where they should be. I don't blame the unions for this, as they are doing exactly what they are paid to do.

The organizations have not taken a harder line to curb the increase in wages. the heads of both WPS and WFPS are really to blame, as it was their job to be the opposing side.

[bomberjet]

The unions are doing a great job for their members for sure. The problem is as was mentioned the opposing side doing a terrible job for the taxpayers.

The Police union though is regularly pulling out the fear card when they get pressed. Keep throwing money at a problem that doesn't ever go away. Maybe the entire process needs a re-think.

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by Jammon

Switch of topic, but I had a pull a current population figure for the province and I went to the statcan population clock. It's the first time in the long time that I noticed that we are actually losing more people than gaining. Usually immigration offsets interprovincial migration, but I was struck at how many people we lost just over a 5 day period- 1,292,258 --> 1,292,218. It's only 40 people in that 5 day period, but I'm really sensing this is a trend. People want out of Manitoba. Is this a leadership issue and lack of direction/vision for the province, or is the draw of the west that great?

I think that clock has to be taken with a grain of salt. Today the population is at 1,392,162. That clock is likely not tied to actual information but based on averages of each input and validated every so often.

[bomberjet]

There is basically no way to tell what the actual population is beyond the census every 5 years. And that's a pretty close number at a single point in time. People don't call the government and say hey I'm moving to BC today.

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by dmacc

I think that clock has to be taken with a grain of salt. Today the population is at 1,392,162. That clock is likely not tied to actual information but based on averages of each input and validated every so often.

Yeah, its recalibrated quarterly to align to more robust population estimates, which is what happened here I'm guessing. Between the quarterly updates it's just using averages over the past year and spreading those out over time to mimic a "realistic" view of how populations change. It's not like when it shows a birth or migrant, those events actually happened. Just on average you would expect one about then.

[thebasketballgeek]

What's weird is that despite this supposed population loss there are still 8,000 units currently under construction (Winnipeg accounting for 86% of new units with 6,855). I wonder if that will cool down the housing market.