First in: Winnipeg social enterprise activist Shaun Loney announces 2022 mayoral run
18 months ahead of election, Loney becomes 1st to declare intention to replace outgoing Mayor Brian Bowman
Winnipeg has its first contender in the race to replace outgoing Mayor Brian Bowman.
Shaun Loney says he will take a run for the mayor's seat in the next civic election.
Loney says the decision came as he and his wife, Fiona, were walking by a homeless encampment around six months ago, and he decided enough was enough.
"I can't do this anymore. I've been trying to convince politicians to see the value of, instead of managing social problems at huge taxpayer expense, to solve them using creative tools," Loney said.
"And I just decided, nope, we need this thinking in the mayor's chair."
He has a long lead-up in his run at political office, after Bowman declared last fall that he won't run for a third term in the October 2022 municipal election.
Loney, a 51-year-old father of three, has spent decades in the social enterprise field, establishing and growing organizations such as BUILD (Building Urban Industries for Local Development) and Aki Energy, a non-profit, First Nations-managed social enterprise energy company.
He also worked for the NDP provincial government through much of the Gary Doer era, and is the author of two books.
Loney thinks his background in social enterprise can help solve some of the fundamental problems plaguing the city: poverty, homelessness, crime and addiction.
"The most researched issue in the history of the country is homelessness. And everybody knows that providing supportive housing upfront is cheaper than responding to these perpetual crises all the time," he said. "We need some new financial tools to move the money."
He also sees an opportunity in improving the city's relationship with Indigenous people.
During his interview with CBC, Loney sported a small brown piece of hide pinned to his jacket — a symbol from the moose hide campaign, for Indigenous and non-Indigenous men and boys standing up against violence toward women and children.
He says he will wear it through the next 18 months.
"I think here in Winnipeg, we've got to begin to see Indigenous families as a huge asset rather than a problem," Loney said.
Building a relationship with province
Loney also believes he can build a partnership with the provincial government that has confounded the current mayor.
"I think we need to change the question. Are you interested in saving money? They [the provincial government] are struggling, just like the City of Winnipeg," Loney said.
A new partnership is needed with non-profits, funded at least in part by major organizations such as the Winnipeg Foundation, he says.
"They have $1.4 billion [in accrued investments]," with only a small percentage available right now to non-profits as grants, he said.
"Foundations across the country are beginning to see, 'Wow, we can invest and grant.'"
He says the city's largest potential savings are in emergency response, which has grown to approximately 46 per cent of the city's total budget.
"We're already spending enormous amounts of money responding to people who are in perpetual crisis. So what success looks like is a reduction of police dispatches. It looks like a reduction in the number of times we send ambulances out."
The provincial government would also see savings, he said, through reduced justice costs and social spending.
To those who see the mayor's job as championing better roads, efficient garbage pickup and snow-cleared streets, Loney says the concepts he will run on are linked to those issues.
"Every per cent that goes up [of spending on emergency services], it eats away at the budgets of road repairs, recreation facilities, swimming pools," Loney said.
Reduce calls rather than defunding police
That doesn't mean he wants to defund the city's police service, though.
"I think the defunding the police [movement] misses the point," Loney said.
"The police in Winnipeg are overworked, and they're overworked because they're responding to these perpetual crises of a minority of families that are struggling in Winnipeg."
Loney says fewer calls for service would not mean laying off police, but redirecting them to their original function — solving crimes.
The City of Winnipeg is already looking at several ways to reduce calls to police for service.
Broad public policy ideas aside, Loney promises he'll release specific positions on property tax rates, urban growth and growth fees, infill development, and sewer and water issues in the coming months.
'Not aligned with any political party'
Loney will also be judged for where he fits in the political spectrum. He is a card-carrying member of the NDP and careful not to distance himself from that party, but at the same time says he has appeal elsewhere.
"I have worked with the NDP. Conservatives really like our work, so I am not aligned with any political party because I don't think I fit into any particular political party right now," he said.
Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies with the University of Manitoba, says Loney will have to craft a message to voters which says they can have the best of both worlds.
Loney needs to avoid being seen as the "tax and spend guy," and has to make inroads beyond what would be considered his base, Thomas says.
"He'll have a core of supporters, but moving beyond that will be the challenge."
