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This article was published 27/9/2018 (728 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

If this is true democracy, then it's pretty messy.

On Wednesday night at the Forks Market, StorefrontMB — an activist coalition of architects, planners and designers — held a mayoral forum focused on the future of Winnipeg from a design and planning point of view.

StorefrontMB, unabashedly progressive and urbanist in its outlook, wanted all eight registered candidates to talk about issues like densification, walkability, progressive planning and design, active transportation and alternative ways to use precious tax dollars to make the city look and work better in a people-friendly sort of way.

Yes, eight candidates. And anytime you try to manage an event around eight wildly different politicians of dramatically different perspective and experience, you're going to see some messiness.

To be completely accurate, only seven candidates participated in this forum. Filmmaker Ed Ackerman did not respond to StorefrontMB's invitation but showed up unannounced anyway, and organizers decided to deny him a spot. He stood just off to the side, occasionally writing messages for the audience on letter-sized paper. Messages which included his request to renegotiate Treaty One. "It's a bad deal," his sign read.

Ackerman's exclusion may be decried by some, but in an objective sense, he hasn't really done much to earn a spot at the microphone. Since announcing his candidacy in August, he hasn't campaigned, does not have a website and has not published anything that would resemble a platform. In fact, his major accomplishment since registering has been getting his name in news stories as one of the eight candidates.

Did Ackerman deserve to be included in a forum where actual voters come to get information to inform their voting decisions? Therein lies the story within the story of this and many other elections.

Mayoral elections always prompt discussions about whether all candidates deserve to participate in forums or whether only so-called "legitimate" candidates should be invited. In the past, this question rested mostly with event hosts, but this time around incumbent Mayor Brian Bowman indicated he would not participate in any event unless all candidates were invited.

That caused immediate ripples. The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, which hosts one of the more well-attended forums, decided to cancel its event rather than be forced into hosting all eight candidates. Perhaps the chamber feared that its event would turn out like the StorefrontMB event.

So, how did that event go?

Candidates were asked a series of eight questions which were not provided in advance; each candidate was given ninety seconds to respond to each question. In general, there were no rebuttals, unless a candidate directly called out another candidate, in which responses would be allowed at the moderator's discretion.

(Full disclosure: I was the moderator.)

Here's the short-form description of what unfolded.

Most of the candidates demonstrated a clear inability to embrace the lofty ideals and principles which underpinned the questions.

StorefrontMB wanted to drive a discussion around how to transform the city into a place where cars do not rule, where neighbourhoods, including downtown, are given over to pedestrians and bicycles, where infill housing was encouraged to increase density and where the majority of the city's infrastructure budget was not invested in underpasses, overpasses and freeway expansions.

In general, that is not what the candidates wanted to talk about.

Don Woodstock, a west-end community activist, was a constant source of passion and conviction all night as he talked about ending homelessness and income inequality. So too was Umar Hayat, whose enthusiasm often forced him to his feet while responding. Unfortunately, neither man connected effectively to the questions being asked.

Venkat Machiraju was more subdued, with a laser-like focus on two main pledges: cutting taxes and building an inner-ring road freeway. So focused, in fact, that he more or less referenced those two issues in every answer to every question.

Winnipeg cop Tim Diack was articulate and remarkably worldly in his perspectives, even if he was a bit vague on specific ideas. Former Morden Mayor Doug Wilson was passionate and eloquent but extremely unfocused to the point of being nonsensical.

That left Bowman and prime challenger Jenny Motkaluk, a business consultant. This forum confirmed that there are some good reasons why they have been identified as frontrunners.

Both Bowman and Motkaluk were clear and concise in their answers, and did the best job overall of actually answering the questions being asked.

A self-described urbanist, Bowman talked about his priorities for increasing density and walkability, the importance of charging development fees on suburban sprawl and his commitment to rapid transit as a major tool to help the city on its path to one million residents.

Motkaluk was very effective in stressing that in all aspects of design and planning, city hall must be more deferential to business owners. Without people investing money and creating jobs, then the city won't have tax revenue for any big-idea projects.

Despite a crowded podium, it seemed as if voters in attendance got a clear picture of the differences between the two candidates, and the reasons why they are considered frontrunners.

Which brings us back to the decisions of some organizations to cancel debates because they were denied an opportunity to pick and choose candidates.

Including all the candidates does take time away from the to-and-fro that might expose the frontrunners. But even with five other candidates in attendance, the contrast between Bowman and Motkaluk was clear. There is no good reason to deny the full participation of all candidates, except perhaps an inflated sense of self-importance in some forum hosts.

The StorefrontMB debate, like others that have and will take place this campaign, was exactly what it was: a gloriously messy, occasionally unfocused and thoroughly enjoyable affair.

Which is just the way we should expect it to be in a true democracy.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

The Winnipeg Free Press, along with WinnipegREALTORS, is sponsoring a mayoral forum for all candidates at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain on Oct. 4.