Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin vows he has not given up the dream of tearing up the CPR tracks and moving the unsightly rail yards from Winnipeg’s core to make room for parks and housing.
Martin said he’s not leaving office until he's achieved the much-ballyhooed proposal to relocate the CPR marshalling yards. The outspoken NDP politician, known as much for colourful language as for progressive policies, envisions those lands giving way to green space, housing and commercial spaces. He said he can see rail lines linking to the province and city's current development of an inland port northwest of the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport.
"What our hope is that this could move very quickly ,... we could get started on this in 2009 realistically," said Martin, after his proposal stalled at the municipal Mayor's Trade Council in March, a mere two months after Martin first pushed the idea.
But the riding's Liberal candidate, Dan Hurley, is not so sure. He said he has environmental and economic questions about turning rail yards into green space. Hurley, who’s got street credibility on environmental issues thanks to his time as chief of staff to then Environment Minister Stephane Dion, says moving the CPR tracks faces at least one large hurdle.
"My main concern is probably the environmental remediation required in that area because of 100 years or 100-plus-years of drains and oils and toxic chemicals going into the soil," said Hurley. He would prefer that money go to develop existing infrastructure for housing at the former Kapyong Barracks military base.
"My question is, are there more practical and more quicker ways and areas we can look at to invest in affordable housing?"
The University of Winnipeg senior executive officer might be the Liberals' best shot at a seat in the riding since Liberal David Walker lost it to Martin in 1997. It's stayed out of the Liberal grasp ever since.
But the riding — one of the poorest in Canada — has its fair share of progressive candidates with Manitoba’s only candidate from the First Peoples National Party of Canada, Lyle Morrisseau, the Communist Party of Canada’s Darrell Rankin and the Green Party of Canada’s Jessie Klassen. Independents Ed Ackerman and Joe Chan are also on the ballot.
The Conservative Party candidate Kenny Daodu, a Nigerian-born Sargent Avenue restaurant owner, was a bit rusty at explaining her party's policy positions this week at a forum at the Magnus Eliason Recreation Centre. However, her experiences studying and working in Canada for the last 16 years should appeal to new Canadians concentrated in the riding. She spoke of policies to change the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and reduce the time it takes newcomers and their families to immigrate.
"I came from Africa, the same poverty, and I see more of the poverty every day in my area," she said. er campaign flyer pointedly alleges Martin "prefers to spend his time at his homes in Ottawa and Salt Spring Island, British Columbia rather than working with us here."
In the riding, there's no escaping the P word: poverty. Martin said out door-knocking, he found residents four times more likely to ask about crime than issues such as affordable housing.
gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca
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