CBC Winnipeg
No 'star' business candidate in mayoral race
WINNIPEG - Seven candidates are vying for the corner office at Winnipeg's City Hall, but none of the mayoral candidates are considered the favourite of the city's business community.
University of Winnipeg political studies professor Jim Silver says even frontrunners in the race – former city councillors Dan Vandal, Al Golden, Garth Steek, and former MLA MaryAnn Mihychuk, – do not appear to have solid backing from business.
In previous elections, he says, the support of the business community meant victory for a candidate.
"In the past, the local business community has been very effective in having a candidate lined up for forthcoming elections and having a team in place and a system in place, so that over most of the 20th century the local business community has been able to control City Hall," says Silver.
Silver says that hasn't been the case since Susan Thompson was mayor in the 1990s. He can't put his finger on why there's been a change, but he suggests it could be a change in the dynamics of the community.
"It may also be that it is not as local a business community as was once the case," he says. "Businesses operate over a broader geographic range, and so people who are located here may not feel quite as much an attachment to Winnipeg as such as used to be the case."
Other observers say the business community is much more diverse in opinion than it used to be.
Some business leaders say the current byelection caught many off guard, and that the business community may start searching now for a candidate for the general civic election in 2006.