Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 13, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 THURSDAY FEBRUARY 13, 2025 Ideas, Issues, Insights Why Winnipeg can’t be run as a business T HE recent city budget has ignited debate about spending, perceived waste and the city’s financial health. Some argue that Winnipeg should be run like a business, adjusting spending and increasing revenue to avoid finan- cial trouble. While this analogy holds some truth, it oversim- plifies the complexities of city governance and the fundamental differences between a business and a municipality. The core difference lies in their responsibili- ties. Businesses can close, scale back or take on debt. Cities, however, must provide essential ser- vices like garbage collection and snow removal even when they don’t produce revenue. They can’t simply shut down. While both can face financial difficulties, a bankrupt city continues to exist, albeit with severely compromised services. Cities operate more like non-profits, providing vital services like parks, libraries and transit, which a profit-driven business might deem discretionary. Per the provincial city charter, it’s illegal for Winnipeg to have an operating deficit. That means each year, Winnipeg must figure out how not to spend more in its operating budget than it has in revenue. When inflation (or tariffs) increases costs, the city must act immediately to rebalance the budget, and there are two ways to do this: raise taxes or cut funding to services. Of those two choices, Winnipeg has historically chosen to cut funding to services. This is demon- strated by the property tax freeze from 1998 to 2012, and below-inflation increases since. This is partly why we’re seeing pools close, bridges fail, infrastructure crumble and valuable community services scrapped. Increased taxes wouldn’t necessarily create a surplus either. The funds would be reinvested in services or allocated to future maintenance and capital projects. Furthermore, simply raising taxes while reducing services is politically unpop- ular. There have been calls at city hall delegations to cut more services, freeze city staff wages, and address perceived wasteful city spending, such as maintaining flower pots. While some of these cuts might help, residents rely on these services, and the city needs to offer competitive wages to at- tract talent. The amount of money this would save the city to put into other services is in the low millions, or less, of the $2.1-billion city budget. While that’s not insignificant, it’s not remotely enough to start tackling the root causes of Winni- peg’s financial issues. Debating about which services to cut is a symptom of a much larger problem Winnipeg faces: Winnipeg has more future liabilities than revenue. For example, back in 2018, the city released the “State of the Infrastructure Report,” which showed that Winnipeg had 7,335 kilometres of roads and bridges with a replacement cost of roughly $15 billion. We have more roads now than in 2018, and with inflation we can reasonably assume this figure is now over $20 billion. The city’s 2025 budget allocates $1 billion for road renewal over the next six years, with almost $170 million allocated for this year. However, given that the average lifespan of a road is around 25 years, and assuming the city needs to replace all its roads eventually, this funding level would require well over a century to achieve that goal. OK, great, we can find some services to cut to fund our roads, right? The problem is, if we want to replace every road when it’s needed, it would take over $600 million more per year than we are spending now. We could increase our taxes further, but raising our taxes by over 80 per cent isn’t viable. These calls for cuts are ignoring a crucial question: How much do we realistically need to pay for all of the services and infrastructure we already have? This is one reason why our streets are falling apart. We’ve simply built more than we can afford to replace with our tax base. This is just roads and bridges. What about water treatment plant upgrades, pools, libraries and combined sewer separation? If we’ve seen historic population growth, where’s the tax base to support our city? We’ve been trying the same things for decades, it’s getting worse, and it’s time we try something new by shifting our growth strategy. We need to ensure our tax base can support our future liabilities while providing stable city services. This can be achieved by reinvesting in our existing communities, efficiently using our existing infrastructure, land, and not building more before we can pay for it. This can effec - tively be achieved through modest density, infill and more efficient transportation options, such as public transit. Winnipeg doesn’t need people on council to run it like a business, but people who understand the complexities of what a city truly is and where real, impactful efficiencies can be realized, rath- er than focusing on flower pots. A business can focus on quarterly profits; a city must think in decades and take care of its residents with quality city services. Tyler Crichton is an enthusiastic advocate, who may or may not be (a little too) obsessed with Winnipeg. What’s Donald Trump got to do with it? EVERY day, we are greeted with a fresh contro- versy or another indignity. I don’t remember a time when life felt so unstable, so erratic. U.S. President Donald Trump is a human wrecking ball. And he’s not just America’s problem. Like many Canadians, I can’t seem to look away from American’s biggest reality show export: The Trump Show. Whenever I tune into a nightly news broadcast, I’m riveted. What’s Trump done now? I drag myself off to bed for yet another night of broken sleep. On bad nights, I’m up twice. I call it “Trumpsomnia.” It’s a scourge. On Feb. 1, henceforth known as Tariff Day, my spouse, Grant, and I travelled to nearby Saskatoon to celebrate my birthday. We split a Vietnamese hot plate at a cheap noodle house. It arrived in all its steaming glory, just as the 25 per cent tariff announcement Canadians had been bracing for dinged on my iPhone. We climbed into a cold car and drove the four blocks to the Cineplex in shock. A Complete Un- known couldn’t hold my attention. My mind kept drifting back to the looming Trump-sponsored recession. After five weeks playing to the cheap seats, the movie theatre had cleverly relocated the Bob Dylan biopic up to their costly VIP section. We paid $45 to sit through a tribute to an American folksinger who goes electric. The Baby Boomer couple in front of us had a bottle of champagne chilling on ice — without irony. When the film ended, the drive northeast to Wakaw was dicey and the snow drifted over the highway. Winnipeg’s The Guess Who came to the rescue as some smartass radio DJ played Ameri- can Woman. “American Woman, stay away from me!” Burton Cummings wailed. As we made the turn east, Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It serenaded us. Then the hourly radio news announced Ottawa Senators fans booed the American anthem before a Minne- sota Wild matchup. We laughed out loud as Grant slowed down for the snow drifts and I clung to the passenger handle. We didn’t let Trump’s tariffs ruin a perfectly good birthday celebration. My Winnipeg grandparents, Bess and Eric Brough, lived through the Great Depression. They were very, very careful with their money. As a child, I found their extreme thrift amusing so I turned up my nose at their Carnation powdered milk. Now I totally get it. The volatile situation to the south, which has spread north, means I’ll further expand my massive organic vegetable garden. On that same birthday outing, I scoffed at the $25 price tag of journals at an independent book- store. I wandered over to their upscale gift sec- tion. What’s this? A silk kimono for $150? I didn’t see any satisfied customers leaving with stacks of books in their bags or overpriced loungewear. On Sunday evening, a celebratory birthday call from a West Coast friend who lives in Canada’s wealthiest postal code was completely overtaken by the T-word. “I’ve ordered German door knobs. I’m not buy- ing any American products for our renovation,” she told me. “That sounds like a plan,” I replied. The next day, Facebook was crowded with patriotic exchanges. “Where can I source Cana- dian-made cat food?” asked one poster. “What do I do about my Tesla?” another person wrote. Another poster broke down the amount of money he spent on U.S. streaming. He cancelled his Am- azon Prime account and switched to Britbox. Britbox? How many British murder mysteries set in a small town can one couch couple con- sume? Unless they reinstate BBC’s Little Britain, Britbox is my last streaming option. As much as I despise Donald Trump and his ret- rograde policies, Sweet Magnolias’ fourth season just dropped on Netflix. There are limits to my patriotism — especially during a long winter in a small town with scarce entertainment options. Anti-American sentiment is a historic Canadi- an pastime. I understand the urge to push back, to “do something” as we impatiently wait out the 30-day reprieve on tariffs negotiated at the last minute by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It’s important to keep this period of upheaval in perspective. It’s less than two years until the U.S. midterm elections. Surely sanity will prevail and Trump’s current majority will crumble like Poilievre’s dated rhetoric. For solace, I repeat the wisdom of Democratic strategist James Carville: “… let (Trump) punch himself out.” Patricia Dawn Robertson’s