Former Winnipeg mayor Glenn Murray says he will run for office again.
Murray announced on Wednesday afternoon that he is running for mayor in the Winnipeg municipal elections this fall, after submitting documents to register his campaign at the town hall.
“I love this city. We will get things done quickly,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “We will return to the types of partnerships that made us proud of our city.”
Murray was mayor of Winnipeg from 1998 to 2004, when he resigned to run for the Federal Liberal Party.
He lost the race, but was elected Liberal to the Ontario Parliament in 2011, where he held various cabinet positions until he briefly left politics in 2017.
In 2020, Murray ran to replace Elizabeth May as leader of the Federal Green Party, but lost.
The city has “huge challenges”
Murray said that after returning to Winnipeg a few years ago to work in the private sector, he was struck by how difficult it is to start development, the city’s crumbling infrastructure and how difficult it is to fight the city’s most vulnerable.
“This city has some huge challenges. They are on the scale of the challenges when I was first elected mayor, “he said.
“I’ve never had more experience in my entire life. I’m much more qualified to do this job than when I was young and did it for the first time.”
Asked why he would not stay in the private sector and work there to improve the city, he said he believed major changes were needed at the municipal level.
“There is a real disappointment in the private sector that there really needs to be some change in the public sector so we can get back to business in the city,” he said.
Murray says he did not make the decision to run lightly and consulted with a number of people about running for mayor before taking the plunge.
He said he would outline his platform at a later date.
High profile challenge to other candidates
In an interview with CBC News on Tuesday, Murray suggested that he had managed to solve some financial problems during his time as mayor.
Aaron Moore opposes some of these comments.
“I think his decision to freeze property taxes for a few years is part of the reason we’re in the fiscal situation we are in,” said Moore, a professor of political science at the University of Winnipeg who focuses on municipal policy.
“I think the assumption that he did some kind of fiscal magic as mayor and now he has to come and fix it again is like ignoring the contribution he made to the problem.
Moore also believes that many still think highly of Murray. He characterizes it as relatively moderate or progressive, depending on the problem. Freezing Murray’s property tax, for example, was a fiscally conservative move, Moore said.
The fact that he left Manitoba may inspire some skepticism among some voters, Moore said, although he also believes Murray could make life harder for some competitors.
“With someone as high-profile as Glenn Murray running in the race, this could lead some of the other candidates to re-evaluate their chances of winning,” he said.
Winnipeg must move forward, rivals say
Murray is now the 11th person to run for mayor of Winnipeg on October 26.
The other 10 candidates are Idris Adelakun, Chris Clacio, Rana Bohari, Scott Gillingham, Sean Loney, Jenny Motkaluk, Robert-Falcon Wellett, Rick Shawn, Desmond Thomas and Don Woodstock.
After Murray announced his candidacy, Shawn said in a statement that Winnipeg should “look ahead” and “crossroads” in terms of infrastructure, debt, homelessness, transit, public safety and accessibility.
He accused Murray of abandoning Winnipegger in 2004 and leaving his job as mayor unfinished.
“I am not a career politician, I am a father of two, a small business owner, a volunteer in the community and I love my home. I am excited about our future. Now is not the time to look back,” Shawn said in a statement.
“We don’t need a mayor who is more interested in being a star on the national stage.
Regarding Murray’s proposal to raise concerns about the city’s financial situation, his rival Gillingham, who is currently an adviser to St. James and until recently chairman of the city’s finance committee, said there was “still money in the bank” after a blow from 220 million dollars from a pandemic.
count. Scott Gillingham (St. James), who is now running for mayor, says “things have changed a lot in this city” since Murray took office. (CBC)
“[There was] there is no further help through this from the province of Manitoba. “We kept our credit rating… so we did a really good job,” he said after Murray’s announcement.
Gillingham said his focus in his mayoralty campaign is to communicate a vision for Winnipeg “that is exciting, realistic and achievable and moves the city forward”.
“Glenn was … away from Winnipeg for almost 20 years,” Gillingham said.
“I was here with my hand behind the wheel and leading through all this, so I am ready to take the lead in the position of mayor.
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