State of the City

Brian F. Kelcey is a thirty-year veteran of Canadian politics and public policy,  He previously served as budget advisor to the Mayor of Winnipeg in the mid-2000s, and as Project Manager for Winnipeg’s award-winning Red Tape Commission in 2004-2005. He also served as a senior political advisor in four portfolios — including Intergovernmental Affairs and Transportation — in Ontario’s provincial government. Most recently, as a consultant to the Toronto Region Board of Trade and then (2018-2020) as it Vice-President, Policy and Public Affairs, he led development of the Board’s first-ever intervention into housing issues in response to the Toronto Region’s escalating housing crisis.

Brian’s first significant political work was in 1991, organizing negotiations between loggers & environmentalists during a land-use dispute in the old-growth forests of the Walbran Valley, 180km northwest of his hometown of Victoria, British Columbia. Since then, he has influenced public policy on a complex range of urban political issues, including infrastructure finance and property taxation, sharing-economy regulation and economic development, housing and zoning policy, business regulation and civic service innovation.

Brian has advised mayoral campaigns in three major Canadian cities, and been a guest instructor on urban affairs at two universities. He has testified on legislation to committees on Parliament Hill and in two provincial legislatures. He is frequently interviewed by local, national and international journalists on urban political trends in North American cities.

In 2022, as Team Gillingham's policy and rollout advisor, Brian co-planned the strategy that elected Scott Gillingham as Winnipeg's 44th Mayor. In November 2022, Brian accepted an offer to join the Mayor's Office as a senior advisor, and he is currently unavailable for on-record media commentary or contract work while in that role.