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Marianne Cerilli
Marianne Cerilli says she entered the mayoral race because she thinks Winnipeg is being taken in the opposite direction than what it needs to become a sustainable and healthy city.
After working as a New Democrat MLA for almost 13 years, including roles as housing and environment critic in opposition, and later a backbencher in the NDP government, Cerilli believes her knowledge and experience can reverse what she describes as a downward spiral.
 "The approach to development is not sustainable. The continued reliance on expanding suburban developments that are low density, high cost and car-dependent has profound effects on the rest of the city," says Cerilli.
"It means everyone else in existing neighbourhoods subsidizes that new development and there's no investment into the infrastructure and the programs and services to service the existing area."
Cerilli says Winnipeg uses twice the area per person as any other city in Canada — creating not only inefficiencies but also poverty.
This, Cerilli says, shapes social conditions for crime which then drives people away from the city core, leading to further decline of urban areas.
One of the main issues that spurred Cerilli to run for mayor was her opposition to the OlyWest hog plant planned for the St. Boniface Industrial Park.
"Putting that kind of hog slaughter industry into a high-tech industrial park doesn't make any sense," she said.
Cerilli also fears the plant puts the city at risk in terms of potentially losing high paying technical jobs in exchange for low skilled jobs the hog plant would provide.
She recently became chair of the poverty committee with the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, a non-profit organization, and says she's focusing on a strategy to address the city's poverty problem.
Cerilli says Winnipeg has one of the highest child poverty rates in Canada, accusing incumbent Mayor Sam Katz of ignoring the problem.
"Mr. Katz is not going to address Winnipeg's poverty problem by arresting a few panhandlers."
"I know we can have a healthy economy, we can have safe social environments, and we can have a green city. Based on my experience I have some clear ideas about how to create those things."
Telephone: 204.954.3707
E-mail: marianne@marianneformayor.ca
Website: www.marianneformayor.ca
Candidate profile by Jack Rach, a journalism major
in the Creative Communications program at Red River College. |
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