In this episode of WINNIPEG VOTES 2026, host Graham McDonald spoke with Winnipeg City Council candidate for Mynarski Ward, Natalie Smith.<\/p>\n
Smith previously ran for the ward in 2022 and received 22.72% of the vote.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s campaign is heavily focused on community involvement and being an advocate for the people she represents.<\/p>\n
She said that since her last run many people in the ward have asked her to run again and that her connections with people and community organizations in the ward have only strengthened since her last run.<\/p>\n
During her 2022 campaign, Smith proposed reducing the Winnipeg Police Service budget by 2.5 per cent annually over four years and reallocating the money to community services. She acknowledged that an individual councillor cannot change the budget unilaterally but said she would evaluate spending decisions according to the priorities they reflect.<\/p>\n
\u201cA budget is really a value statement,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really have to look at what do we want to see in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said she would work through council\u2019s budget process to ensure Mynarski\u2019s priorities are represented. She identified a possible splash pad at Beryl Watts Park, continued funding for wading pools and other places to cool off, and adequate recreation funding.<\/p>\n
Regarding housing and homelessness, Smith pointed to a pilot project in William Whyte in which the City sold a vacant lot to Purpose Construction for one dollar for housing development. She said she would support similar initiatives, along with the work of the Right to Housing Coalition and the construction of more public and social housing.<\/p>\n
She would also support repurposing vacant and abandoned buildings into new housing and wants to preserve Mynarski Ward\u2019s mature growth trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that I think is really crucial is we can look around at the state of some of our facilities, some of our streets, and\u2026 like I talked about earlier, our tree canopy. We need to ensure that we\u2019re moving in the right direction,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel.
Disclaimer: As part of U Multicultural\u2019s 2026 Winnipeg Municipal Election Coverage, candidates were invited to share messages with our audience. The views expressed in this article are the candidate\u2019s own, and this article does not constitute an endorsement by U Multicultural.<\/p>\n
Graham McDonald, U Multicultural Journalism and Media Arts Centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this episode of WINNIPEG VOTES 2026, host Graham McDonald spoke with Winnipeg City Council candidate for Mynarski…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-848763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}