Get to know your ward: Ward 2

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This article was published 08/10/2022 (1129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Until election day, the Brandon Sun will run profiles on each of the city’s 10 electoral wards and ask candidates in those wards to provide an answer to a problem facing the residents they wish to represent.

Brandon’s Ward 2, formerly Rosser Ward, may be described as the heart of the city.

It encapsulates the entirety of what is considered downtown Brandon, stretching from Victoria Avenue to the Assiniboine River, north to south, and from First Street to 18th Street, west to east.

Though many of Brandon’s municipal electoral wards had their boundaries changed earlier this year ahead of the election, Ward 2 remained intact.

Since 2014, the ward has been represented by Coun. Kris Desjarlais, director of Indigenous education at Assiniboine Community College.

He beat fellow candidates Miles Crossman, James O’Conner and Corey Roberts that year and won re-election in 2018 by overcoming challenger Glen Kruck by a margin of 309 votes to Kruck’s 139.

In the 2022 election, he has two challengers for his seat on council: Phillip Emmerson, an educational assistant with the Brandon School Division, and Dale Bates, a retired veteran of the security industry.

With downtown issues at the forefront for this ward, the Sun asked a question about a recent initiative being undertaken to provide support to those experiencing homelessness.

The pop-up park on Pacific Avenue that opened over the summer was presented as a first step toward tackling homelessness in downtown Brandon. What is the next step in helping people experiencing homelessness downtown?

Here’s how those candidates answered the question, arranged in alphabetical order by last name.

According to Bates, the park hasn’t seriously addressed any concerns; it has only caused unsheltered people to move from the area around Princess Park to the bus terminal on Eighth Street near Rosser Avenue outside of the Town Centre mall.

“They’re sitting in the shelters, drinking, smoking, having their sex,” he said. “There’s a lot of homeless encampments in there. Within the last week, I’ve had to call police five or six times to get them to come and remove the problem.”

What the city needs to do, Bates said, is buy empty lots or buildings and convert them into low-cost housing.

The incumbent, Desjarlais, said he didn’t see the park as a first step.

“The Community Advisory Board (CAB) for Homelessness is made up of representatives from several non-profits and provincial services who meet regularly on the issue,” he wrote in an email. “I would say our next steps are to invite the CAB to meet with the downtown taskforce and find out what additional funding they would need to shore up their Housing First and rapid housing initiatives.”

The downtown wellness and safety taskforce was established last year as a means of connecting downtown stakeholders and city representatives to address issues facing the neighbourhood.

“In addition, we must implore the province to offer the Canada-Manitoba Housing Benefit outside of Winnipeg and provide 24-7 wrap around supports for those who present with severe and persistent mental health and addiction challenges,” Desjarlais added.

Emmerson said that while the park is important, he struggles to see it as a step toward tackling homelessness.

“If the unsheltered use this park, they are still homeless when they leave,” he wrote in an email. “It does not build a foundation. The unsheltered should be able to access the location with dignity and without fear of stigmatization. If I was a person experiencing homelessness, which I have, I would not want to use that location.”

Further to that, Emmerson said that many people in the city’s unsheltered community have mobility issues and the pop-up park does not have accommodations for them. Going forward, he’d like to see the location and design of the park reviewed and for more locations to be placed around the city.

“If I am elected to be a voice for … Ward 2, I would support a 24-hour staffed facility,” he wrote. “We need to come together as a [council] with organizations to overcome this very real challenge, and to restore their dignity.”

Election day is Oct. 26.

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