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Scott Gillingham acknowledged his slender mandate from voters, while calling the outcome ‘major progress’ compared with recent elections elsewhere in Canada.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Scott Gillingham, a 58-year-old centrist and former Pentecostal pastor with more than a decade’s experience on city council, was re-elected mayor of Winnipeg after being buoyed by a field of competitors who struggled to galvanize public interest.
As municipal elections were held across Manitoba this week, Mr. Gillingham’s victory over his lead challenger, Kevin Klein, owner of the Winnipeg Sun and onetime member of Manitoba’s legislature, signified voters in the provincial capital had embraced his promises of stability.
During his campaign, Mr. Gillingham repeatedly cited his steady partnerships with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indigenous leaders. And while his lead in pre-election polls dwindled throughout the campaign, the other 11 candidates could not surpass him.
But Mr. Gillingham’s share of the vote Wednesday – just under 40 per cent, according to the city’s unofficial results – is far from the ringing endorsement that incumbents typically enjoy in Winnipeg’s mayoral elections.
In an interview Thursday, he acknowledged his slender mandate from voters, while calling the outcome “major progress” compared with recent elections elsewhere in Canada.
“The polls are always shifting and changing,” Mr. Gillingham told The Globe and Mail. “At the end of the day, I’m humbled that on election night, when the ballots were counted, my support increased by 50 per cent over what it was in 2022.”
Final results in Winnipeg won’t be available until Friday, but early numbers suggest voter turnout was barely higher than the 2022 election, when 37.5 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots, the city said.
In other parts of Manitoba, public apathy manifested at the polls with both lower voting turnouts and uncontested races. Incumbent mayors in hubs such as Portage la Prairie, Steinbach, Selkirk, Niverville and Winkler won automatically because no challengers stepped forward.
In Brandon, the province’s second-largest city, Jeff Fawcett was re-elected mayor after a tight race against his sole competitor, two-term MLA Len Isleifson. By final count, Mr. Fawcett had 5,753 votes, while Mr. Isleifson received 4,845, with 38,300 eligible voters.
Mr. Gillingham called Manitoba’s turnout disappointing, but political observers say it is on par with municipal elections nationwide.
In 2022, Mr. Gillingham was elected with around 27 per cent of the vote. He had twice been previously elected city councillor for St. James, a mostly middle-class residential area that is critical to the local economy because of its proximity to the airport, Winnipeg’s largest mall and other commercial strips.
In this campaign, he received endorsements from across the political spectrum – including the city’s largest union, CUPE Local 500; the Manitoba Métis Federation; and Mark Chipman, chairman of True North Sports + Entertainment, which owns the Winnipeg Jets.
During his first term, Mr. Gillingham was known for practical, collaborative and infrastructure-focused changes. He managed to end a 46-year urban-suburban debate by reopening the city’s iconic intersection of Portage and Main, nicknamed the crossroads of Canada, to foot traffic. And he backed the massive redevelopment of downtown Winnipeg, where multiple landmark properties are undergoing years-long reconstructions.
However, Mr. Gillingham was often criticized for backing off of financial pledges, such as his promise to lower property taxes, along with delays on civic projects, a lack of tangible change on homelessness, and continued high crime rates under his watch.
Although his opponents condemned Mr. Gillingham for those concerns, they did not offer many striking alternatives or new solutions, observed Aaron Moore, a political science professor at the University of Winnipeg.
“It became a very same-same sort of election, with lots of boring ideas from all the leading contenders and not much difference between each of them as personalities or any distinguishable personal brand,” Prof. Moore said.
Both Mr. Klein and funeral director Mike Vogiatzakis, indicated by early polls as a likely third-place finisher, “offered very similar shades of slightly different centre or right-of-centre policies as Scott Gillingham,” Prof. Moore added.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Manitoba, said the “absence of any real truly progressive or left-leaning mayoral option” likely contributed to the rise of first-time candidate Noah Redden.
In a surprising turn, 27-year-old Mr. Redden, who had a low showing in early polling, placed third in Winnipeg’s mayoral race with 19.8-per-cent support, just behind Mr. Klein’s 20.7 per cent.
Also bucking the city’s historic trend was the downfall of four incumbent councillors, whose position traditionally gives them an advantage.
Prior to election day, five of Winnipeg’s 15 wards had open races, with councillors in those areas choosing not to run again. Now, nine new officeholders are headed to city hall.
Winnipeg city council will also be the closest to gender parity it’s ever been, with eight men and seven women elected.
“There’s clearly an appetite for change in the city,” Prof. Moore said. “I’m not sure Gillingham’s style of politics is cutting it with a sizable contingent of voters any more. And especially with this diverse group coming in as fresh-faced councillors, so many of whom lean further left or right than him, he will certainly need to reflect on that.”
Mr. Gillingham said he looks forward to working with new and returning councillors, and has meetings planned with each of them this week.
But he said he makes no apologies for his centrism. “By nature, inevitably, municipal politicians end up governing from the centre to be pragmatic. We don’t run parties. We’re practical politicians and we just want to get the job done,” he said.
“People haven’t elected me to be radical. They won’t see radical swings from me. That’s not who I am.”