Perfect short, fat, balding alternative

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/10/2010 (5648 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I first met Peter Kaufmann in 1995 when he was running for mayor against Susan Thompson. He lost that election, but surprised almost everybody by coming a close second.

He lost again in 1998, that time to Glen Murray, by an even closer margin, and since has turned his back on politics, or so he says.

When we first met, I described him as “a short, fat, balding grocer” who wanted to be mayor, and he had some great ideas to bring to that job. That was 15 years ago. Time passes, some things change and some do not. Kaufmann is no longer a successful grocer — he is a successful commercial real estate agent — but he is still short, fat and balding and, although he denies any further ambition to be mayor, one suspects he would still like to sit on the city’s throne. And he still has good ideas. He says that his wife would kill him if he ever ran again, but he says it kind of wistfully, as if he is thinking perhaps that’s not such a bad trade-off.

Certainly, he keeps in touch and he has lots of thoughts. Peter Kaufmann is without a doubt the best mayor that Winnipeg never had, despite what you might have read elsewhere on these pages recently.

In the 1998 election, he pledged to cut property taxes, to pare down the city’s payroll through attrition and to sell Winnipeg Hydro. Glen Murray also proposed cutting taxes, but opposed paring the city’s payroll and selling Winnipeg Hydro. After he was elected he did those two latter things as well.

And then figure this. Even a dead mayor egregiously murdered by his wife might be better than the choice we have now. Sam Katz is not the grinning idiot that he appears to be on television news. He is a serious man with serious ideas, but he doesn’t offer a lot of hope for Winnipeg. Judy Wasylycia-Leis is not the NDP android that she has seemed to be throughout her political career. She seems, in fact, to be almost human, but she is not the person that Winnipeggers should want as their mayor sitting on the city’s throne. She is a serious — very serious — woman, but if she has any serious ideas about the direction this city should take, she has yet to make us privy to them.

There are two other candidates running for mayor, but no one actually remembers their names, which is sort of understandable when a Free Press poll shows them running three percentage points below “none of the above” in voter preference. For the record, their names are Rav Gill and Brad Gross, and we should wish them well for having the courage to throw their hats in the ring, however bizarre their ideas might be.

Winnipeg hasn’t had a really identifiable mayor since 1977, when Steve Juba withdrew from the election. Juba, as odd as he might have been, had the colour that Winnipeg must have to draw attention to itself and its needs. Since Juba, Winnipeg has been pretty well Bland City as far as the mayor’s office is concerned.

Juba was replaced by Robert Steen, who died in office in 1979, too soon to make a mark and only to be replaced by Mr. Bland himself, Bill Norrie, who was followed by Susan Thompson, Glen Murray and Sam Katz. That’s 33 years of a grey and mellow melancholy that this election, whatever its result, will do nothing to alleviate.

Peter Kaufmann may look a little roundish at first glance, but he is actually pretty rough-hewn, a man with a lot of sharp edges that he brings to political life. He may actually not be in politics any longer, but he certainly keeps a weather-eye on it.

Kaufmann is criticized mostly for being conservative, but if he is truly a conservative, he is a curious one indeed. In 1995, he campaigned partly on the slogan “I will be (then-Progressive Conservative premier) Gary Filmon’s worst nightmare.”

And he probably would have been. He believes that it is governments that create poverty through taxation that cripples wage earners and discourages employers from hiring workers.

He would separate the school tax from the property tax, making houses more affordable for lower-wage slaves and fund the schools more equitably through general revenue. And just because the money is there doesn’t mean it should necessarily be taxed. The province, he thinks, should get its hand out of the city’s pocket and the mayor’s main function is to show the leadership that can make that happen.

That all sounds pretty good, particularly in this milquetoast electoral campaign. But Peter Kaufmann isn’t running. Next Thursday morning we will wake up to the discouraging prospect of either Mayor Sam Katz or Mayor Judy Wasylycia-Leis — be still, my beating heart.

There is no point in crying over spilt milk, however. For the next four years or so we are in for yet more bland, but at least marginally competent government no matter who wins. And that’s a pity when we could have instead a political presence on the civic, provincial and national stage in a mayor who could command attention, a mayor who has the imagination to think of building the equivalent of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens in downtown Winnipeg. Sounds crazy, but I like it. When the next election rolls around in 2014, Kaufmann will only be 67 years old, which would still give him time enough to rejuvenate this city. Please, Mrs. Kaufmann, give your husband back to the city that needs him.

tom.oleson@freepress.mb.ca