Longtime Winnipeg police officer announces mayoral run

Tim Diack is the latest candidate to put his name on the ballot for the mayoral election later this year.

Diack is a 30-year veteran of the Winnipeg Police Service, and joins Jenny Motkaluk, Doug Wilson, Umar Hayat and Don Woodstock in challenging incumbent Brian Bowman for the role.

He had previously made an unsuccessful run in provincial politics, seeking the Progressive Conservative nomination last year in a byelection in Point Douglas, where he works as a beat cop.

READ MORE: Winnipeg mayoral race now has four candidates

Now campaigning at the municipal level, he said his platform is based on “community safety, rebuilding our city’s fundamentals, and forging a city government with integrity and vision.”

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“I love the city of Winnipeg,” Diack said. “I know how to fix a few of the problems plaguing our city.”

He said despite his time with the police service, he would not be a puppet for the police board — and should he be elected mayor, he would take a leave of absence from his current role instead of retiring and collecting a police pension while receiving salary as mayor.

But he is still focusing his campaign on improving safety.

“I’m watching an increase in violent crime on the streets of Winnipeg,” he said.

“It’s a meth crisis right now, and we really need to be able to develop an increase in our capacity to do our job, and we don’t have the political will to make the necessary changes.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's a meth crisis right now, and we really need to be able to develop an increase in our capacity to do our job, and we don't have the political will to make the necessary changes."

READ MORE: Brian Bowman officially announces run for second term as Winnipeg mayor

Diack said he would support opening Portage and Main, as does Mayor Bowman, but there are more pressing issues to tackle first.

“I believe in a revitalizing of downtown, but safety is what I hear from everyone,” he continued. “Our city is stagnant for growth. We have urban sprawl that continues to spread out and we leave the centre to decay. In order to address that, we need to be able to utilize some of the space that remains dead downtown.”

“The CPR redevelopment, I’m strongly in favour of looking at what we’re doing with that land and if we can’t make better use of it. And with that, we would start to alleviate traffic issues and maybe at that point we can look at making it more feasible for Portage and Main.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The CPR redevelopment, I'm strongly in favour of looking at what we're doing with that land and if we can't make better use of it. And with that, we would start to alleviate traffic issues and maybe at that point we can look at making it more feasible for Portage and Main."