Winnipeg mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham touts downtown revitalization efforts

Mayoral incumbent Scott Gillingham joins us now. Welcome back to CBC. Thank you, Marcy. So let's get into this. According to the Abacus survey, you've probably seen this survey, 68% of respondents say they feel less safe in Winnipeg than four years ago. Why should Winnipeggers re-elect you? Well, first of all, Winnipeg is seeing a lot of momentum right now. There's a lot of really good things happening in Winnipeg. Yes, like every other major city, we face issues of public safety, addiction and homelessness, but there is a lot of momentum happening. Right now in downtown Winnipeg, there's over $1.8 billion of redevelopment investment happening. In the last four and a half years, our population, according to Stats Canada, has grown by 80,000 people. That's exciting. I mean, growth is exciting. It puts pressure on our city services, but it's exciting. Our new home starts this year, the first six months of this year, were up 40% over last year. And in fact, in the four years I've been mayor, we have issued permits for or built more homes in that four-year period than in any other four-year point in Winnipeg's history. So there's a lot of growth, a lot of momentum happening in Winnipeg right now. Give us an example of a successful measure to combat crime downtown that you're proud of. A couple I'll give you. First of all, right now there's a joint effort, a collaborative effort between the Winnipeg Police Service and Connie Knieczak and some other frontline agencies to crack down on open illegal drug use And at the same time, make sure that those who are struggling with addiction get directed to the services they need. So it's not just the police kind of cracking down on their own on open drug use, but they're doing it in partnership. And that has produced results. Just recently, the police with Connie Konietzak reported on 3,700 interventions. 48 people were connected with services. 10 people got into detox. But 55 people were arrested for criminal behavior and breaching their court orders. that is that is an example of the good work that's being done. What do you say to people who still don't feel safe walking or coming downtown and can you I guess the real question is can you understand why? I absolutely understand why for sure now the crime stats show statistically crime is dropping in each of the last three years in even in the downtown but that doesn't matter really the stats don't matter when people don't feel safe and so one of the initiatives that I'm committed to is to establish a fourth crisis response. So what that means is when someone calls 911, right now you can only send police, fire, paramedic. But there's a lot of people who are struggling with addiction or mental health. And so we want that to be a fourth response where the 911 operator can divert those calls, the appropriate calls, to mobile crisis units. And right now we determined that there's 10,000 calls every year that can be diverted away from police, fire, paramedics. So what that means is those police officers, Marcy, will be able to respond to more, you know, to more calls for service. We've increased policing. We've added more police officers in my time of office. There's more people, police officers doing foot patrol in the downtown in partnership with the Downtown Community Safety Partnership. And so we're really focused on enhancing public safety in the downtown. And in a moment, I'll talk about all the development in the downtown, which means more feet on the street. I do want to ask you though, like a lot people might be saying well why didn't you do that fourth fourth uh way of helping people earlier you've been mayor for four years this was just announced in september um you know you've said you're announcing you'll no longer tolerate open drug use on the street sidewalks or bus shelters why why didn't that fourth tier idea come come why is it just coming now right so if you remember a year ago and i think you even reported on this with me uh in interviews over a year ago i uh put money from my budget from my office budget into hiring dr maria contorneo and she she did an analysis on establishing a fourth response so that analysis has taken several months okay so i respect that let me just let me just let me just ask you uh when people some people don't feel like they're seeing any tangible change like everyone that's walked in here is saying that we're at a moment of crisis they're worried about winnipeg they're like this isn't my winnipeg that's what some voters have said to me you know i want things to get better do you feel they've gotten better like when we're walking around our winnipeg under your watch what do you do from here um yes i believe there's still a problem but yes i believe they're getting better in part we have to look at the statistics they show crime rates are going down we have to look at the initiatives we've undertaken the city now i've established the safe winnipeg initiative which is the winnipeg police service with the downtown community safety partnership and biz patrols they're working in a coordinated fashion. A year ago, I started the analysis through Dr. Murray Conkright on establishing a fourth response. We've added more police officers on biz patrol downtown. So we've got a ways to go. We're like every other city when it comes to crime and safety, but we've got a ways to go. Okay, let's talk about transit. The Abacus survey also finding 60% say public transit's worse than four years ago. What is your next move to make this work? We're going to continue to build on the changes we've made. The good news right now is that transit ridership is back up to what it was before we made the change, but there's still work to do. Since launching the new transit network, we have been adjusting and making changes. We've made changes to some of the routes that we got the most complaints about. We've added some bus stops back as well. So we've been responding to customer feedback and transit rider feedback to make the changes to improve the system, and I'm going to keep doing that. So you're committed to the transformation? Yes. You've challenged mayoral candidate Kevin Klein in a long-ago connection with convicted sex offender Peter Nygaard that he's spoken to many times. He says you're running a smear campaign. Are you? I'm not running a smear campaign, no. Why are you bringing it up? Mr. Klein has a public record. I have a public record. Every candidate who's challenging me is talking about my record. And so those that do have a public record, and Mr. Klein is one, you know, now that he's come out from behind the keyboard of his newspaper, he's a candidate. And so his record is open for discussion as well um um why can you make sense of why he would uh would would say that um if you're going after him to talk about Nygard there's a whole bunch of other people that work for Nygard and he's asking you to sort of stop talking about it there's only one person though uh who's running for mayor it's uh the work for Nygard that's Kevin Klein um there's 11 other candidates who say they can do a better job than you as mayor why are they wrong i'm i've got a proven track record of making bold decisions. In this term of council, we've made some bold decisions to move Winnipeg forward. We opened Portage in May. We've got the funding lined up for the North End plant, which is a critical infrastructure project for the future of Winnipeg. I led putting pipes in the ground in Centreport South, so now that whole area is going to open up. That means thousands of jobs are going to be created there in the future. The largest industrial development site in Winnipeg's history is opening up in Centreport South. I've got a proven track record of establishing the partnerships needed with the provincial government and the federal government and Indigenous governments. All those are needed. Those partnerships are needed if we're going to seize the opportunities of the city and tackle the challenges we have as a city as well. So a lot of the voters might be thinking we need change and they will put that on your back because you have been the mayor. What do you say to them? What fresh ideas will you bring beyond what you've already stated in our conversation? Well, I think one of the other fresh ideas I've talked about is establishing a 60 million dollar fund capital fund to work on the city's recreation facilities we need to continue to invest in them for future generations I also said that it's time for us in the second half of the next term to roll up our sleeves get the province the federal government property owners non-profits together and tackle North Main Street if we leave North Main Street to its own it's going to continue to decay so think of Main Street, everywhere from the Centennial Concert Hall all the way north to Mountain. We need to address that, restore it, renew it, reinvigorate it, redevelop it. And so I want to work on that as well. And it's about building in the future. We have been building significantly in Winnipeg right now. We have a lot of momentum. I'm asking voters, now's not the time to make a change. Now's not the time to tear everything down like the other candidates want to do. Not at all. Now's the time to build on that. In fact, when I look at what Mitchell Klein is putting forward, most of it is ideas I'm already doing. He said he's going to freeze water and sewer rates. That's council policy that I brought in in April of this year as well. He's going to add to the bus system. And that's our time. We'll have time to talk to him about what he is saying. Scott Gillingham, thank you. Good luck on October 28th. Thank you very much. I ask for people's vote on October 28th.