Winnipeg Election 2022

Kevin Freedman - Winnipeg - 5

What got you into politics?

Getting involved in politics is one of the most impactful activities a person can do. There are few if any other ways that I can help make my community and the world better than through the political process. And this I why I first got involved and continue to. But my first campaign for school trustee was specifically driven by a desire to see a more visionary board of trustees. This was around the time that Gordon Bell High School got the field across the street. But in the lead up to this, the school board did not see the opportunity as the only chance Gordon Bell would ever get a green space. It took community action and the voice of the MP to get it done, but the board seemed against the idea, at least initially.

I ran again as I recognized substantial deficiencies in how the school board operated. There were policies that were decades old, no evaluation of senior staff, no strategic plan. These are all essential activities and things I made happen during my time as a trustee from 2014-2018. Now I want to continue where I left off and continue to make the Division better.

What experience will you bring to compliment your role as (Mayor / Councillor / School Trustee)?

Over seventeen years of sitting on boards, large and small, local and national, I have more than 45 years of cumulative board experience. I spent nine years on the board of Assiniboine Credit Union, including four years as chair of the Audit Committee. I have sat on the boards of Greenpeace Canada, Water Polo Canada, Manitoba Eco-Network, and the General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres, among others, and have chaired or held officer roles in all of them. Now I run a business offering consulting services to boards. Since 2014 I have trained hundreds of directors and trustees on how to do their job effectively, and have helped dozens of boards to improve their governance, facilitating planning, and updating policies and bylaws.

I’ve also been an instructor with the Faculty of Business and Economics at the UofW for seven years where I teach board governance, non-profit management, and business psychology. I’ve started numerous projects and have presented on topics such as blood donation, voluntarism, and environmentalism in almost every school in the Division. My experience in various educational settings helps is a huge benefit to the role.

What are some issues that you would like to stand for in your role as (Mayor / Councillor / School Trustee), and why are these issues important to you?

Among my priorities would be to hire more Jordan’s Principle workers in the Division. This is an issues of equity and will help ensure Indigenous students receive the same access to education as non-Indigenous students. I will conti use to champion equity based budgeting to ensure that Division resources go where they are most needed. And I will continue to push for the Division to win the Top 25 Employers award given out annually to Manitoba-based companies and organizations. Setting a vision to accomplish an aspirational goal like winning a top employer award is how the board can use its power to make the Division a better place to work.

My priorities as a trustee will be to continue work on bland but essential governance issues like updating policies, reviewing committee work, implementing work plans, and stuff like that. The board has long been dysfunctional and a lot of truly essential work was being missed when I first was elected, such as regular policy reviews and neglecting to evaluate the chief superintendent. Trustees set direction through policy and they develop accountability by evaluating their one staff member. Direction and accountability are what the Division needs most now.

 

Do you have any other comments regarding your candidacy?

My accomplishments speak for themselves. In four years as a trustee, among many other accomplishments, I:

1. created the Governance Committee of the board, the first new standing committee of the board in at least 40 years.
2. moved to establish Indigenous immersion programs in the division and to undertake a division-wide catchment audit, in the same night. The Indigenous immersion and bilingual programs at Isaac Brock School are into their seventh year and going strong. This action was called one of the Division’s biggest moves towards reconciliation ever undertaken, and certainly among the most important.
3. led the divisional strategic planning effort, the first such plan in more than ten years.
4. pushed incessantly for policing reviews and the board reviewed more polices in the final three years of my term than in the previous 12 years combined.
5. motioned for the first ever division-wide infrastructure audit, to give the board and administration essential information for future capital planning. This report has been at the forefront of efforts for more capital funding in Divisions province-wide.
6. pushed the board completed its first ever(?) evaluation of the Chief Superintendent, a process that took three years of badgering for my colleagues to finally buy in and agree.