Elmwood-East Kildonan residents vote in by-election for city councillor
Posted October 25, 2025 6:11 pm.
Last Updated October 25, 2025 6:12 pm.
Saturday marks an important by-election for residents of the Elmwood-East Kildonan ward as they head to the polls to elect a new city councillor to replace the late Jason Schreyer, who passed away earlier this year.
“As a city councillor, you’re one of a team, you don’t get anything done yourself, so you have to leverage those partnerships but you also have to be willing to work with council, and the way to do that is to be collaborative and respectful and look for common ground wherever it is, so that will be my approach,” said candidate Emma Durand-Wood.
“I hope to keep advocating for this neighbourhood, I’ve already been doing it for years working for Jason, the Louise Bridge is a high priority so I definitely want to get to work on that, and as you know I’ve been working on food programs for years, so I want to keep those initiatives going,” said fellow candidate Christian Sweryda.
“The good voters, the good residents of Elmwood-East Kildonan need to send a fighter to city hall to work with Russ Wyatt and Jeff Browaty to get good work done for north-east Winnipeg, like fixing our Louise Bridge, fixing our streets and sidewalks, and bringing back our community police station,” said candidate Braydon Mazurkiewich.
It’s a loaded ballot, with seven candidates throwing their hats in the ring, all of whom have different approaches and priorities if elected.
“Right now we’re dealing with some derelict properties that we need to take care of, we need to make sure that we’re supporting our firefighters, make sure that we have community patrols back here, and overall just make sure that our neighbourhood is more watched and a safer community for everybody that lives here,’ said candidate Abel Gutierrez.
“I’d like to bring an evidence-based approach and advocacy for the people of the ward, which I feel is lacking in council right now,” said candidate Kyle Roche.
“It’s the sidewalks, the back lanes are crumbling, I know it’s bad throughout the city, but I think that we are a little bit more neglected here, and we need to get those things addressed, and maintain what we have before putting a bunch of money into new projects,” said candidate Carmen Prefontaine.
One thing all the candidates agreed on is that whoever wins will be filling the big shoes left by Schreyer, who was well respected throughout the community for his work.
“He really cared, especially about the little guy, you know, quality, fairness and lifting people up was always very important to him,” said Durand-Wood.
“He was always operating in good faith, he always wanted what’s best for everybody, he was very excited for some of the work we were doing, and I’ve continued a lot of those initiatives, and it’s unfortunate that he’s not with us today,” said Sweryda.
CityNews reached out to the seventh candidate, Zekaria Selahadin, but we did not hear back yet. The polls close at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
