Former Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray said he will announce his decision on Wednesday on whether or not he wants another chance at the job.
There has been speculation over whether Murray will enter the 2022 race to replace Mayor Brian Bowman, and his name has appeared in recent mayoral polls.
In an interview Tuesday, the former city leader said Winnipeg has regressed over the past four years to the point where it now faces some of the same financial challenges as when he became mayor in 1998.
“I think the city has more potential than it’s ever had,” Murray said. “I’m very optimistic about the future of the city, but I don’t think the city has ever faced such significant challenges.”
Murray was mayor of Winnipeg from 1998 until 2004, when he resigned to run for the federal Liberal Party.
He lost that race, but was elected as the Ontario Liberal MP in 2011. During this time, he held various cabinet positions until 2017, when he resigned and briefly left politics.
In 2020, Murray ran to replace Elizabeth May as leader of the federal Green Party, but lost.
In 2018, he endorsed Bowman’s re-election campaign. The current mayor will not run again this fall.
At that time, Murray said he did not want to run for any level of office in Manitoba.
Now that may have changed.
Murray said he spoke with 75 to 100 people over the past few months to assess whether he had support from the business, labor, social, environmental, cultural and Indigenous communities.
“I don’t think the next mayor can do it alone,” he said.
“Whoever does it best will have to be willing to put together a broad coalition of community leaders, really renegotiate the arrangements with the province and really start to come up with solutions, because the city is going to have the challenge that it cannot fix itself. .”
Murray said that during those conversations, many people brought up the city’s financial situation. He said that when he was first elected, the city had a low credit rating and high debt. He said he had cut the debt in half and introduced the gas tax to support infrastructure costs.
Murray said he also addressed Indigenous land claims issues, downtown concerns and worries about suburban infrastructure.
“These people came to me and said, ‘We’re back with these situations. And we want someone who has the experience,” he said.
“So I sat down with them and listened to them, because it’s so much worse than four years ago.”
Murray said he was only considering entering the race because he was dealing with his elderly mother’s housing situation.
If he registers his campaign for mayor, he will be the 11th person to do so.
The 10 candidates already registered are Idris Adelakun, Chris Clacio, Rana Bokhari, Scott Gillingham, Shaun Loney, Jenny Motkaluk, Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Rick Shone, Desmond Thomas and Don Woodstock.
Winnipeg’s municipal election will take place on October 26.
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