Time for councillor to enter the modern era

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/06/2023 (862 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was a time, sometime around the midpoint of the last century, when the favoured response to the verbal abuse or bullying of a child was to encourage the young victim to repeat the following: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

The generally accepted knowledge these days, of course, is that words can indeed cause significant harm — perhaps not in the obvious, broken-bone manner in which physical violence typically manifests, but in ways that can be injurious to the emotional and psychological aspects of one’s being.

Still, there are many whose behaviour suggests they remain resolutely tethered to the “suck it up” mindset of that bygone era, and whose attitudes seem unmoored to any understanding of how their words might affect those at whom they are directed.

Jeff Browaty seems intent on demonstrating he is among them.

Seldom a stranger to controversy during his 17-year tenure as the elected city-council representative for North Kildonan (he is the longest-serving among current councillors), Browaty of late seems to have taken it upon himself to assure the public that he’s an old-school type of politician who has little time or patience for the elitist concerns of those who don’t fit his description of “Joe Lunchbox” Winnipeggers.

After sparring recently with local activists appearing as delegations at community-committee meetings, arguing their presentations do not represent the priorities of “the people who pay taxes and work all day long to provide for their families to make a life for themselves,” Browaty last week turned his attention to those in the city’s population who struggle with substance abuse and addiction.

In a social-media exchange on a Facebook page titled North Kildonan — Your Neighbourhood, Your Priorities, Browaty countered one user’s criticism of the Winnipeg Police Service’s purchase of several new motorcycles with the observation that, “We need more policing — not less — due to all the drugged-out zombies on the streets.”

The councillor also used the exchange to express his opposition to the establishment of supervised-injection sites as a means of reducing harm among drug users, suggesting “providing clean needles is enabling and getting more people on the wrong path” and that the focus should be on keeping illicit drugs off the street.

Reaction to Browaty’s comments was swift and overwhelmingly negative, with several who criticized his views offering first-hand stories of loved ones lost to addiction who did not fit, or deserve, the “zombie” dismissal.

The councillor at first stood by his statements, but as negative reaction swelled, he offered an apology of sorts for his choice of words: “I realize all these people experiencing mental and physical distress on our streets are somebody’s kids or parents and they are human beings at the end of the day. They are Winnipeggers.”

One hopes this represents a moment of true enlightenment for the combative councillor, and not just a carefully worded effort to quiet the criticism so he can get back to the business of serving those constituents whose main concerns, as Browaty describes, involve properly timed traffic lights and the freedom to drive their SUVs through the Tim Hortons drive-thru on the way to hockey practice.

Joe Lunchbox might be a Winnipegger who lost a loved one to addiction. And Joe Lunchbox might be well served by an understanding of how SUVs and trips to the drive-thru contribute to the intensifying climate crisis.

And Joe Lunchbox, as well as every other Winnipegger, might be better represented by councillors whose solutions to 21st-century crises are not drawn from the 20th century’s sadly outdated playbook.