Four councillor candidates vie for wide-open Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry ward

One of Winnipeg’s most densely populated wards is up for grabs come election day.

Four candidates are in the running in Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry, with the councillor position wide open after area Coun. Sherri Rollins announced in July she would be withdrawing her candidacy.

Journalist Brook Jones, hospitality worker and union organizer Carson Mauthe, city planner Jeff Palmer and retired finance worker Kevin Stuart have thrown their hats in the race.

Palmer has worked as a city planner for more than 20 years, in both the non-profit and private sectors, including CentreVenture and the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation.

Seeing fewer people living in and visiting downtown has worried him, and he pointed to the recent closure of two city-run arenas in Winnipeg as a key example of one of the things he wants to change.

“Investing in our urban neighbourhoods, infrastructure — not just physical infrastructure, but social infrastructure,” Palmer, 55, said.

“Maintenance is not a sexy topic, but it comes up at the doorstep more often than you might think. People are tired of our city assets falling apart around us.”

Palmer has lived in the central ward for 26 years. He ran for city council in 2018, coming in second behind Rollins. He had already registered to run before Rollins bowed out.

“I always joked that I saved my lawn signs just in case I was ever to run again,” he said.

Maintaining existing housing and building more homes is a priority for Palmer. He said he supports a managed encampment model as a “short-term solution” to connect people to the resources they need.

“People want the basics done,” he said.

“Throughout the ward, people are very aware and familiar with the issue of the lack of housing, homelessness, people living in tents … we are not addressing the issue the way that it needs to be addressed, we need to provide more housing, we need more supports in place.”

In his time organizing workplaces and within Winnipeg’s local arts scene, Mauthe has used his work “as a platform for activism (and) for social progressive causes.”

Running for council, he said, is another extension of that work, especially in a ward as large and economically diverse as Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry, where he has lived for six years.

“I think what’s not really discussed writ large from most of the other candidates, not just in my ward but the whole city, is the issues of renters and shift workers,” Mauthe, 35, said.

For example, he said, the Winnipeg Transit network overhaul has been particularly difficult for people in the ward who work in nightlife and have been forced to pay for expensive taxis or rideshare services since the change last year.

“I’m coming at it through a workers’ lens, a labour organization lens, and with the prospect of almost a completely new city council that’s actually ripe for bringing in fresh and new ideas,” he said.

Mauthe also said he would advocate for divesting from police funding should he be elected, in hopes of directing funding to social causes.

“As far as I’m aware, I’m the only candidate who is vocally expressing that we need to directly divest from the Winnipeg police to actually fund proactive support systems,” he said.

Kevin Stuart moved from Jamaica to Winnipeg 15 years ago, settling in Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry. The 56-year-old said he was moved by how community-oriented the area is, but also said Winnipeg feels “behind the times” compared to other Canadian cities.

“I come from the financial world where you have to make very large, meaningful decisions with not all the information, not perfect information,” he said.

“And I think one of the things that I feel, which is why I joined and wanted to be a councillor, is that we seem to be both studying lots of things, we seem to be deferring lots of decisions, we seem to be as a city knowing that we have to do certain things, but not actually committing to them in in a meaningful way.”

He promised to push to bring a light rail transit system to Winnipeg if elected. While he acknowledged we would be “many decades” away from implementing one, he described it as the kind of forward-thinking idea he wants to focus on.

“This is something that has, I think, delayed the growth of the city, the financial well-being of the city, the livability of the city immensely over the last many decades, and we really have to start to put shovels in the ground,” he said.

Brook Jones has spent much of his career as a multimedia journalist and freelance photographer. Most recently, he has worked as a freelance photographer for the Free Press for the last three years.

He lives about 350 metres outside of the Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry ward boundaries, but said he’s spent his entire life working within and serving the community.

Jones, 48, has spent several decades in different roles in sports and recreation programs, and is currently the director of communications at the Fort Garry Community Centre. He was the centre’s president in 2002.

Maintaining, protecting and improving those programs is a priority for him.

“Those amenities (are) what makes a healthy community healthy, and people want to see that … you know, the city is struggling financially, apparently (in) a deficit, but they have $130 million for a new recreation space in Waverley West,” he said, referring to the upcoming South Winnipeg Recreation Campus.

Jones ran for city council in 2002 (coming in second after Jenny Gerbasi) and 2004 (coming in fifth; Donald Benham was elected that year). He ran for school trustee in the Pembina Trails School Division by-election last year and came in fourth behind Samantha Pope, who is running for re-election this year.

His experience running in and covering elections has shown him there is much that can be done to better the ward and city, Jones said.

“I look back at my old brochures from ‘02 and ‘04, and a lot of the issues and things I campaigned on 24 years ago, 22 years ago, are still there for our ward,” he said.

“I want to definitely be that advocate for the needs of our residents for the entire ward, and also for the entire city.”

Election day is Oct. 28.

malak.abas@winnipegfreepress.com