Big wards, big challenge

John Baert wants all the school trustee candidates who follow in his footsteps to have far less ground to cover.

The Island Lakes father said he was, in retrospect, “naive” when he launched his campaign in the Louis Riel School Division.

“When I started knocking on doors, I had a goal to hit every single door in the ward,” said the nominee for Ward 4, which encompasses Royalwood, Southdale, Sage Creek and Island Lakes.

More than one million steps later — Baert’s Garmin watch has been tracking his canvassing efforts on evenings and weekends since mid-July — he is about 60 per cent of the way to his goal.

The expansive ward boundaries make it all but impossible for candidates, especially if they have full-time jobs, to strike up a conversation with every eligible voter at their doorstep, the public affairs specialist said.

“I think people deserve that,” Baert said, adding he plans to lobby for a universal one-ward, one-trustee system if he’s elected when Winnipeggers go to the polls on Oct. 28.

The division, where his son attends Grade 12, is made up of nine seats across four wards in southeast Winnipeg.

There are two seats in all of the quadrants except for Ward 3, where three elected officials represent River Park South, Dakota Crossing and developments south of the Perimeter Highway.

Manitoba’s largest school division, the Winnipeg School Division, is an outlier with nine wards covering nine distinct areas in inner-city and central neighbourhoods.

The boundaries are drawn based on even distribution of population, student population and “logical grouping of schools.”

Just Elections, a coalition of community organizations, formed after the last municipal election to call for a series of regulatory changes to school board races.

Retired principal Suni Matthews was among the organizers who made presentations to trustees to seek support for election financing rules and oversight for drawing boundaries.

(School board members typically request public input when they redraw wards, but they have the final say.)

Matthews said she’s been disappointed about how little political will there is to shrink wards so it’s less daunting for people to put their name forward and canvas.

“I would like to see it mandated — one-ward, one-trustee — by the province,” said the member of the Newcomer Education Coalition.

“It will create a level playing field, a more equitable playing field for underrepresented groups.”

Just Elections has applauded the NDP government for requiring school board nominees to start disclosing their fundraising activities and outlawing out-of-province contributions.

This fall, for the first time, trustee candidates will have to submit reports similar to their municipal counterparts.

Shifting to a nine-ward model has been “floated” at the Louis Riel board table in the past, but there haven’t been any formal discussions about it, chairperson Sandy Nemeth said.

Nemeth noted the current setup allows for inter-ward collaboration and back-up coverage.

“I take some comfort in the fact that in a two-trustee or three-trustee ward, if one of those trustees, for whatever reason, can’t fufill their duties, there is still representation,” said the four-term trustee who is running for re-election in Ward 3.

Notably, residents in Wolseley and West Broadway are currently without representation because there is only one elected official in Ward 4 of the Winnipeg School Division.

Rebecca Chambers resigned from the role in April to accept a full-time role at the division.

Nemeth said the “will of the board” will determine if change is necessary in Louis Riel ahead of the 2030 elections.

The board of trustees recently voted to rejig Ward 2 and increase its map in response to population growth in Ward 3.

Baert, who works in the labour movement, said voters have lots of opinions about public education and they’ve been eager to share them with him.

“I’ve heard it so much on the doorstep, ‘I’ve never had a trustee here,’” he said, noting one resident indicated they’d never been contacted by a trustee nominee in 40 years.

The candidate said it’s also been eye opening to learn how unique school transportation issues are in different areas.

In Southdale, there’s a lot of concern about congestion versus Sage Creek families who’ve expressed interest in more transportation services, he said.

Registration for school trustee candidates closed Tuesday evening. Fifteen people are vying for nine seats in Louis Riel.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca