NDP candidate demands answers
Winnipeg Free Press
Tuesday May 25 2004
By Mary Agnes Welch
NDP candidate James Allum says south Winnipeg residents are in the dark about plans for the Kapyong Barracks.
"We're here to ask what's going on with the Kapyong Barracks because we don't know," said Allum, who launched his campaign in front of the military base yesterday. "The public has not been informed or engaged in what happens here."
Allum, a policy expert with the city, said Winnipeg South Centre Liberal MP Anita Neville has been "complacent" about seeking public input into the land's future use.
The military base, which is the home of the Second Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, will be shut down this summer, and 600 soldiers and 400 family members will be moved to CFB Shilo, near Brandon.
Allum would like to see the base become home to an environmentally friendly infill development with housing for all income levels, green space and access to transit.
Another option is to designate the land an urban reserve. Long Plains First Nation and Brokenhead First Nation have been working together on a plan to acquire the 160-acre site as part of land still owed to them from their treaty agreements. Allum said the first thing he would do as MP would be to host some public consultation meetings that include planners and architects.
Raj Joshi, the riding's Conservative candidate, agreed with Allum, saying he has been canvassing in the area and even people with homes that back onto the base know nothing about its eventual fate.
But Neville said the process of planning what to do with the base is still in the early stages. The Department of National Defence must transfer the land to the Public Works Department and then to the Canada Lands Corp., which will then determine how to dispose of it. That's when a process of public consultation begins.
Meantime, she is working with the other two levels of government to oversee the land's future.
"These things do not happen overnight," said Neville. "It is not a simple process, and I hope Mr. Allum didn't make it seem that way."
Joshi said public consultation should have already begun. "I don't buy that. It's too easy to hide behind process," said Joshi. "Consultation doesn't cost money and doesn't do anybody any harm, and it really should have started by now."
maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca
PHOTO JOE BRYKSA/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS