Second time’s a charm for Gilroy

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This article was published 22/10/2014 (3720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CINDY Gilroy prevailed this time, after coming so close in 2010, to win the crowded Daniel McIntyre council race by 591 votes over runner-up Keith Bellamy.

Incumbent and longtime councillor Harvey Smith came in third at 3,284.

“People were really ready for a change,” said Gilroy, 41. “We really knocked on the doors this time. That was the big difference over 2010.”

She said infrastructure needs, affordable housing and social concerns including issues pertaining to the sex trade were some of the ward’s key issues.

Smith refused to listen to anyone who suggested that at 77 he was too old for the job.

“People just talk about my age,” he said. “They don’t talk about what I’ve done. I have done a lot for this ward.”

Gilroy said Smith has represented the ward well over the years, but the desire for change was as much about changing Daniel McIntyre’s councillor as anything else.

The constituency assistant to NDP rising star Kevin Chief said throughout the campaign, she would be prepared to work for whoever was mayor.

“I think I will work great with Mayor Bowman,” she said.

She said her first order of business will be learning the ropes.

She might get some assistance from her father, former councillor Ernie Gilroy, who worked closely with his daughter on the campaign.

Keith Bellamy, also running for a second consecutive race, was the one who received the gold-plated NDP endorsement but fell short by more than he did last time.

He, too, said the riding was well served by Smith, but that the people really needed new life.

“People were thirsting for change,” said Bellamy, the Winnipeg Folk Fest development manager and former constituency assistant for Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin.

“It was a great campaign,” he said. “We’re happy that there will be a new voice for Daniel McIntyre.”

Gilroy said what made a difference is that she got to the grass roots.

“People got to know me better,” she said. “I made it to every door.

“All those leaflets on Arlington paid off,” she said to one her volunteers at her campaign headquarters on Sargent Avenue.

All the parties knew it would be a close race. Bellamy had the full-court press of the NDP election machine but Smith did not even go door to door. Instead, he chose to send modest fruit baskets to about 5,000 seniors and low-income residents in the riding.

Gilroy may sound like she’s stating the obvious about door-knocking, but it was not something she did in 2010.

“We weren’t fooling around this time,” father Ernie said.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca