Slurpees & Murder

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There’s "too big to fail," and then there’s just "too big and failing." Winnipeg, it seems, is the latter.
   
The neighbouring municipality of West St. Paul approached Winnipeg at the end of January with a proposal: if Winnipeg would extend its already sprawly water and sewer systems out past city limits, the bedroom community would reward it handsomely with premium prices. But the flaw in this potential arrangement, besides the ugly precedent of communities picking and choosing city services to pay for, is that Winnipeg can only barely manage its existing infrastructure.
   
Within a few days of the proposal making the news, and as if to prove the point, the Notre Dame area flooded over from a series of catastrophic water pipe failures; one particularly unfortunate block of Notre Dame had three pipe bursts in the span of a week. Those bursts, it turned out, were all in the same century-old pipe, and all of them were failures for which the City denied any responsibility. There was no negligence or obligation involved, city officials said; those pipes, we were all told, should still be good.
   
Geoff Pattin, a City of Winnipeg Water and Waste engineer, reassured the public about our aquatic antiques by telling us — he actually said this — that pipes like that one are actually more trustworthy than pipes installed after 1940, because the newer pipes break most frequently.
   
There, see? Comforting! I bet you homeowners feel better already.
   
With the City balking at acknowledging old pipes in existing areas but eagerly running new networks to far-flung regions,  the problem is entirely obvious. Despite being incapable of managing its existing infrastructure (currently running a $3.9-billion deficit, and reducing infrastructure spending this year by 15%), Winnipeg insists on continually spreading it outwards — potentially to outside municipalities, but compulsively to gigantic new developments such as Waverley West and the upcoming IKEA complex.
   
The solution is less obvious but increasingly sensible, and I say that solution is complete neighbourhood secessions. The idea is not unheard of; Headingley had been absorbed into Winnipeg during the Unicity amalgamation of 1972, then seceded in 1993 because its residents were completely dissatisfied with the City’s high taxes for poor services. And why pay more to have someone else give you less?
   
If Winnipeg couldn’t support their neighbourhood, they figured, then their neighbourhood wouldn’t support Winnipeg. And you know what? Headingley has done quite all right for itself since.
   
What stops other city districts, new or neglected, from following suit?
   
Transcona! You have your own thing going, and you were independent as recently as 40 years ago; aren’t you fed up with feeling underappreciated, having little influence in policy decisions and listening to the endless parade of wiseacres cracking wise about pink flamingoes?
   
Tuxedo! Tired of your hard-earned tax dollars propping up those ungrateful poorer joints? You were a pretty nice little stand-alone town until 1972 — and the single largest retail/entertainment development in the province will be popping up at your feet within two years, so you know you won’t go wanting for economic clout. (Fun fact: the IKEA "Seasons of Tuxedo" development is projected to be a full 25% larger than Polo Park. And Polo Park ain’t small.)
   
Charleswood! You’ve got an easy 25,000 people, which is more than enough for a fine, free-standing municipality. Have you ever considered… "City Beautiful?"
   
Waverley West! If you secede upon your completion, you will automatically be Manitoba’s third-largest city! I’m not even kidding!
   
Talk it over with the folks around your area; the concept may carry farther than you initially expect. Businesses in the new municipalities worried about changing all their stationary can justify themselves as still being within the "Greater Winnipeg Area," the same way those Mississauga and Markham get mail marked "Toronto" and sigh in resignation. And the City of Winnipeg — what ends up remaining of it — can sit and think about how this happened, then focus on fixing up and filling in its existing neighbourhoods before it goes off expanding all willy-nilly again.
   
Vive le Winnipeg! Vive le Tuxedo! Vive le Tuxedo… libre!
   
James Hope Howard doesn’t live in Tuxedo, but he does own a tuxedo cat. And the cat wants to go outside.
   
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