Gillingham is Winnipeg’s next mayor
Gillingham #Gillingham
Scott Gillingham will be swapping chairs at Winnipeg city hall as the former St. James councillor won the mayoral election with 27.46% of the vote Wednesday night.
Depending on what television station you were watching, it might have been tough to discern who actually won. However, Gillingham earned the right to the mayor’s office collecting 53,663 votes.
“What a night. Thank you for everybody for proving that hard work, focus and dedication pays off,” Gillingham told supporters gathered at the Clarion Hotel on Portage Avenue.
Gillingham acknowledged the other candidates and thanked them for an “outstanding” campaign that gave Winnipeggers a lot of choice. He said that he launched the campaign focused on Winnipeg’s motto “One with the Strength of Many.”
“I recognize tonight that the votes were very split,” Gillingham said. “This was an extremely close race. My campaign motto has been ‘Uniting to Build a Stronger Winnipeg’ and it will be my goal to make every effort in the coming months and years of this term to work together so we can build a stronger, brighter city.”
Gillingham supporters cheered every time results came up on the TV showing him leading. They even booed and grumbled when CTV erroneously declared Murray the winner early only to show Gillingham leading moments later.
Among those who Gillingham thanked was his 90-year-old grandfather, “who was still building signs in his garage.”
Over at Murray’s campaign headquarters at the Fort Garry Hotel, it was a roller coaster of emotions.
When CTV News declared Murray the winner with 812 votes separating Murray and Gillingham just before 9 p.m. Cheers erupted at the at the site of the broadcast.
“For a few moments there we knew what it was like to win,” Murray told the room after being greeted to supporters singing “Happy Birthday.”
CTV later retracted its projection.
With 170 polls reporting, the race got even closer as Gillingham closed the gap to 138 votes. Gillingham jumped into the lead with just over 204 polls reporting yet the crowd at the Fort Garry seemed oblivious to it.
As the news spread across the room the mood quickly dampened and by 9:15 p.m., it was much quieter as drinks were sipped solemnly waiting for Murray to arrive.
When speaking to reporters, Murray says he plans to stay in Winnipeg “for the rest of his life.” He also commended his campaign staff and was proud of how diverse they were. The former mayor was hesitant to say whether he would run for office again.
“I want to reflect a lot on this experience, politics has changed,” he told reporters. “The rules around politics are changed changing.
We live in a dynamic that is much harder on an individual, you are much more vulnerable as a public person. There’s a lot more complexity to it. And I really want to reflect on my quality of life at this point in my life.”
With a wide-open mayoral field there were 11 candidates Winnipeggers could vote for. However, as the night wore on it became clear that it was a two-horse race between Murray and Gillingham. With just over 100 polls reporting the pair of candidates appeared to separate themselves from the pack. Shaun Loney and Kevin Klein found themselves battling for third.
It’s a result that University of Winnipeg associate professor of political science Aaron Moore says he is not surprised about. Moore said that it became apparent in the last few weeks that it was a two-horse race between Gillingham and Murray. He was surprised that Klein didn’t fare better than the 14.78% of votes he got.
“I think what we saw at the polls that Glen Murray was winning but lacked momentum,” Moore said.
Murray was the perceived front runner, leading in opinion polls leading up to the election. However a CBC News investigation alleging Murray of harassment and other things during his time at the Pembina Institute. Moore said that may have affected Murray’s second-place result on Wednesday but it’s hard to tell.
“A lot of people seemed to either really like Glenn Murray, or they really disliked him,” Moore said. “I’m sure there’s some people that were initially going to vote for [Murray] and read about these allegations and decided not to.”
Gillingham’s big campaign promise was to widen Kenaston Boulevard and extend Chief Peguis Trail to Route 90. He also has pledged a 3.5% increase to property taxes dedicated to increasing transit and transportation and neighbourhood recreation projects. He also plans to bring in an increase of $1.50 to the frontage levy to help pay for his promises.
“If [Gillingham] is successful increasing the property taxes, people are going to expect results,” Moore said. “And it may not be reasonable to expect those in four years. But I suspect that’s what people will be looking for.”
Gillingham had the support of council colleagues Markus Chambers (St. Norbert-Seine River), Janice Lukes (Waverley West) and Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan). The latter two were able to hold their seats on council while Chambers was acclaimed. A good working relationship with council is something Gillingham has going for him, Moore said.
Klein finished in third with 28,806 votes with Loney not far behind in fourth garnering 28,567 votes. Former Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellete finished fifth with 15,029 votes, 2018 runner-up Jenny Motkaluk in sixth with 7,443 votes, with former Rana Bokhari, Rick Shone, Don Woodstock, Idris Adelakun and Chris Clacio rounding out the rest.
Winnipeg has its first new mayor since 2014 after outgoing mayor Brian Bowman announced he was not seeking re-election.
-with files from Glen Dawkins
Idris Adelakun – 0.65%
Rana Bokhari – 3.03%
Chris Clacio – 0.23%
Scott Gillingham – 27.54%
Kevin Klein – 14.78%
Shaun Loney – 14.66%
Jenny Motkaluk – 3.82%
Glen Murray – 25.29%
Robert-Falcon Ouellette – 7.71%
Rick Shone – 1.32%
Don Woodstock – 0.97%