A mayor who can bring us together
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/09/2014 (3469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The candidates for mayor are laying out their policies and promises, the news media are comparing and contrasting their positions on issues, and the public is looking for how the candidates will deal with their pet peeves and projects. The particulars of what the candidates say they will do are important, but we should not lose sight of the most important aspect of being mayor — leadership.
Leadership in the mayor’s office is that ability to muster the collective knowledge, initiative, resources and action to address specific service and development issues, but more importantly, to muster the capacity to create the community we want.
Winnipeg needs to fix a number of things, but it also needs to refashion its identity and its social spirit.
Leadership is also the ability to represent a vision of the city that all can aspire to, and be a part of. Vision in a city is not merely a dream of what could be, but it is a catalyst for what should be. It’s a picture of what a city would look like and a complement to how residents function together.
Effective leadership is the capacity to bring the diversity of our population together. There are indigenous citizens, longtime residents, seniors, young people, newcomers and others who want to be part of the city but who have been marginalized. A dynamic leader seeks to bring everyone into the life of the city, on the basis of different perspectives, shared values and mutual respect.
Just think of what Winnipeg could look like if we had a mayor with the courage to be non-partisan and could focus public attention on solving problems with fresh ideas, liberated from the prescriptions of the past or from the grip of special interest.
Many citizens have lost confidence in our political leaders and too many are cynical about our political institutions. So we need politicians whose primary allegiance is to the public, not to those with privileged access to city hall.
I think we need someone who can bridge the deep divides of the city. We like to think we are a unified city, but the reality is there are persistent class, ethnic and geographic differences that undermine our ability as a community to meet our collective needs. It often takes visitors to the city to see the distinct differences between north and south Winnipeg, on either side of the Canadian Pacific rail yards. Poverty for a large minority of residents means they do not have access to many of the social and economic benefits of urban life.
It appears a large proportion of the public is dissatisfied with the confused and patchwork style of city operations. The debates over funding for a few huge recreational centres, whether or not to extend a rapid transit line, condos along the river or how we pay for pothole patches are not addressing the needs of the city as a thriving, living entity. Putting so much attention into buying a helicopter for the police, widening roads for new suburban housing developments or building a few new hotels is not going to improve the underlying economic deficiencies of the city.
It is going to take a broad understanding of how cities function, the foresight to plan effectively, integration of many efforts and a genuine commitment to community to do so.
So when the candidates are performing, let’s look for their ability to listen and ask significant questions, their new ideas for old problems, evidence they understand and appreciate the diversity of our community, their willingness to take risks and their experience with complex collaborations.
It may be a lot to expect of a new mayor, at a time when so many specific issues and problems vie for attention. But as a community we deserve leadership that inspires and we should in turn, inspire our leaders to do better.
Dennis Lewycky is executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.