Scott Gillingham says the City of Winnipeg is going on the right track in his first term as mayor, and is hoping voters give him another four years in office. “The story I believe is one that shows that Winnipeg has momentum,” Gillingham said in a recent interview. “We have $1.8 billion in construction going on in Winnipeg’s downtown right now. Our city is growing by 80,000 people. We have more housing that has been built than over the last four years than in any other four-year point in Winnipeg. We have momentum. “Yes, we’ve got challenges with homelessness and addiction and crime. We’re working on them. We’re going to keep working on them. Every major city has that.” Gillingham was elected mayor in 2022 with 27.54 per cent of the vote, beating 10 other candidates. Speaking with CTV News Winnipeg senior news anchor Maralee Caruso, Gillingham touted his successes in the mayor’s office. He said he made decisions that had been kicked down the road, such as reopening Portage and Main to pedestrian traffic. He also said he made progress on expanding Route 90 and Chief Peguis Trail and secured funding for the North End Water Pollution Control Centre, which he called the priority project for his term. “That has been the priority project for two reasons,” he said. “One, there’s only so much capacity left. If we run out of capacity, that plant treats 70 per cent of our wastewater. If we run out of capacity, we have to say no to more housing, no to more industrial development and jobs development. And we also need to build that plant to meet our environmental license to protect Lake Winnipeg and the rivers.” During his term, Gillingham was criticized for raising property taxes by 5.95 per cent, up from 3.5 per cent he pledged during the 2022 campaign. He said if re-elected, property taxes will be increased to the rate of inflation. “We have to have revenue,” Gillingham said. “Part of the challenge we face right now in our roads in our city services that people complain about is because for so many years in this city, property taxes were frozen, and we didn’t get any revenue to do the maintenance work on our roads or add more services.” Gillingham also defended the rollout of the new Winnipeg Transit system in 2025, which faced criticism from riders and other candidates, many of whom have pledged to scrap the new route. He said the city has made adjustments based on feedback they have received and they will continue making fixes. “What people have forgotten, though, is the old system had a lot of complaints, a lot of pass-ups, and a lot of problems, and the old system design would not accommodate the transit needs that we have as our city grows toward a million people,” he said. Gillingham is one of 12 mayoral candidates CTV News will profile in sit-down interviews ahead of the Oct. 28 election. The full interview can be viewed online. -With files from CTV News’ Maralee Caruso
