Mayor Gillingham Ditches Safety Rules For Photo Op While Handing Contractors Blank Cheque To Tear Down Arlington Bridge

Winnipeg taxpayers are being led to financial ruin while civic leadership holds the scissors to cut the ribbon on an uncapped municipal spending spree. At a recent press conference on the decommissioned Arlington Bridge, Scott Gillingham repeatedly stated that seventeen million dollars has been allocated for the decommissioning and removal of the structure. While the mayor stuck to this seventeen million dollar figure like a shield, he deliberately left out the critical details of how this public money is actually being spent. When pressed on whether this is an open, phased arrangement that essentially gives the general contractor a bottomless expense account to dictate final costs, Gillingham deflected, refusing to address the massive risk of budget overruns.

Let us break down the real numbers that are being hidden from the public. In January 2025, city council approved twenty-two million dollars for the project: seventeen million dollars specifically earmarked for decommissioning and removal, and five million dollars to advance design work for a replacement. This decommissioning work was split into two distinct phases: Phase One for decommissioning planning, and Phase Two for the actual physical decommissioning work.

Out of that seventeen million dollar removal allocation, the city has already committed almost the entire pot before even securing a price to touch the northern portion of the bridge. The city quietly voted an estimated ten million dollar agreement ($9.9 million exclusive of taxes) with Kiewit Construction Services ULC just to demolish the southern third near Logan Avenue under Phase Two. When you add the five point six million dollars already spent on Phase One planning and preliminary design extensions, the seventeen million dollar decommissioning budget is virtually exhausted, and the city has barely touched the actual bridge.

While city hall has not officially revealed if a single, overarching project agreement is signed for the entire bridge, the public is forced to make a logical assumption. It would be entirely irresponsible for any municipal administration to greenlight a project of this scale on only one-third of a structure without securing a binding price for the full teardown. The truth is simple: Gillingham and council know the true estimated cost to dismantle the entire bridge, yet they have purposefully and deliberately withheld that amount from the public. Any legitimate contractor bidding on a major infrastructure teardown does not bid on a single, isolated slice of steel; they bid on the entire job.

By utilizing a phased, open-book pricing arrangement rather than a traditional closed-bid system, Gillingham has effectively stripped away the most critical taxpayer safeguard in public procurement: the performance bond. A surety or performance bond is a legally binding guarantee from a third-party insurer that protects the public treasury; if a contractor fails to deliver on time or within budget, the bond company must step in to cover the financial damage. Because this contract is structured in open-ended phases with “To Be Determined” final costs, there is no fixed price to even secure a bond against. The mayor has voluntarily surrendered the only mechanism that holds contractors financially accountable, leaving Winnipeg families to absorb every single dollar of inevitable budget overruns.

To be absolutely clear about this financial black hole: the ten million dollar contract awarded to Kiewit only covers Phase Two, Stage A, the demolition of the southern third. To even begin to estimate the final bill, we must look at what is left. If we assume the northern third of the bridge near Dufferin Avenue costs the exact same ten million dollars to dismantle, we are already looking at a thirty-four million dollar bill. But even that astronomical estimate completely ignores the elephant in the room: the massive center span over the active Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railway yard.

The cost to dismantle this center section is completely unknown to the public and constitutes a massive financial blind spot. Gillingham’s office and the public works department have undoubtedly consulted with the federal government and the rail lines, meaning they already know the staggering, undisclosed costs associated with working over a thousand-acre railway yard. CPKC has blocked initial plans to use explosives, forcing a much slower, manual piece-by-piece dismantle. 

The administration has completely hidden the actual estimated cost of taking down this hazardous middle section, the financial hit of diverting rail traffic, and the potential liabilities for disrupted commercial logistics and business losses. They have deliberately withheld these figures from the public. Furthermore, Gillingham has not clarified who gets to keep the salvage value of the massive steel trusses. Winnipeg citizens deserve absolute transparency, and the administration must answer whether it will make the full, unredacted project terms publicly available on the City of Winnipeg Arlington Bridge Portal.

If this financial recklessness was not enough, the blatant hypocrisy on display at the site was staggering. While Gillingham’s office and the Public Works Communications department relentlessly lectured reporters about the critical importance of on-site safety, the actual press conference was a walking Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health violation. Public Works Chair Janice Lukes was spotted on an active, hazardous industrial demolition site wearing Crocs and open-toed sandals with her heels completely exposed, which is a flagrant violation of construction attire. Other representatives paraded around in loose clothing, skirts, heel boots, and questionable running shoes without safety glasses, proving the on-site safety representative completely failed to conduct a proper job safety analysis. Even if we assume those running shoes were meant for safety, they clearly did not meet the proper height requirement of covering at least two-thirds of the ankle on an active industrial site.

Even more alarming, the Director of Public Works Communications herself ascended the steep, deteriorating steel structure on crutches. Letting the head of public works communications hobble onto a decommissioned, structurally compromised bridge while her department lectures the media on safety is the height of hypocrisy. This is a flagrant violation of provincial occupational health and safety laws and city bylaws. The danger was further compounded when Councillor Vivian Santos had to lead visually impaired Councillor Ross Eadie up the bridge with absolutely no communicated muster point or visible emergency egress plan in place. Every single safety protocol was cast aside by Gillingham just to secure a political photo op, turning a high-risk demolition site into a stage. When details of basic physical safety are ignored, the entire city is run with the same level of neglect.

The absolute failure of leadership on that bridge tells you everything you need to know about this administration. Gillingham is willing to bend the law, ignore provincial safety codes, and risk human lives just to capture a flattering image for the evening news, all while signing away millions of your hard-earned dollars to private contractors without a single guarantee of a fixed price. It is a toxic mix of physical negligence and financial betrayal that treats the municipal treasury like a personal ATM and the safety of public servants like a cheap prop. This is the true definition of an unfixed, bottomless spending pit, and it must be the final financial liability this administration creates. Under a Woodstock Administration, everybody will be held accountable, contractors will not be given uncapped accounts, and as your mayor, I will not allow our taxpayers to be exploited.