Scott Gillingham elected mayor of Winnipeg after close race with Glen Murray

Former city councillor Scott Gillingham was elected mayor of Winnipeg on Wednesday,

Gillingham defied recent polls and overcame an early deficit in the vote count tp defeat frontrunner Glen Murray

The 54-year-old replaces Brian Bowman, who did not seek re-election.

Gillingham defeated Murray by roughly 4,400 votes.

“It will be my high honour to serve and to govern and to lead this city,” Gillingham told cheering supporters.

“It will be my goal to make every effort through the coming months and years of this term to unite Winnipeg together so we can build a stronger, brighter city.”

Gillingham’s campaign platform included raising taxes by 3.5 per cent, repairing Winnipeg’s roads and improving transit, and cracking down on crime.

Political defeat for Murray

It was defeat for Murray, who led in opinion polls early in the campaign and had been endorsed by labour groups.

His camp celebrated early on Wednesday – incidentally, Murray’s birthday – when it appeared results would go their way.

“We have more than enough people and more than enough power in this room to change the future course of the city,” he said.

“And while we may not be doing it in exactly in the way that we had planned, that mission is no less important.”

Gillingham’s campaign promises

During the campaign, Gillingham committed to extend the Chief Peguis Trail and widen Kenaston Boulevard, calling them important trade routes for the city’s economy. He’s also said those infrastructure projects would subsequently lead to the development of CentrePort.

To tackle crime in Winnipeg, Gillingham has vowed to shift police focus to crime prevention, and implement permanent funding for the Downtown Community Safety Partnership (DCSP). He’s also expressed a desire to increase security at major transit stops and pedestrian routes in high-crime areas.

WATCH: One on one with Scott Gillingham

‘Coordinated strategy’ to tackle crime

One of his proposals is to re-task wellness and non-emergency calls to civilian responders to free up general patrol officers.

“What’s really important to know… is also making sure we have a coordinated strategy,” Gillingham told CityNews in a one-on-one interview earlier this month. “(A) strategy where it’s not just police, but it’s a downtown community safety partnership.

“And it’s groups like Main Street Project and it’s provincial departments and businesses… the Bear Clan, everybody kind of coming to the table and together working on a coordinated strategy to ensure that our community is safer.”

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Gillingham has also pledged to have more people living downtown by converting unused lots into housing or transforming Portage Place into housing.

“The more people we have living downtown, it becomes safer when you’ve got feet on the street,” Gillingham said. “As the saying goes, with more people calling the core of the city their home, it will make the community safer.”

Gillingham says his vision of Winnipeg in the near future is one with crime rates down, fewer homeless, a better transit system and a flourishing economy.

“And our children – your children, my children – are staying in Winnipeg and moving across the street or across a neighbourhood instead of across the country. They’re staying here, they’re planting roots here, they’re growing here and thriving here.”

WATCH: Scott Gillingham’s camp confident as polls closed in Winnipeg

Timeline of Gillingham’s career

• Gillingham was first elected to Winnipeg’s city council in St. James in 2014.
• He served on Bowman’s executive policy committee from 2016 to 2022. He also chaired the finance committee and the police board.
• He served two terms before resigning this April to focus on his mayoral run.
• After former Manitoba premier Brian Pallister announced his retirement last summer, Gillingham flirted with the idea of a leadership run.
• Prior to becoming a city councillor, Gillingham was a Pentecostal pastor for more than two decades.

—With files from The Canadian Press