http://mytoba.ca/news/winnipeg-has-had-a-good-run-so-what-now/
SCOTT TAYLOR, MyToba.ca
I’m lucky. Every morning, as I head to my office, I get to drive over the Provencher Bridge past the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. As I come down the slope, off the bridge toward Shaw Park, I see one of the most beautiful cityscapes in the country.
I’m proud to be a Winnipegger. I live in a marvelous city. Sure, it’s an island on the prairie and winter is a nasty eight-month *****, but I’ve been in a lot of other places in nearly seven decades and I can’t think of a better spot in the world to live between June 1 and Sept. 30.
Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Then again, I have a long, clear memory. I remember vividly when that drive over the Provencher Bridge was a civic embarrassment. I remember that in the place where the ballpark stands today was a mud field with nothing but a dead hydro substation and broken wine bottles. I remember when the Waterfront wasn’t even fit for the winos. I remember when The Forks was a nice idea.
Yeah, I remember when Main Street was a joke. I remember when our old football stadium was in such disrepair that the Football Club couldn’t improve the concessions for fear that pigeons would drop their business cards on the food. I remember when the Jets left town.
I remember when our old mayor, Bill Norrie, wouldn’t lift a finger to improve the city (unless you call a four-block rectangular brick mausoleum on Portage Avenue the future of architecture). I remember when his successor Susan Thompson did everything humanly possible to kill the construction of the ballpark in order to build an aquarium. I remember when we didn’t have an IKEA and most international businesses didn’t even know we existed.
I remember when Winnipeg was a one-horse dump of a town and most citizens had completely given up. It wasn’t that long ago.
But we’ve had a great decade. The new football stadium at the University of Manitoba is praised nationally. The Jets are back and as a result we’re perceived as a big part of our own nation again (and yes, perception is reality). The gentrification of the Waterfront has turned a growing part of our riverfront from slum to sensational. The CMHR, despite all its critics and all its faults, will eventually become the international shrine the Asper Family so desperately wants it to be. I have faith that eventually, someone will get it right. The Provencher Bridge itself has become a symbol for a can-do attitude that appears to have slowly, but surely, started to inhabit the hearts of our community.
Sure, we still have warts. All cities do. It’s just that since 1999, when the ballpark was built and that mud field strewn with broken bottles was turned into a place for people to gather outside in the summer, we seem to have fewer warts.
And that’s why I wonder about this month’s mayoral election. We have done so well for so long that something tells me we’ve decided we don’t have the jam to keep it up. At least, not at the pace we’re going. That little clown car that keeps spitting out mayoral candidates with nothing new to discuss worries me.
Since the day Mayor Sam Katz was elected, our mainstream media did everything possible to run him out of office. The Free Press and CBC reverted to little more than pure vitriol to chase Winnipeg’s first Jewish mayor from City Hall and they succeeded. Bully for them.
Despite all the good that has taken place in the last decade, the personal attacks on Katz just became more than anyone should be forced to bear. It made me understand why previous mayors had done everything possible to make NOTHING happen. They knew that when things happen, there will be critics and no mayor in Winnipeg’s history had more critics than Katz. Unless, maybe, it was Steve Juba.
So now, based on the alleged polls, we’re going to get Judy Wasylycia-Leis as our next mayor, a career NDP politician and pensioner who will, no doubt, be the puppet of the provincial NDP government. It’s kind of incredible, but while I’ve paid attention to the mayor’s race, I haven’t heard one person tell me how he or she is going to continue to make Winnipeg a vibrant, healthy, progressive city. Fact is, this bunch hasn’t even had the heart to give us the same old, same old speech.
Gord Steeves wants to revisit photo radar and I’m down with that. Photo radar does nothing to improve driving in the city or make us safer, it just steals our money. It’s nothing more than another tax. After that, Gord’s going to fix infrastructure and try to get Grand Forks residents to visit Winnipeg. Sure, why not?
Brian Bowman has a nice smile and wants a chunk of the provincial government’s disgraceful 8% PST. Can’t argue with that one.
Robert-Falcon Ouelette seems to like light rail. I think we all do, but who’s going to pay for it? Well, we are, I suppose. Seems everyone but Steeves and Bowman wants to raise taxes immediately.
It appears that if Judy wins, there will be no one left at City Hall to fight the province on behalf of Winnipeg anymore and our taxes will rise in a frightening way. That makes me kind of sad. But hey, we’ve had a great run.
As I drive across the Provencher Bridge every morning and I see what a beautiful city this has become, I get goose bumps. I see those David Neufeld-camera shots from centrefield at the ballpark on Shaw TV and it makes me smile. I see Investors Group Field on TSN and the CMHR on CTV National and it makes me proud.
Winnipeg has, over the last decade, become a terrific city with a great future. I just hope the outcome of this month’s election doesn’t end all of that.
Pity anybody forced to run behind the likes of Dan Gyetvai, Moe Elewonibi (in that stage of his career anyway), Mudge from 2004 on, and Benidict Ibisi. Charlie deserves badges of honour for doing that. Someone mentioned earlier RBs who can take a 3 yard loss and turn it into a 3 yard gain. In my time (1980-present) I've never seen anyone work more such miracles than ol' Charlie...