Bowman plans to run for re-election

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This article was published 22/03/2018 (2900 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman said today he plans to run for re-election on Oct. 24.

“I do intend to be a candidate,” Bowman told reporters after a council meeting.

“Serving as mayor over the last number of years has been an incredible honour and it’s been invigorating to lead the positive change that we’re seeing in our community,” said Winnipeg’s 43rd mayor, who was elected Oct. 22, 2014.

“For that reason I do intend to be a candidate in the upcoming election,” Bowman said the day before Friday’s annual state of the city address, the final one before the fall election. He said he doesn’t plan to officially announce his mayoral run on Friday when he speaks to the more than 1,200 business and community leaders, high school students, and elected officials expected at the lunchtime event hosted by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce at the RBC Convention Centre. 

“I’ll have more to say about the campaign at the appropriate time,” Bowman said.

He said he didn’t make the decision alone to throw his hat in the ring again.

“We’ve been having discussions as a family,” said Bowman. “It’s a tremendous sacrifice for anyone’s family to be involved in modern-day politics,” said the privacy lawyer who set aside a partnership at a Winnipeg law firm to be mayor.

“We’ve been having a good, healthy dialogue around the kitchen table,” said the incumbent mayor who up until Thursday wasn’t ready to commit to running again. “I really just wanted to have those discussions as a family,” he said. And to make sure he had each member’s backing.

“I gave my kids and, of course, (my wife) Tracy the full veto,” said Bowman, who has two children, Hayden and Austin.

“If anybody disagreed then we’d say ‘thank you very much that’s been my 15 minutes (of fame), time to get back into my career’,” said Bowman.

He left his career in 2014, got elected and was declared the city’s first aboriginal mayor. The following year, Maclean’s magazine declared Winnipeg to be Canada’s most racist city. In 2015, Bowman hosted the Mayor’s National Summit on Racial Inclusion and set up his own indigenous advisory council. He declared 2016 the year of reconciliation and challenged Winnipeggers to find ways to respond individually to the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In 2017, he used his annual state of the city speech to express support for ride-sharing services like Uber, promised to reduce the red tape associated with permits and to say he made progress on reopening Portage and Main to pedestrians.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca