Steeves opens up about campaign promises

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This article was published 28/06/2014 (4143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gord Steeves chose the final Friday in June to make his first round of campaign promises, eight weeks after he became the first candidate to register a run to be Winnipeg’s next mayor.

The lawyer and former councillor unveiled a package of “accountable governance” pledges drawn from his 11 years representing St. Vital, a job he gave up in 2011 to attempt a run as a provincial Progressive Conservative candidate.

Steeves promised to limit his time in office to two terms, establish a “treasury board” to ensure major construction projects don’t go over budget and present a draft of the city’s budgets for consideration by all five of council’s community committees.

He also promised to reinstate a city department called executive policy secretariat, which used to serve as a bridge between city hall’s administrative and political functions.

The small policy office was disbanded in 2009, but was partly replaced in 2013 by the creation of a new office of policy and communications headed up by Mayor Sam Katz’s former chief of staff Bonnie Staples-Lyon.

Steeves said he would fold the new office back into a reinstated policy secretariat, using existing funds in the city’s operating budget. He said a department with more weight than Staples-Lyon’s office was needed to act as a bulwark between elected officials and public servants.

“It’s not what it used to be in terms of influence and power and abilities to make sure the two oceans don’t run together,” said Steeves.

He also pledged to ask all members of council to declare their political party affiliations. He said he believes political parties are exerting increasing pressure on members of council, depriving municipal government of its “unique ability” to make decisions in a non-partisan way.

“If parties are influencing city hall, at the very least, people deserve to know that,” said Steeves, who was a Liberal party member before his 2011 run as a provincial Tory.

Steeves has Liberal support for his campaign in the form of former Winnipeg deputy chief administrative officer Alex Robinson, a federal Liberal party member.

Steeves said he will declare the rest of his campaign team in the future. Fellow mayoral candidates Brian Bowman and Judy Wasylycia-Leis identified their campaign managers, fundraisers and publicists early in their campaigns.

Steeves declined to say why he waited so long to make a policy announcement, other than to suggest most of the electorate is not yet engaged in the mayoral race.

His campaign suffered serious setbacks in May, when few people attended a general campaign launch and his campaign lead Derek Rolstone subsequently quit in a very public manner. Rolstone now volunteers for Bowman’s campaign.

Steeves insisted he’s engaged in the race and promised to be more visible in the coming weeks and will make more campaign pledges.

“It’s been a difficult seven weeks in developing that policy,” he said. “I promise we’re not going to keep you waiting as long for announcements from now on.”

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca