2006 Winnipeg municipal election explained

The 2006 Winnipeg municipal election was held on October 25, 2006, to elect a mayor, councillors and school trustees in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Sam Katz was re-elected Mayor of Winnipeg over left-leaning challenger Marianne Cerilli.

Results

Council

• Wally Roth was 61 years old at the time of the election, and owned an auto repair centre. During the 1980s, he was the owner of a used car business called Economy Auto Sales of Winnipeg and a resident advisor to city hall.^[1] A member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba, Roth has described his political views as "straight down the middle". He endorsed Mayor Sam Katz's bid for re-election in the 2006 campaign.^[2]

School Trustees

St. James-Assiniboia School Division

2006 Winnipeg election, Trustee, River East Transcona School Division, Ward One (two members elected)

Candidate	Total votes	% of total votes
(incumbent)Linda Archer	4,240	24.30
Cheryl Smukowich	3,462	19.84
(incumbent)Bruce Chegus	3,331	19.09
Grant Crosbie	3,263	18.70
Denyse Lambert	2,017	11.56
Kent Whiteside	1,134	6.50
Total valid votes	17,447	100.00

• Linda Archer was first elected to the St. James-Assiniboia School Board in a 1994 by-election, following the death of Maureen Jack. She said that she was not political or issue-driven, and indicated that she wanted to maintain high-quality education.^[3] She was re-elected in the general elections of 1995, 1998, 2002 and 2006. She became president of the Manitoba Association of School Trustees for a one-year term in 2002, and in this capacity criticized the provincial government's plans for school board amalgamation.^[4] She also argued that class sizes should be overseen by school boards, rather than by the province.^[5] At the end of her term in 2003, she delivered a speech arguing that Manitoba school boards were under attack from the provincial government.^[6] She also helped spearhead a change to MAST's constitution, allowing presidents to serve for two-year terms.^[7]
• Bruce Chegus was first elected to the St. James-Assiniboia School Board in 1989, and was re-elected in 1992, 1995, 1998, 2002 and 2006. He served as chair of the St. James-Assiniboia board after the 1995 election, and spearheaded an initiative to release reports on student academic performance and student perceptions of education to the general public.^[8]

River East Transcona School Division

2006 Winnipeg election, Trustee, River East Transcona School Division, Ward One (two members elected)

Candidate	Total votes	% of total votes
(incumbent)Colleen Carswell	4,336	38.35
George Marshall	3,838	33.95
Wayne Laniuk	3,132	27.70
Total valid votes	11,306	100.00

• Colleen Carswell was first elected to the Transcona-Springfield School Division in 1992, and was re-elected in 1995 and 1998. She served as its chair from 1998 to 2000, and led the board in its controversial decision to impose rent charges on before- and after-school day care.^[9] She also supported the contracting out of bus and mechanical services.^[10] She was elected to the amalgamated River East Transcona board in 2002, and voted against a high-profile proposal to rename Wayoata School after Terry Fox in 2005.^[11] Carswell was chosen as vice-chair of the River East Transcona Division after her re-election in November 2006.^[12]

Post-election changes

John Orlikow resigned his seat on the Winnipeg School Board to run for a vacant seat on the Winnipeg City Council.

March 17, 2009 by-election, Winnipeg School Division, Ward One

Candidate	Total votes	% of total votes
Rita Hildahl	2,427	37.92
Gary Brownstone	1,362	21.28
Colin Fast	1,047	16.36
Barbara Coombs	975	15.23
Shane Nestruck	345	5.39
Carlos James	245	3.83
Total valid votes	6,401	100.00

• Shane Nestruck (born September 4, 1947) is a musician and activist. He holds L.Mus. and Bachelor of Education degrees, and has played with the Montreal Sax Quartet, the Winnipeg Sax Quartet and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. A saxophonist and occasional clarinetist, he is a private tutor and operated an instrument repair shop during the 1970s.^[13] After starting his professional career in Montreal, he moved to Winnipeg in 1978.^[14] He is a Canadian federalist and a supporter of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),^[15] and has written against Quebec separatism.^[16] He provided a room for Sasha Boychok in 1991, when the saxophone player was attempting to defect from the Soviet Union.^[17] Nestruck and Boychouk later played together in the group Saxology Canada, which released a CD called Points in Time (1997),^[18] and were among the founding members of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra.^[19] Nestruck ran for a position on the board of the Winnipeg Musicians' Association in 2004, but was not elected.^[20] He opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[21] In 2005, he reviewed Maude Barlow's book Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America for the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper.^[22] Nestruck is a supporter of light rail transit for Winnipeg, and initially supported Mayor Sam Katz for his policy views on the matter.^[23] By 2006, however, he was calling on Katz to resign for poor judgement on several matters.^[24] Nestruck was a supporter of the New Democratic Party for most of his life, but became disillusioned with the Manitoba NDP in the 1990s and 2000s. He ran for the party's nomination in Fort Rouge as an "outsider" candidate in the buildup to the 2007 provincial election, accusing the party of betraying its social democratic ideals and of emulating the practices of federal Liberal governments.^[25] He also accused Premier Gary Doer of being a "pretender" who had "hijacked the party".^[26] He finished third against Jennifer Howard.^[27] Nestruck later ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Manitoba in 2008, and lost to James Beddome.^[28] He is an active supporter of electoral reform,^[29] and has argued that Canada's traditional parties have become stuck in following outmoded models of economic growth and oil dependency.^[30] Notwithstanding his progressive views on most issues, Nestruck has also supported several "law and order" initiatives, including a plan for the Winnipeg police to post the names of persons charged with drunk driving offenses online.^[31] The 2009 by-election campaign was his first bid for public office; he said that he would cut his stipend, and seek to restore discipline on schoolgrounds.^[32] For Earth Day 2009, CBC Manitoba named Nestruck as the "Greenest Manitoban".^[33]

Notes and References

1. "'Big boats' popular with Prairie landlubbers", Globe and Mail, March 3, 1984, CL6.
2. Mary Agnes Welch, "It's a low-key race east of Red River", Winnipeg Free Press, October 24, 2006, B2.
3. Nick Martin, "School board rivals go back to basics", Winnipeg Free Press, January 28, 1994; "Archer wins school board byelection", Winnipeg Free Press, February 3, 1994.
4. Nick Martin, "Trustees keep autonomy", Winnipeg Free Press, March 17, 2002, A3; Nick Martin, "Caldwell takes over division budgets", Winnipeg Free Press, June 17, 2002, A1.
5. "Manitoba will allow teachers to take class size to arbitration", Canadian Press, October 28, 2002, 22:18.
6. Nick Martin, "School board system safe", Winnipeg Free Press, March 15, 2003, A3.
7. "MAST vote to permit president second term", Winnipeg Free Press, March 16, 2003, A3.
8. Aldo Santin, "Parents praise open-book school board", Winnipeg Free Press, January 29, 1996, A5. There is a banker in Winnipeg named Bruce Chegus, who works at Great-West Life Assurance. He holds Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degree, and was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1979. This may be the same person. See Paul Waldie, "Insurance should be high on priority list", Financial Post, April 23, 1993, 14.
9. Nick Martin, "Parents balk at day-care rent proposal", Winnipeg Free Press, April 8, 1999, A8; Nick Martin, "Revenue crunch to hit in-school day-care centres", Winnipeg Free Press, May 8, 2000, A3.
10. Nick Martin, "School bus walkout exposes deep divisions among trustees", Winnipeg Free Press, December 10, 2000, A4.
11. Nick Martin, "Board bounces name-change policy to committee", Winnipeg Free Press, October 20, 2005, B4.
12. Nick Martin, "Losing trustee asks for recount", Winnipeg Free Press, November 9, 2006, B5.
13. http://saxcanqanda.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html Saxology Canada Questions and Answers
14. Shane Nestruck, "Cleverley's word games" [letter], November 14, 1995, A13.
15. See for instance Shane Nestruck, "CBC a trusted source" [editorial], Winnipeg Free Press, June 30, 2006, A14.
16. See for instance Shane Nestruck, "Keep Quebec columns coming" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, November 19, 1995, A9.
17. "Soviet sax player hopes to remain in Canada", Globe and Mail, March 27, 1991, C2.
18. "New quartet blends jazz and classical", Winnipeg Free Press, March 24, 1997, C6.
19. Chris Smith, "Big-band sound coming to city", Winnipeg Free Press, October 20, 1997, C4.
20. "WHA elects board", Winnipeg Free Press, December 15, 2004, A3.
21. Shane Nestruck, "Column exposes shallowness of war" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, April 11, 2003, A13; Shane Nestruck, "Readers seem unaware Americans oppose war" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, April 24, 2003, A17.
22. Shane Nestruck, "Barlow determined to see return to values", Winnipeg Free Press, November 13, 2005, B7.
23. Shane Nestruck, "High speed transit key to future" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, December 23, 2003, A11; Shane Nestruck, "All great cities have LRT systems" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, July 5, 2004, A11.
24. Shane Nestruck, "Time for Katz to quit" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, April 13, 2006, A11.
25. Mia Rabson, "Disgruntled NDPer says he'll run in Fort Rouge", Winnipeg Free Press, August 15, 2006, B3.
26. Mia Rabson, "Fort Rouge to choose 'real' NDP: Moderates, leftist vie for party stronghold", Winnipeg Free Press, October 10, 2006, A4.
27. Martin Cash, "Howard elected to run for NDP in Fort Rouge", Winnipeg Free Press, November 23, 2006, A6.
28. "Manitoba wing of the Green Party to elect leader within a few weeks", Canadian Press, October 16, 2008, 10:41 pm.
29. Shane Nestruck, "Electoral system flawed" [letter], Winnipeg Free Press, December 6, 2008, A18.
30. Shane Nestruck, "Canada has its own brand of orthodoxy" [letter], Toronto Star, December 15, 2008, A7; Shane Nestruck, "Stop-gap budget denies causes of crisis", Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 2009, A9.
31. Tamara King, "Winnipeg gets tough on drunk drivers", Toronto Star, December 16, 2007, A7.
32. Nick Martin, "Pressing issues face trustee hopefuls", Winnipeg Free Press, March 16, 2009, B1. See also "Clarification", Winnipeg Free Press, March 18, 2009, A2.
33. http://www.cbc.ca/uptospeed/2009/05/the_greenest_manitoban.html "The Greenest Manitoban"