Ed Ackerman doesn’t pull any punches.

When asked how he felt about winning these awards, he says, “Year in review stuff is boring, because it’s who makes (up) the categories. Who cares?”

Ackerman is an active member of local politics. He’s run for mayor twice and says “anyone can run … I had zero budget and zero expenses.”

Ackerman says he thinks he was chosen for these awards because of “FREE speech. The (fact that) anyone can do it.”

He says another reason he ran for mayor was “vengeance ... The City of Winnipeg destroyed my home three times unlawfully.”

The Winnipeg Free Press stated that according to the City, the homes were demolished because Ackerman was warned to fix up his properties and failed to comply. Ackerman maintains their actions were illegal.

What he thinks makes a good politician is “truth. And then being held to it ... (The election) was about a window of free speech, and the window is now closed.”

“I sensed that election was going to be false. Politics, however,   is what happens now, between the show of elections.”

When Ackerman spoke to Sisler High School students on a panel, he says he “suggested civil disobedience because there was a cop on one side of me and an engineer/priest on the other.”

His advice to Uniter readers is “don’t get conservative like the 20-year-olds (I have met) ... Remember the ideas you had when you were young.”

When asked to explain what he means, he says “It’s a problem in society, people beaten down by the time they reach 20.” He says he’s been around many 20-year-olds who say “It’s impossible ... That’s how it is. I can’t do anything about it.”

“That’s coming from somebody that’s three 20-year-olds in one,” he says referring his own age.

Outside of politics, the father of three is a filmmaker and says he is working on a piece right now that is a sequel to a documentary about him called
Special Ed.

Finally, he has a question for the Uniter. He wants to know how the advertising in the Uniter affects the content. When he hears that there is no correlation between the advertising and editorial, he approves.

“You can get the truth in The Uniter. It’s possible.”

Published in Volume 73, Number 12 of The Uniter (November 29, 2018)