With recent troubling news from Winnipeg City Hall surrounding items like the Fire Hall Audit, Boiled Water Advisories, Police Headquarters Cost Overruns and Brown Water Concerns it is time to consider making changes to Winnipeg’s civic political landscape.
There are some changes that could be made that would have a significant impact on how civic issues are addressed like redrawing the city wards or returning to representative ratios pre-1992. The current size of wards makes it very difficult for a city councillor to take a position to advocate for the needs of their constituents.
An easier modification would be to do away with the notion that partisan politics does not belong in city hall. Reality is that the majority of councillors are affiliated with political parties and if people were to run under the banner of a party, voters would have a better idea of where a candidate stands on important issues.
Further changes that can be made to ameliorate the current electoral system in place for Winnipeg would be to eliminate the Executive Policy Committee and treat each elected member equally.
There are other more radical considerations that could be made including adopting a completely new system that could make more democratic decisions on behalf of citizens.
Whether it is smaller and relatively easy changes or significant overhauls of the entire system it is time to start discussing change. The next civic election is scheduled for October 22, 2014 and if we want to see changes that can make Winnipeg a better place to live for everyone, ideas need to be discussed now so they can be vetted and adopted for the subsequent electoral cycle in 2018.
Each day this week I plan to post more on each of these ideas. Please share your feedback and what you would like to see changed at Winnipeg City Hall.
Politix Brain Storm 
pretty tough to get political parties as many civic politicians like the idea that we don`t know where they stand on many issues. they like to keep it vague.
True. In Wednesday’s piece I plan to address some of the reasons why parties may appeal to civic politicians. Stay tuned!