‘We need systemic change’: Loney builds campaign on value of solutions By: Danielle Da Silva Posted: 11:35 AM CDT Friday, Oct. 7, 2022

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This article was published 07/10/2022 (1441 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cracked concrete of a gated Point Douglas-area parking lot, tucked between a refurbished brown-brick warehouse and the imposing steel tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway, doubled as stage for mayoral candidate Shaun Loney on an early August afternoon.

Beneath the blazing sun, the 52-year-old entrepreneur made his pitch to two-dozen people who dropped in for a barbecue after their shift at one of the non-profits housed at the Social Enterprise Centre just off Main Street or to shake hands with the rookie politician during his second campaign stop of the day.

“My soul is embedded here,” Loney told the crowd, gesturing to the Social Enterprise Centre at his back, which opened in 2012 as a hub for non-profit organizations, including three co-founded by Loney over the past decade: Building Urban Industries for Local Development Inc., Aki Energy, and Purpose Construction.

“Winnipeg’s defining issue is connecting the people who most need the work with the work that most needs to be done,” he told the crowd. “And we’re going to get it done here in Winnipeg, so the entire country knows that Winnipeg knows how to solve problems. We know what love and compassion looks like on the ground: like social enterprises.”

Clad in a light-blue collared shirt and navy jacket with a moose-hide patch pinned to the breast pocket, Loney encouraged the mostly friendly crowd to vote Oct. 26, adding every ballot will count in the crowded race for the mayor’s office, before concluding his brief address.

“We have an actual chance in this campaign to change the city,” he said to applause.

Nearly three months since his campaign launched, the former provincial civil servant and university economics instructor has brought voters from across the political spectrum into his camp with an ambitious promise to spark systemic change at city hall.

David Newman, a former cabinet minister in premier Gary Filmon’s Progressive Conservative government; Judy Wasylycia-Leis, a former NDP MLA and member of Parliament; philanthropist and business owner Tina Jones; and former Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce chairman Wadood Ibrahim are just a few of the big names that have endorsed Loney in his bid for the city’s top office.

The mild-mannered candidate and father to three adult children chalks up his broad-spectrum appeal to a platform rooted in love and compassion for others while promoting novel, entrepreneurial tools to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the City of Winnipeg.

“On the issues that are defining our city, we’re stuck, and the traditional approaches are not working,” Loney said during an interview at The Forks earlier in the day.

“All of the ideas that have been pitched by other candidates — and it’s well-meaning — but it’s all tinkering. We need systemic change and what that looks like to me is a very Indigenous way of doing things, which is to recognize the solutions must be valued.”

Many of those solutions are simple, often a matter of perspective and proven through the social enterprise model, Loney argued.

As an example, rather than cycle through the criminal justice system, staff at some of the social enterprises headquartered out of the Point Douglas warehouse have earned gainful employment despite their “little criminal record.”

“It holds so much promise for Winnipeg,” he said. “I’m excited to convey to Winnipeggers that there are solutions to the problems that we are really struggling with, but it just involves doing things differently and having the political courage to move in new directions.”

On homelessness — an issue that spurred Loney to put his name forward for public office — he has proposed a plan to house people living in bus shelters and on riverbanks in Winnipeg within one year through service agreements with non-profits.

On taxes, Loney intends to strike a task force to phase out municipal business tax and blend it with commercial property taxes; introduce financing plans for clean energy projects; fast-track permits for projects that target net zero emissions; and tax commercial surface parking lots to encourage owners to develop higher-value assets.

On transportation, the former director of energy policy for the Manitoba government has pledged to accelerate the Winnipeg Transit Master Plan, implement expanded on-demand service, and install at least 500 electric vehicle charging states at city-owned locations by the end of his term.

His desire to see deeply entrenched systems overhauled to make way for the progressive ideas embedded in his platform is driven in part by a lifelong journey wrestling with his privilege and an impatience with the “way the world is,” Loney explained.

“I just don’t see shuffling money around as solving problems. It’s actually exacerbating them, causing them to hang around for longer when most of the problems Winnipeg is dealing with are resolvable.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca