SIDEBAR - The politicial resurrection of Glen Murray
Some 18 years after leaving the Winnipeg mayor's office to pursue a bunch of different roles, including in another province, the former mayor wants to be mayor again...
Welcome to another issue of #munipoli Matters, where we discuss all about municipal elections and the often unreported area of local government across Canada and beyond.
In Winnipeg, it looks like the list of candidates running to replace outgoing Mayor Brian Bowman is now an “Ocean’s 11” cast, as former mayor Glen Murray made the announcement that he is running for his old job.
“I’ve been blessed with opportunities and experiences within Winnipeg and across the country that have strengthened my knowledge and my ability to serve the public. I’ve fostered collaboration throughout my career and I believe Winnipeggers deserve this kind of commitment from their mayor to work with other levels of government, business and the non-profit sector,” Murray said in his statement.
“There is still a lot of work to do to get a better deal for our city so we can prosper and succeed. That’s why I’m running for Mayor.”
Murray, 64, joins ten other candidates already in the running, including former Manitoba Liberal leader Rana Bokhari, 2018 candidate Jennifer Motkaluk, Councillor Scott Gillingham, Don Woodstock, Chris Clacio, business owner Rick Shone, former Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, social entrepreneur Shaun Loney, Desmond Thomas and Idris Ademuyiwa Adelakun.
Those experiences inside and outside the City of Winnipeg were highlighted by Brian F. Kelcey, who previously served as an advisor to the mayor’s office in Winnipeg (not Murray, but his successor Sam Katz).
To recap, Murray has run for a number of offices in his political career:
From 1998 to 2004, he served as the first openly gay mayor of a large North American city, after spending the prior nine years as a councillor.
In 2004, Murray ran for the Liberals while it was under Paul Martin’s leadership in the west end Winnipeg riding of Charleswood-St. James, but he lost to Conservative Steven Fletcher by around 700 votes.
After losing in Winnipeg, Murray moved to Toronto and began a career in the non-profit sector. He stated in 2007 that he wasn’t planning to run for the Liberals again.
But around 2009, rumours swirled that Murray was looking to became a mayor again…this time for Canada’s largest city. This pseudo-campaign ended around December that year.
Instead of jumping into the 2010 Toronto mayoral race, Murray ran in the by-election as a provincial Liberal, winning Toronto Centre after then former MPP George Smitherman, ironically, resigned to run for mayor.
From 2010-2017 Murray served in the Ontario Legislature and was in cabinet for various roles under the Liberal government, including Minister of Research and Innovation, Transportation, Infrastructure and Training, Colleges and Universities, Environment and Climate Change.
In 2017 Murray stepped down from cabinet and resigned his seat. But in 2020, he popped back up again, announcing he would run for the leadership of the federal Green Party. Murray finished in fourth place.
So 18 years after he first resigned from that job, Glen Murray, who actually looks like he qualifies as a perennial candidate, is now running to get that job back.
I wonder if enough Winnipeg voters will remember that Murray had mused about running for another office just two years after he got elected mayor in 1998?
Winnipeg has had its share of colourful mayors…and some scoundrels as well. Stephen Juba served two decades and was the consummate booster of all things “‘Peg”, while Katz leaned way too much into blurring the lines between his personal business and the public’s interests.
Is Murray that kind of character, or does he strive to be more like a technocratic manager in the vein of Bowman? We shall see as this municipal campaign gets more underway this fall in Manitoba’s capital city.
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Between 2010-2017 Murray was also Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Change