Russ Wyatt

Early life and career

Wyatt studied Political Science at the University of Winnipeg and worked for the Wyatt Insurance Group, a family company, before entering public life. In the 1990s, he was an assistant to Transcona councillor Rick Boychuk and chairman of the East Kildonan-Transcona residents advisory group.

In 1993, Wyatt recommended that the City of Winnipeg introduce "park-and-ride" areas to improve public transportation. During the 1997 federal election, he argued that renewed debates over national unity were drawing attention away from pressing issues such as job creation, and credited the New Democratic Party as the only political party willing to discuss the economy. He led a petition drive against bus fare increases in 1998.

Wyatt planned to run for city council in the 1998 municipal election with an endorsement from the New Democratic Party of Manitoba, but withdrew just before the nomination deadline. He led a citizen's campaign to preserve Transcona's health centre in 2000, and criticized the provincial government of Gary Doer when it chose to move the centre.

At the time of the 2002 municipal election, Wyatt was the director of communications for the Association of Manitoba Municipalities.

Murray administration

Wyatt was elected to city council for Transcona in the 2002 municipal election, at age 32. He was no longer affiliated with the NDP by this time, and ran without a party endorsement. He called for improved municipal infrastructure, and an increased police presence in his ward. After the election, he was appointed to the city's protection and community services committee.

Wyatt soon developed a reputation as a hard-working councillor and a vocal defender of his ward's interests. He also emerged as a prominent opponent of Mayor Glen Murray, with whom he frequently clashed at council meetings. Some accused Wyatt of grandstanding, and of acting in an undiplomatic manner toward other councillors.

Wyatt opposed Winnipeg's 2002 police restructuring plan, in part because his ward was slated to lose its station to the St. Boniface area. Following unsuccessful attempts to block the plan on council, he launched a billboard campaign that called for Transconans to protest Murray's handling of the issue. Murray described this move as "very unprofessional", adding that it was based on the flawed assumption that he was personally driving the policy. Council approved the restructuring plan in July 2003.

Wyatt remained a vocal supporter of public transportation, and endorsed rapid transit services for Winnipeg in 2002. He opposed Mayor Murray's plans to introduce a sales tax, on the grounds that it would unfairly target the city's working and middle classes. He also proposed a "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights" in 2004, arguing that it could be used to give citizens a direct vote on new taxes and major capital investments.

Wyatt indicated his support for urban reserves in June 2003, as a means of alleviating poverty among aboriginal communities in Winnipeg. In the same year, he argued that Winnipeg had fallen behind in its efforts to hire greater numbers of women and visible minorities, and called for a department-by-department investigation into the existing state of employment equity programs. He also opposed the possibility of private companies overseeing Winnipeg's trash services, arguing that municipal employees were more reliable.

Glen Murray resigned as Mayor of Winnipeg in mid-2004 to run for the Canadian House of Commons. Wyatt considered running for mayor in the by-election that followed, but eventually chose to endorse Garth Steek. He said that he was impressed with Steek's "law and order" focus, and particularly his pledge to crack down on the Hells Angels biker gang. He later became disillusioned with the campaign, however, and suggested that Steek was actually trying to ensure the election of rival candidate Sam Katz by attacking Katz's more serious opponents and otherwise keeping a low profile. Katz won the election, while Steek finished a distant fifth.

Katz administration (first term)

Wyatt sought to improve his relationship with Mayor Katz after the election. He supported Katz's decision to shelve a rapid transit bus line in September 2004, and was appointed chair of the city's Rapid Transit Review Task Force the following month. After several months of public consultation, the force called for Winnipeg to re-establish a rapid transit plan with a more city-wide focus.

The task force later removed Katz's preferred option of a downtown light-rail system, following a second round of consultations. This created a rift between Katz and Wyatt, and by the summer of 2005 Wyatt had returned to his previous role as a critic of the administration. The task force ultimately recommended a bus transit corridor. When the final report was submitted, Wyatt expressed concern that Katz's inner circle would cherry-pick its least expensive recommendations and simply ignore the rest. By 2008, he accused Winnipeg Transit of watering down the report beyond all recognition, and described the task force's work as a waste of public money.

Veteran Winnipeg activist Nick Ternette criticized the task force's conclusions, arguing that light rail transit is more effective than bus rapid transit.

Wyatt was one of the earliest critics of the OlyWest hog processing plant, which was proposed for the Transcona and St. Boniface areas of Winnipeg in 2005. When provincial cabinet minister Rosann Wowchuk announced the project, Wyatt objected on the grounds that it could obstruct transit, and bring foul odours and water contamination to the area.

Wyatt opposed the provincial government's plan to construct the Waverley West suburb in 2005, arguing that it would incur significant infrastructural costs. He voted against Sam Katz's anti-panhandling bylaw later in the same year. Wyatt supported malathion spraying to target the city's mosquito population, and supported an unsuccessful motion to introduce term limits in March 2006.

Wyatt was re-elected in the 2006 municipal election with 85.2% of the vote in his ward. He was endorsed by the Winnipeg Labour Council, and by an "OlyOpp group" of businesses opposing the OlyWest project. He described his victory as a message for Gary Doer's NDP government, and warned that Doer's support for OlyWest would hurt him in the next provincial campaign.

Katz administration (second term)

After the 2006 election, Mayor Katz surprised many political observers by appointing Wyatt to the municipal cabinet (officially known as the executive policy committee) as downtown committee chair. Some described this as a savvy move on Katz's part, in that it would shift Wyatt's opposition from the council chamber to the political backrooms. Wyatt was also named chair of a municipal Red Tape Commission in February 2007, and was appointed to the municipal Housing Commission the following month.

Wyatt has openly disagreed with Katz on several issues. He was the only cabinet member to oppose the creation of an Assiniboine Park Conservancy in June 2007, arguing that he could not support more private-sector control of the city's parklands. In September 2007, he broke with the mayor and voted in favour of a proposed commission into police conduct. He later criticized Winnipeg's decision to ban pesticides, describing it as part of a "national fad". He was strongly critical of Katz's decision to close the Disraeli Freeway for sixteen months in 2008, and to permit Canadian Pacific Railway queue-ups in the Transcona area. On one occasion, Wyatt argued that Katz was undermining Transcona's interests with these decisions, and accused him of supporting only "personal business friends or residents in places like South Tuxedo", an upscale south Winnipeg neighbourhood. Katz did not publicly reprimand Wyatt for these remarks, and kept him as a member of the municipal cabinet.

Wyatt called for a single agency to manage Winnipeg's downtown development in February 2008, arguing that existing responsibilities were divided among too many organizations. He has also supported calls for a municipal integrity commissioner, with ombudsman powers over all municipal governments in Manitoba.

Mayor Katz shuffled his municipal cabinet in October 2008, and gave Wyatt a new position as secretary of infrastructure renewal. Bill Clement, who chairs Winnipeg's public works and infrastructure renewal committee, expressed concern that Wyatt's new responsibilities would overlap with his own. Katz rejected this suggestion. One of Wyatt's first acts in his new position was to order a review of Winnipeg's unfunded infrastructure projects, which was issued in January 2009.

Following Katz's shuffle, Wyatt proposed the introduction of a 1% municipal sales tax to target road and bridge repairs. The provincial government was skeptical of the idea, and the Association of Manitoba Municipalities subsequently voted against pursuing the option.

In November 2008, Wyatt tabled a motion to have Winnipeg's chief administrative officer devise with a strategy for reducing environmentally damaging plastic bags. The motion was passed by a vote of 7-0 by the executive policy committee. Wyatt later supported a proposal by Jim Maloway to expand Winnipeg's Disraeli Bridge from four lanes to six.

At a December 2008 meeting of the Executive Policy Committee, Wyatt and fellow councillor Mike Pagtakhan unexpectedly voted against a $476.1 million public works plan on the grounds that it did not provide sufficient resources for bicycle and pedestrian trails. Both councillors later tried, without success, to have expenditures for these trails added to the budget at a regular meeting of council.

In February 2009, Wyatt was appointed as co-chair of a new mayor's environmental advisory committee. He later proposed that Winnipeg replace its diesel-powered buses with electric trolley cars, in a bid to save money and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

The provincial government's support for the OlyWest hog processing plant diminished after December 2006, when two of the three companies supporting the project withdrew and the third was informed that it would need to submit a new proposal. Progressive Conservative Party leader Hugh McFadyen and Liberal leader Jon Gerrard called for the project to be abandoned, while New Democratic Party Premier Gary Doer was initially non-committal. During the 2007 provincial election, Wyatt wrote a guest editorial column in the Winnipeg Free Press calling on Doer to declare that the project would not be continued. Doer withdrew his support for OlyWest a few days later, and Wyatt wrote a follow-up letter commending the premier's decision.

Russ Wyatt was re-elected in the 2010 Municipal Election defeating Vlad Kowalyk 9503 to 1885.

Ideology

When running for re-election in 2006, Wyatt described himself as progressive on social issues and more conservative on fiscal issues. In 2007, he indicated that both the New Democratic Party and Liberal Party were courting him to run for federal office.