Klein’s entrance adds spark to ho-hum mayoral race

Until this week, Winnipeg’s mayoral race looked less like a democratic contest and more like a coronation.

It appeared Mayor Scott Gillingham was a shoo-in to win a second term. There were no obvious challengers with the political profile, organization or credibility to make his re-election bid uncomfortable.

That changed Tuesday: Kevin Klein is back.

The former city councillor and provincial cabinet minister is launching his second campaign for mayor, turning what looked like a sleepy election into something that resembles an actual race.

That’s good news for Winnipeg voters.

Klein – who is president and CEO of Klein Media Group, which publishes the Winnipeg Sun – has a lot of ground to make up. History has not been kind to anyone who tries to knock off an incumbent mayor in Winnipeg.

But Klein will, at the very least, keep Gillingham honest. The mayor will have to work to be re-elected.

Incumbents are entitled to defend their records, challengers are entitled to attack them and voters get to decide who makes the more convincing case.

Without a credible challenger, however, there is little incentive for an incumbent to do much more than point to a list of accomplishments and ask voters to give them another four years.

Now Gillingham has a problem to solve.

He has to convince Winnipeggers the city is better off than it was when he took office — a pretty tall order — and that he deserves another term in office.

Klein has a much simpler case to make: he says the city isn’t better off.

He has already started hammering away at the issues most likely to resonate with voters: crime, public safety, taxes and crumbling infrastructure.

But Klein also has to tell voters what he would do differently and convince them his ideas are better than his competitor’s.

His election promises will have to include more than the usual mixture of tough talk and vague pledges if he expects voters to take him seriously.

What would he do on crime and public safety that’s not already being done? Can Klein credibly bring in a lower tax regime than what taxpayers have had under Gillingham? If so, how? What would he do with Winnipeg Transit? Infrastructure?

Those questions matter.

Either way, Gillingham can’t dismiss Klein as just another candidate on the ballot. Klein has a political record, he finished third in the 2022 mayoral race and has served on council and the Manitoba legislature. He has sat around a cabinet table.

He knows his way around a political campaign and around city hall.

That makes him a considerably more interesting opponent than most of the other candidates who have entered the mayoral race.

There is another unusual feature to this election.

Klein and Gillingham are both competing largely in the same political neighbourhood.

Gillingham is a right-leaning centrist – a Progressive Conservative – while Klein remains associated with conservative politics despite his estrangement from the provincial PCs.

For reasons that are difficult to understand, the political left has failed to produce a high-profile candidate who is capable of becoming a serious alternative to Gillingham.

Instead of a battle between a left-leaning challenger and a conservative incumbent, voters could find themselves watching a fight over the centre-right vote, which could create unusual voting patterns, especially in a city with a sizable left-of-centre constituency.

For months, the mayor has had little pressure to explain why voters should re-elect him. That has changed. He now has a serious competitor — and that’s healthy.

Politics works best when politicians have to compete for votes rather than assume they will get them.

Klein has his own baggage, of course. His political history will be examined, his brief tenure as an MLA and cabinet minister will be looked at, his record on council will be scrutinized. His decision to enter the mayoral race only weeks before the nomination deadline will certainly be considered.

That’s politics.

Winnipeg has no shortage of serious problems that deserve a thorough debate: crime and public safety, crumbling infrastructure, property taxes, transit, downtown decay, homelessness, addictions and the financial pressures facing city hall.

The election will force candidates to explain how they intend to deal with them.

Klein’s entry makes that considerably more likely.

It doesn’t guarantee a close race — incumbents have a formidable advantage in Winnipeg — but there is a big difference between being favoured and being virtually unchallenged. Until this week, Gillingham looked dangerously close to the latter.

Now he has a real opponent. That means he has to defend his record, Klein has to defend his and Winnipeggers get to decide.

That’s good for democracy.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca