Time for Winnipeg to Make Growth Happen, Not Just Talk About It

Let’s stop pretending everything is fine in Winnipeg. It’s not. Debt is climbing. Housing is unaffordable for many. Overregulation chokes growth. Inflation is eroding every household’s spending power. Yet the city continues to operate like it’s business as usual. It’s not.

The truth is, we’re not in a position to coast. The decisions we make now will determine if Winnipeg can thrive in the years ahead—or fall even further behind. If we want jobs, investment, and people choosing to live here, we need to start making real moves. Not more roundtables. Not more reports. Real action.

Here’s a starting point: housing. We need more of it, and fast. The demand is there, but supply is throttled by red tape, endless fees, and city bureaucracy that treats builders like adversaries. It’s time to look at development fees not as a cash grab, but as a long-term investment.

Slash them. Eliminate them entirely in high-priority areas. Cities like Austin, Texas and Raleigh, North Carolina have done this—waiving or reducing impact fees in exchange for commitments to affordable or high-density development. The result? Rapid housing growth, higher tax revenue later, and lower barriers to entry for first-time buyers. If Winnipeg did the same, we’d see shovels in the ground and rooftops in the skyline.

Next: the city owns land. A lot of it. Hundreds of properties sit empty, unused, and unproductive. Let’s stop pretending that holding these assets is good business. Sell them—at a discount if needed—but make the sale conditional on housing. Not retail, not parking lots, not offices. Just homes. Calgary introduced a program offering surplus city land for non-profit affordable housing providers at below-market rates. It worked. Housing was built. People moved in. Tax revenue started flowing.

Now let’s talk about downtown. Politicians keep saying we need to “revitalize” it. Great. But slogans don’t pay rent. If we’re serious about bringing life back to the core, we need to give businesses a reason to move in. Here’s one: a ten-year exemption on business taxes for retail, hospitality, and service industries in the downtown area. That’s how you attract coffee shops, bakeries, small grocers, and independent shops. It worked in Pittsburgh. When they waived local business taxes for downtown startups, storefront occupancy rose by 30% in five years.

Of course, none of this works if we can’t fix the way the city handles development applications. The Parker Lands fiasco should be studied in business schools as a case of how not to do city planning. Twelve years of delays. No homes built. A potential $50 million lost in property tax revenue. The court case alone cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we wonder why investors are skittish?

Developers have to navigate an absurd maze of city departments, each with their own timelines, standards, and interpretations of the rules. It's not just inefficient—it’s hostile. Winnipeg should follow the model used in Phoenix, Arizona: create a "development concierge" program. One point of contact per application. One file lead to manage progress, approvals, and problem-solving. Phoenix even guarantees timelines for plan reviews—10 business days for residential, 20 for commercial. That’s accountability.

We could also emulate Denver’s successful “permit fast-track” program, which prioritizes housing that meets specific city goals, like affordability or sustainability. If you hit the criteria, your application goes to the front of the line. Simple, clear, effective.

The bottom line is this: growth won’t happen by accident. It takes smart incentives, fast approvals, and a willingness to make bold moves. Our city hall has been stuck in neutral for years. We talk about vibrancy, but our policies encourage stagnation. We lament unaffordable housing, but we add to the cost at every turn. We dream of downtown renewal, but we tax small businesses until they flee to the suburbs.

Here’s a novel idea: let’s stop doing what doesn’t work.

Let’s make it easier—not harder—to build homes. Let’s reward businesses that take a chance on Winnipeg. Let’s treat investors like partners, not adversaries. And let’s stop accepting “this is how it’s always been” as a justification for inaction.

The private sector is ready. The demand is real. The people are here. But leadership requires more than buzzwords. It requires action.

Winnipeg can boom. We’ve seen cities across North America reverse decline by acting with purpose. We just have to want it badly enough to make the changes that matter.

Let’s get out of our own way.