Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 21, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba A4 o saturday free press i o october 1995 choosing a mayor Susan Thompson was elected three years ago promis ing to hold the line on promote Job creation and change the Way City Hall does Thompson has done As much As any mayor could to keep her thanks in part to her average property tax increases Over the last three years were the lowest in a the process of overhauling City government has begun and the City is becoming More aggressive in attracting she seeks another term in office to continue push ing for the kinds of changes that Are needed at City Hall if Winnipeg is to Prosper in the years to Winnipeg Gers should Grant her request wednesday and provide her with a Man Date Large enough to ensure that everyone understands that she enjoys the support of a majority of the cites Resi Thompsons two main Peter editorials Freedom of Trade h Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights Brian Cole 6977044 Kaufmann from the right and Terry Duguid from the have shown they Are Worth considering for the cites top both men have a Good understanding of the but of the Duguid has to be considered the better can primarily because of his excellent work on Council Over the last several but while both men have their Strong neither of them have demonstrated they could do a better Job than the woman who is now Thompsons greatest of is her dedication to hard work and enthusiasm for the City she seeks to she brings an positive approach to a Job to a Large is All about shaking hands and promoting the City outside the province As a Good place to live and do but she also has a Good grasp of the issues of the Day and the challenges that lie she has demonstrated that she is Tough enough to handle the rough and Tumble of civic while still being Able to build the political coalition required to get things done at City the last three years have not been easy ones for she has made mistakes and her opponents have publicly crucified her for but she deserves credit for recognizing the major issues of the Day and putting them on the Public More than anyone else during the last civic election Cam it was Thompson who understood the fiscal problems facing the City and had the courage to talk about the Tough decisions that had to be she still has her Eye on the fiscal issues the need to Cut make government More eliminate duplication and the to curtail exurban develop ment at the expense of the City tax in every her approaches Are reasonable and but she also has dedicated herself to dealing with other important particularly economic develop a citywide win for Thompson will give her a basis for seeking cooperation from All councillors to Advance her Agenda for and for in races for Council Winnipeg voters have a Chance to put valuable experience to work and leaven it with fresh acclamation of Harry Lazarenko in Mynarski Ward already ensures the presence of a Veteran politician who stoutly refuses to play the close door City Hall Bill returned by acclamation from Charle Woodfort gives the Council another Veter an perfectly capable of defying machine operations and judging issues on their Glen a hardworking District politician who also takes a close interest in citywide deserves reelection in fort his sympathy for intercity and left Wing causes provides a healthy counterweight to Clements suburban in North Terry dug ids retirement from the Council for a mayoral run has drawn former councillor Don Mitchelson and newcomer Mark Lubosch into the who wants the Council to forget big ticket capital projects and concentrate on improving existing offers an interesting infusion of new blood for the Mike Oshaughnessy old Kildonan disgraced himself at the Council meeting that approved funding for a new his disdain for thin ice spokesman Jim Silver and his shameless pandering to the gathered crowd were proof enough that Oshaughnessy has run out of it is time for someone else and John a win shows enough Promise to warrant the in the River Heights incumbent councillor Sandy Hyman is facing a serious Challenge from Garth other candidates in the race May split the vote enough to defeat though her performance on Council has not been there Are no compelling Rea sons to recommend Early Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Rudy Redekop publisher email hudyrei1tkop0lreepiess my Ca Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Calvin James Verne Sauchuk human fee source is Ephaim Majorki operations Perry Nixdorf advertising Glenn William finance 1995 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Council vol i Canada Pusi auth Menf no whom history hath joined a lifetime of studying Cana Dian history not to mention several careful readings of Willa gathers shadows on the Rock hardly prepares you for a first sighting of Quebec no human habitation in North America enjoys a More dramatic situation or Calls to mind More quickly the scenes of the we arrived in Champlain City on the Rock As the remains of Hurricane Opal drenched the streets with Tor rents of rain and thundered off the Metal rooftops of the old another tempest was blowing from another direction As Quebe cers debated the Wisdom of remaining a part of the Canadian but compared to Opal the political storm seemed curiously tame not exactly a but subdued in comparison to the Strug Gles of 15 years on the drive in from the Airport we noticed the oui and non posters lining the but during a week in Quebec it was difficult to sustain the feeling that we were in the mid dle of fifteen years ago you could feel that wave of nationalistic emotion even at the far end of the there was something almost operatic about the separatist movement this you get a vision of men in suits talk ing about the Bottom line and from time to in a simulated thank god we Are a people French and English speaking with a sense of even the separatists soon realized that Jacques Parizeau expressing outrage tends to resemble a deceived husband in a Boulevard farce by Fey Deau and they May soon recognize the Broad comic possibilities in the melodramatic histrionics of Lucien the Man who rented us a Comfort Able and commodious apartment across the Road from the Plains of Abraham let it be known Early on that he planned to vote yes to sep Christopher Dafoe but the heated discussions we anticipated never we soon discovered that when it came right Down to it our political views were not really that far both agreeing that the Canadian Pat terns of As planned by the fathers in Queen Victorias need to evolve considerably in order to successfully face the challenges of the 21st cheerful and Calm discussion revealed that misunderstanding and misconception Are responsible for Many of the divisions that exist Between the two founding language As we identified our Points of agreement and disagreement it became Clear that he was not a Vio Lent rebel Likely to take up arms against the government at Ottawa and that i was not one of those mythical westerners who begin each Day by throwing the Corn flakes with its French across the to be perfectly neither of us subscribe to those popular but there at first a kind of a feel ing that our views might be so far apart that it would be impossible to discuss the Case we assume that they must dislike us after didst we hear Parizeau say on television that we Delight in humiliating and Down grading Quebec didst he Tell que Beers that anglophones spit in the pea soup and mock their history the shyness did not we found that we were More alike than differ i sent my son to Quebec to learn he sent his daughter to sum Mer Camp to learn we had similar concerns about the future of the the survival of social and the threats to nation Al but we Are different he we eat and make love differently Here in my wife started to laugh and suddenly we All the chateau Frontenac is one of the historic beauties of saw the Absurdity and the comic possibilities of making love while stand ing on your head or while swinging from the chandelier and eating pea there were differences to be sure he is a product of a particular his tory in a particular part of North America but we Are not All that my after was born in and my grand mothers family came from the East Ern Many of his ancestors explored the West and Large numbers of them Are still living Here and speaking the French Lan his English is far better than my but beyond that our differences Are largely we Are both very he has visited France and found that three Cen Turies have made him a French speaking North american just As i had found that my which arrived in North America at the beginning of the eighteenth is similarly estranged from our shared history goes Back far beyond 1867 and we have an identity in common As across the Street the remains of Hurricane Opal scattered yellow and red leaves across the Plains of Abraham and on the television screen Lucien Bouchard mocked two centuries of shared out of the wind and two canadians with roots deep in the soil of North Amer Ica and a third who is Canadian by Choice through reason Able that the Gulf that appears to Divide us can be there Are Points of friction Between Quebec and the other provinces and they May always be there in some whatever the outcome of the it will always be a family our common history goes Back too far for anything Christopher Dafoe is editor of the his column appears on sat undecided wins the mayoral race my class at the University of Winnipeg is full of inquisitive senior 212 of them know every thing there is to throughout the dozen years the course has been i have asked them mischievous such As who ran for the american socialist party in the election of they rarely fail to come up with the right this is a group which holds Strong which is Why i was sur prised to learn this week that fully half of them have not yet decided who should be mayor of this indecision even after the three main contenders were on stage debating in our class two weeks their difficulty is our system of Independent Candi dates running for mayor reduces the race to a main course of sprinkled with a Soupcon of unlike provincial and Federal poli where a tradition is Well Stab listed and where track records in office give clues to future perform candidates for mayor have Only themselves to ill never forget the words of an elderly gentleman i met while campaigning in front of a Safeway store in Tuxedo during the provincial elec Tion Campaign of was running As a Liberal against incumbent tory Gary the Man was approached with the customary Campaign smile and he looked at me in a kindly saw the color of my patted me gently on the shoulder and said you seem like a Nice Young but my Grandfather voted for sir John my father for Bennett and i wont be voting for he shuffled off to resume his others told me their Granddaddy had voted for sir Wilfrid Laurier and they would be voting for me or their mothers had voted for Woodsworth by they vote for a Liberal if he was flesh and blood and smarter than in each there was a reference however dated it might have when you vote for a political party you vote for a a set of a slate of candidates and a when you vote for the mayor you vote for nothing that is one reason Why my senior students Are having such a Tough time making up their its no easier figuring out who to vote for at the local name recognition is mighty As any incumbent will Tell so important that rarely do they in the election of the election that was supposed to usher in a new Era of municipal politics in the election that outsider Susan Thompson Only three new faces appeared on some Broom some sweep How is the responsible voter sup posed to assess the candidates there Are some obvious ways Community profile in the neigh personal but even those things dont say much about what a person will do and say once promises dont mean much because a single councillor has very Little influence Over events at City if things dont work its somebody else a majority of have All the Power a Council can there is a Strong Case to be made for party politics at City not the kind that we have on Broadway or in but a Winnipeg version that arises from differing views on How the City should be a Leader running with candidates who share views would take much of the Guesswork out of municipal Vot a platform built at a Public meeting of the debated by members and then presented to the people at election time not Only gives the voter something coherent to but offers citizens something against which performance in office can be floating coalitions Are the Norm at City the or any other can carry the Day if enough votes can be cobbled Ogeth too those alliances Are dependent on personal relationships Between or even on such Flimsy ground As who is mad at the mayor that that is a poor Way of running a if the mayor has a majority of Council that could be relied upon to support the party there could be better More cer More less time wasted making deals with individual councillors and More Public account ability after decisions Are the current system puts too High a Premium on the cult of the Leader should be Only one Factor in assessing who is Best Able to gov Ern the organized political vying for Public attention and competing for Public support would put personality in its next but not above ideas and none of this needs a single Amend ment to the City of Winnipeg act or the Blessing of Gary Gary doer or Paul it just takes a group of people to Call a meeting to Start the Ball Jim can is a free press editorial his column appears on sat ;