satiric, Media Brat: a GenX memoir, is available in April. And, yes, it’s made in Canada. Skill sets and police chiefs IN 35 years of policing, I had only one “bear in progress” call, and that was on a night shift in the North End in the early 1990s. It was near dawn, during a lull in the ac- tion, when our dispatcher sent us a message “you’re not going to believe this” before dispatching us the call: several kids on bikes were chasing a bear down Mountain Avenue. We soon discovered them all, the bear having sought refuge in a tree, and after an hourslong standoff, the bear was eventually rescued. But the occasion was also one of two times I encountered a member of the police execu- tive while out on patrol. The appearance of the (acting) police chief was unexpected, as he greeted me by name. He asked how I was, how the night was, asked about the call, and he asked if he could help. No comment was made that I wasn’t wearing my issue hat. Several years later, we were on patrol, doing a walk-through at a downtown bar in December, when the new chief appeared. He brought to my attention my missing hat, and the “non-issue” Christmas button adorning my lapel. Nothing else. He didn’t ask about the crime at the premises, or about the ef- forts at addressing any problems there. Having 10 years service by then, I had already been in numerous physical encoun- ters in such places while wearing my issue headgear, and it was only a hindrance. It made for one less thing to think about when I needed to be focused on what was important. Something you learn from real experience. The button was also an “ice-breaker” when it came to interacting with people, again something you learn from experience. Since then, I often wondered why the acting chief in the first instance was never actually made chief. And then regarding the second instance involving the chief, I could only wonder who the other applicants were, and what they could possibly have lacked that they weren’t chosen. What was the hiring committee even looking for? Or, what were they told they were looking for? Consider an experience I had while vaca- tioning in Paris in 2010 involving a car rental employee I encountered on Rue Emile Zola. We were going to Vimy Ridge, but due to the employee’s lack of any customer service skills and complete indifference, it took us two to three hours longer to get our rental car. He couldn’t have cared less for all those names on the Vimy Cenotaph, including my paternal grandmother’s brother. I was later told by a friend from Paris how that behaviour was just “Parisian,” but I doubt Zola would have approved (I read “J’Accuse”). And consequently, we returned in rush hour. Ever been in a Paris traffic circle in rush hour? My kids may have learned another language, but it wasn’t French. I wondered: how he could ever had been employed there? Did no one else want the job who was better qualified? Did he have an inflated CV, and his actual lack of ability was discovered too late? Maybe the owner was beholden to some- one, and so had to give the job to this person regardless of their lack of qualities, instead of someone better. Who/what was the owner “told” he was looking for? Should we wonder whether choosing the next police chief is not all that different? Who is really doing the selection and what are their search parameters? And then, who influenced those parameters? It’s probably not the well-educated 7-Elev- en employee working nights in a high crime area. Yet the decisions the new chief makes could impact them, and so someone who never worked at that 7-Eleven will therefore influence what that employee needs. Is it by being too interested in catering to too many special interest groups that fundamentals are ignored? So those groups essentially tell that 7-Eleven employee what that employee needs? Shades of the procure- ment process in the military? And so invariably, they just go through the pretense of listening to who should be listened to. “For the people, in spite of the people.” Having actually had some insight into a “police chief” selection, I know it’s not in- conceivable that the selection process can be “subjective.” And so it is not inconceivable that, given that subjectivity, perfectly quali- fied people can consequently be ignored, and questionable ones potentially considered. But take solace knowing that policing still happens in the absence of an appointed chief. And regardless of who is chosen, not everyone will be satisfied anyway. Kevin Birkett retired from the Winnipeg Police Service in 2020. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Winnipeg is a city, not a business. It needs people in charge who understand the complexities of what a city is and how it can truly be run more efficiently. TYLER CRICHTON PATRICIA DAWN ROBERTSON KEVIN BIRKETT ;