2014 Winnipeg Civic Election

Why did you decide to run in the 2014 Winnipeg Civic Election?

I have lived my life in the service of my community wherever I find my home. I doubt that will change. I am better able to serve my neighbours, the people of Winnipeg, if granted the honour of their trust and of their expectations through their vote. I know a better way to manage people and assets. The circus at City Hall has left me with a sense of a calling that I am answering.

What experience will you bring to compliment your role as Councillor?

My experience as West-Central Mutual Aid Fire and Life Safety Public Education Co-ordinator has taught me the importance of having both a knowledgeable government and an educated population. My experience as a firefighter and as an ambulance attendant has taught me the importance of preventative measures (mechanical/educational/structural/procedural) to at once reduce harm and increase financial savings. My experience asserting what I believe to be my human rights as well as those under the Canadian Constitution has brought me an understanding of the burden of injustice and shown me the ugliness of socio-economic blaming and prejudice. My experience as a mobility-impaired person has taught me the difficulties of accessing public spaces and shops and restaurants to satisfy human social needs. The cost of being a mobility-impaired (sudden- or gradual onset) person trying to accomplish the same tasks an able Winnipegger is not clearly understood until lived or thoroughly explained. My experience as a shut-in isolated from human contact in the middle of a busy city and too poor and broken to go anywhere has taught me strength of Faith and the importance of pursuing virtuous behaviours and thought. Virtues are universal and eternal. Respect for Science is respect for Faith.

What are some issues that you would like to stand for in your role as Councillor, and why are these issues important to you?

I would like to put in place policies and procedures to minimize the effects of economic disparity -- especially currently with regard to the matter of year-round safe accessibility to and on our sidewalks. This issue is of special concern to me because I have watched as newly fallen snow on our publicly maintained sidewalks does not get cleared until after it gets trampled and the surfaces turn into frozen icy craterous tracts of treacherousness. Most of the people in Point Douglas Ward walk or cycle to get around. This issue affects the ability of any person to safely access the community mail boxes the federal government is foisting upon the municipal populations, to safely get to work or to school or to the heavily promoted public transportation system. Unsafe paths are more heavily burdensome to an aging demographic who may become seasonally isolated as well as are likely to suffer more serious injury in event of a spill. We need policies and procedures that allow equal access to basic human needs: security, shelter, socialization, clean water, clean air, economical nutritious food, and current technologies. This is important to me as a way to entrench human rights into everyday culture.

What is one thing in particular that you appreciate about the ward you wish to represent?

One thing I particularly appreciate is the harmonious respectful nature in the interactive connections continually found between the seemingly at-odds elements in our ward. Unification of intent while refusing to bend to the destructive negativism perpetuated by many media outlets is the best way to our professed preferred destination, if the goal be manifestation of truth and love and understanding in every situation. The intelligence bank and artistic talent found here in one person or in several is much akin to finding diverse gems housed in an organic grout of hope, respect and understanding, to be polished by the grains of encouragement, enrichment, and empowerment. The potential exists for all peoples to appreciate and then to replicate the forward-thinking culture we are continuously working at trying to perfect here in our ward.

Do you have any other comments regarding your candidacy?

I am called to educate and to lead. My preferred method is to teach and to lead by example. Anybody with money VOTES EVERY DAY with their dollar. I shop at Canadian owned stores because I VOTE FOR universal healthcare and Canadian moral ideals. My shadow does not cross the doorway of American-owned Wal-Mart, Target, others because I VOTE AGAINST the Military-Industrial Complex and Guantanamo Bay. Think globally, act locally - a motto I take to heart in thought and behaviour. All humans die. The Government, however, lives on well after we are gone and will continue to affect those who survive us. I demonstrate my LOVE FOR FUTURE LIVES, whether they are human, insect, other, by putting a little mark on a piece of paper. Voting: so easy to do, means so much more than the effort involved. Avoiding human rights transgression exposure - by any organ of society - has barbaric consequence. Self-Selecting Socio-Economic Extremist Religious Sects (SSSEERS) and their philosophy followers deserve to have their income diminished. Winnipeggers can prove understanding the truth that when humans are stripped of rights, exceptional financial reward is provided to the violators.