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After four years in office, Scott Gillingham is not running against 11 other Winnipeg mayoral candidates so much as he’s running against his own record.
The incumbent gets to own responsibility for every complaint about the Winnipeg Transit route overhaul implemented during his third year in office.
He gets to wear every concern about social misery stemming from homelessness, addictions and diminishing public safety, three interconnected social maladies most Winnipeggers believe are getting worse.
Gillingham also gets to be judged against his own promises. By the city’s own accounting, he made 90 of them during his first run for mayor in 2022.
After four years, Gillingham says he’s fulfilled 57 of those promises, which works out to a 63 per cent completion rate, and has made at least some progress on 23 others.
CBC News also kept track of his promises in 2022 but accounted for them in a different manner. CBC tallied 43 distinct promises, 18 of which have been fulfilled. That works out to a 42 per cent completion rate, though 15 other promises are in progress, according to CBC’s accounting.
Gillingham said he’s proud of what he has been able to do.
WATCH | Keeping track of Gillingham’s 2022 campaign promises:
Did Scott Gillingham keep his mayoral promises to Winnipeggers?
Winnipeg incumbent mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham made 90 promises when he first ran for mayor in 2022, by the city’s accounting. He says he has fulfilled 57.
“No, we didn’t get them all completed. Some, I think we’ve obviously set aside for a time, as well. But as far as progress, we’ve made significant progress on those campaign commitments in 2022,” he said at his campaign office on St. James Street earlier this week.
There is a measure of subjectivity to whether promises have been fulfilled, but some things are clear.
Gillingham’s city hall did, as promised, create squads of workers called “neighbourhood action teams” who effectively jump the 311 queue to patch problematic potholes, clear snow from bus stops and conduct other duties. The city hired a chief construction officer, although that official left the city after only 13 months, and the position is now vacant.
Gillingham appointed himself to the Winnipeg Police Board. He hired a homelessness and addictions adviser. The city hired community safety officers to help with Winnipeg Transit, much to the chagrin of the police union. The city offered incentives for True North Real Estate Development’s transformation of Portage Place mall and made temporary patio approvals automatic for restaurants.
Gillingham did not follow through on a pledge to keep property tax increases to 3.5 per cent a year — there was a 5.95 per cent increase in 2025. The city did not generate solar power. It did not hire a police criminologist.
The road repair budget in 2026 was lower than it was in 2022, contrary to a promise to increase it. The city did not eliminate gaps in its network of cycling routes.
Other promises are harder to define as fulfilled or broken.
During the televised mayoral debate in 2022, Gillingham said he was against reopening Portage and Main to pedestrians and also said he did not support a supervised consumption site.
He changed his mind on Portage and Main when the price tag for maintaining the underground circus rose higher than the cost of restoring pedestrian access. Gillingham seemed to soften his position on consumption sites after the NDP defeated the Progressive Conservative government and made it clear the province would fund the facility.
He also promised modular housing for the homeless in 2022 but turned that pledge into the construction of conventional housing on city-owned lots.
All of this might seem like quibbling compared with the biggest monkey on the incumbent mayoral candidate’s back: the widespread misery on the city’s streets.
He acknowledged this issue is at the top of people’s minds.
“The drug crisis, homelessness, and sometimes the crime associated with it, is plaguing every major city in Canada. So, we are not alone in Winnipeg,” Gillingham said.
“We have made progress, though, on addressing homelessness. Are we where we need to be? No, there’s still too many people struggling with homelessness. There are far too many people struggling on the streets with addiction.”
He said the city has partnered with the province to mitigate homelessness and pointed out that council voted in September to approve his motion to create a new emergency service devoted to mental health.
Gillingham has made far fewer promises during this year’s election campaign. This is standard practice for incumbent candidates. Former mayor Sam Katz issued fewer pledges the first time he ran for re-election, as did Brian Bowman when he ran a second time.
Generally, fewer promises translates into less political risk down the road. But Gillingham has a different take on this.
“We haven’t completed all the promises from 2022,” he said.