Winnipeg Free for All: Towards Democracy at City Hall By Owen Toews Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Manitoba office Alternatives Policy for Canadian Centre Winnipeg Free for All: About the Author Towards Democracy at City Hall Owen Toews is a postdoctoral fellow at the isbn 978-1-77125-362-8 University of Alberta. He is the author of Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg, october 2017 forthcoming from ARP Books in 2018. Acknowledgement This research was supported by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500 and was peer reviewed by two independent academics. Unit 205 – 765 Main St., Winnipeg, MB R2W 3N5 tel 204-927-3200 fax 204-927-3201 email [email protected] Introduction Sam Katz, the baseball team-owner turned mayor a critical history of this structure, a summary of brought a now notorious level of corruption to how it works, an assessment of its strengths and Winnipeg’s City Hall. Katz’s administration was weaknesses, and a list of suggestions for making marked by numerous charges of corrupt deal- it more amenable to the pressing needs and as- ings, including hiring his close friend and busi- pirations of everyday Winnipeggers. ness partner as the City’s Chief Administrative Democracy, the motivating principle for this OfficerCAO ( ),1 gifting city contracts to friends report, has a simple meaning: “Rule by the peo- and business associates,2 and accepting lucra- ple.” 4 Democratic governance, in other words, tive “secret commissions” for city construction is self-governance. Democratic ideals dictate projects.3 But after promising to reform aspects that decisions about the future of a commu- of the city’s governance structure that enabled nity ought to reflect the will of the entire com- Katz’s shady dealings, Winnipeg’s current mayor munity, and all parts of the community, rather has — to no one’s surprise — failed to do so. For than a single individual or a small group. This all his unique traits, Katz was a direct product report treats democracy not as a static condi- of a governance structure that encourages cor- tion that is automatically ensured by certain ruption and makes the mayor of Winnipeg the institutions — such as elections — but as a ten- single most powerful mayor in Canada. While dency that can be either inhibited or promoted Brian Bowman has challenged certain business by various structures. When power over the en- interests more than his predecessor — asking tire community is structurally concentrated in suburban developers to pay new fees, for in- the hands of a few — as it is in Winnipeg’s civic stance — there is ultimately nothing structural governance structure — democracy is inhibited. preventing him from serving the narrow inter- The more that power is dispersed equally among ests of his Chamber of Commerce friends just as the members of a community, the more democ- Katz did. This report investigates the structural racy is promoted. aspects of civic governance in Winnipeg that al- What is at stake in the question of democ- lowed Katz to operate with relative impunity and racy — or the lack thereof — at city hall? While even encourage such tendencies in others. It offers it is true that the local state in Canada is the Winnipeg Free For All: Towards democrAcy at ciTy HAll 1 least powerful of the three levels of government, ly — that makes radical change necessary if municipalities have primary responsibility over real democracy is to be realized. This report is several crucial aspects of everyday life includ- written in the hopes that radical change can be ing: policing, public transportation, zoning, land achieved and real democracy can be created, so use, urban planning, firefighting, roads, bridges, that city hall can be recycled into something parks, libraries, pools, and community centres. we can actually use. In this spirit, it follows in Through its zoning powers, city council can de- the footsteps of the many grassroots organiz- cide to make housing more, or less affordable. ers who have — by choice or necessity — con- Through its land use powers, city council can sidered Winnipeg’s City Hall worthy of their decide to turn urban land over to Indigenous na- attention. From the many tens of thousands tions, or not. Through its public transportation of Winnipeggers who elected communists powers, city council can decide to provide free, Jacob Penner and Joe Zuken to city council, fast, and frequent public transit, or not. Through to the militant Indigenous organizers who the municipal budget, city council can decide made George Munroe the first Indigenous city to direct less money to the police, and more to councilor at the City of Winnipeg in 1971, to pools, libraries and community centres, or not. the multitude of Indigenous women — such as The lack of democracy at city hall silences policy Dorothy Betz, Kathy Mallett and Leslie Spil- ideas such as these and excludes the full range lett — who have organized against police bru- of needs and aspirations in our city. tality in Winnipeg for decades, Winnipeggers The City of Winnipeg has a dubious history have long considered city hall worth struggling as regards democracy — more on that short- in, with, and against. 2 canadian centre for policy alternatives — MANITOBa History of Civic Governance in Winnipeg er municipal governments—are crucial to any “Winnipeg was established by businessmen, for contemporary understanding of democracy in business purposes.” Winnipeg’s civic government, not only because Alan Artibise5 they prove that the city was established undem- As Alan Artibise taught us, the City of Winni- ocratically, but also because these foundations peg was never intended to be a democratic in- persist in denying the right to self-determina- stitution in any meaningful sense of the word. tion of Indigenous peoples in Winnipeg today. Rather, it was designed in 1873 by a small fac- The legal foundations underlying the City of tion of the city’s population intent on serving its Winnipeg’s right to govern are extremely shaky own narrow interests. Much like the Canadian for a number of reasons. First, the Doctrine of nation-state in general, the City of Winnipeg Discovery that underlies Canadian sovereignty was founded by people who considered them- over the North-West and provides the basis for selves to be white property-owning men in or- the City of Winnipeg was premised on fantasy der to expand the power of white people, men, rather than any actual material presence or rela- and capitalist property owners. tionship to the North-West.6 Second, the prom- It is crucial to note that, like the Canadian ises of the Manitoba Act — which established nation-state, the City of Winnipeg was premised the Province of Manitoba — that guaranteed a on the dispossession of Indigenous lands and the land base for the Métis nation have never been denial of Indigenous sovereignty, a process that fulfilled.7 Third, the Anishinabe signatories of relied — as the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Re- Treaty One never agreed to a complete surrender port made clear — on genocide. We can therefore of the land, meaning the Crown’s understand- say that the foundations of the City of Winnipeg ing of Treaty One is largely a misinterpretation.8 are settler colonialism, white supremacy, patri- These precarious legal grounds mean that the archy, and capitalism — four pillars upon which City of Winnipeg’s right to govern the lands of true democracy can never be achieved. the Anishinabe, Cree, Dakota, and Métis peo- The settler-colonial foundations of the City ples is based less in the consent of the people of Winnipeg—and the same is the case for oth- than on coercion. Winnipeg Free For All: Towards democrAcy at ciTy HAll 3 To illustrate briefly the undemocratic ori- The small commercial class that first estab- gins of the City of Winnipeg on a more concrete lished the City of Winnipeg has continued to level, consider the actual human geography of govern the city more or less uninterrupted to 1870s Red River, the community upon which the this day. How has such a small group of people City of Winnipeg was imposed. At the time, the so effectively monopolized the governance of an population of Red River consisted of 9,900 Mé- entire city? At first, it was relatively straightfor- tis people, 1,000 First Nations people, and 1,500 ward: the people who called themselves Winni- non-Indigenous people of European descent.9 The peg’s City Fathers established bans restricting the mostly-Indigenous residents of the community right to vote and to hold political office to peo- did not come together as freely consenting citi- ple like themselves: property-owning men with zens10 to establish the City of Winnipeg. Rath- British citizenship.13 For the city’s first five dec- er, the City of Winnipeg was established by and ades, therefore, the vast majority of Winnipeg- for a tiny group of white businessmen — most gers—not to mention those Indigenous people having arrived in Red River from Ontario only who had been pushed out of Winnipeg—were in the previous few years — and imposed on the disenfranchised. The city’s mayor and twelve rest of the community who were mostly barred councilors — known as aldermen — in these years from participating in its “democratic” institu- were elected by a mere ten percent of the city’s tions. Democratic is in quotations because these population.14 In 1890, to make it worse, a “plu- institutions were the product of, and reflected ral vote” system was introduced that allowed a the will of, a very small minority of the commu- man to vote in every ward he owned property nity, to the exclusion of most who lived there.