Kenny from Film and Special Events
Download MP3We know where services and programs impact you, so let's talk about them. Together, we'll learn from the people behind the scenes and get to know our city a little better. From the City of Winnipeg, this is Our City, Our Podcast.
Natalie:This podcast is recorded in Treaty 1 territory, the home and traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Ininew, and Dakota peoples, and the national homeland of the Red River Metis. We acknowledge that our drinking water comes from Shoal Lake forty First Nation in Treaty 3 territory.
Natalie:Hi, I'm Natalie.
Tamara:And I'm Tamara.
Natalie:Tamara, welcome aboard.
Tamara:Thank you.
Natalie:We are saying a short farewell to Shannay who's stepping aside with her new babe. Congrats Shannay. And starting a whole new season of Our City, Our Podcast with a new team.
Tamara:That's right and I am really excited to be joining this podcast as it heads into year two. I took a little look at the upcoming roster of guests and we've got some really great ones lined up. Today is certainly no exception.
Natalie:You know his name, you've probably heard him on TV and radio, but he's a character here and boy a good storyteller. Kenny Boyce, the manager of film and special events.
Natalie:Let's get into it.
Natalie:Action.
Tamara:I want to start by describing Kenny's desk. There's one of those novelty big sports fingers branded for of course the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, a hook with dozens of lanyards and passes, a director's chair, posters covered in autographs but most notably on the back wall is something like a wall of fame with headshots and photographs that span a multiple decades long career. Thanks for joining us Kenny.
Tamara:I don't think it's a stretch to suggest you have one of the most interesting desks here in the city both for information that comes across it but for some of the actual items. Let's just kick this off by highlighting one or two of the things in the stories behind them that you have there.
Kenny:Oh, wow. That's, that's interesting. Yeah. Thank you for having me here today. I've been with the city for almost almost thirty years, and I I do like to collect stuff.
Kenny:In the industry that I get to work in, people always want to know who you met and what you did kind of thing. So there's always that one wall has some some people recognize people, some people don't, but there are a lot of life moments in there. There's a picture of me and Philip Seymour Hoffman, just prior to him winning an Academy Award for the movie Capote in Winnipeg, which was fantastic. There's a a picture of, Patrick Swayze and the mayor at the time at City Hall, when he came by for a press conference. That was a fun day.
Kenny:And, there's a picture of Guy Madden and I at a local grocery store. So, yeah, you never know who I always say Charleswood or Hollywood, you don't know who will end up on that wall, and I rotate it out, but it's a lot of fun.
Natalie:And now to help people understand your role, you know, it would be helpful to start with you as a kid, and where you found yourself and your favourite events, your favourite movies.
Kenny:Great questions. I grew up in the North End. I'm a proud North Ender in the heart of the North End. And I went to Luxton. I live nine doors away.
Kenny:I was a sociable kid back then. It took me almost an hour to get home every single day. My mom would come look for me. I went to St. John's Tech at the time, is what it was called. That's where my dad went.
Kenny:And I I enjoyed, because I knew that interesting people came out of the North End, and I wanted to be one of them. Concerts were so movie theaters were probably the first form of entertainment. We didn't have a car, but I like going to the Highland Theatre on Main Street. It doesn't exist anymore, but it would be the time when film was coming into full color in the late sixties, early seventies. So, you know, Jerry Lewis movies, Martin and Lewis, Nutty Professor.
Kenny:I can remember that vividly and run lines from it still to this day. Going out to concerts, sitting outside at Garbage Hill, listening to concerts at the stadium downtown or, wherever they might be. Those were kind of interest to me in the early concert days and Winnipeg had a lot of concerts coming through in the seventies, eighties, and nineties.
Natalie:I'll nudge you here on this one. You had a great story about your entrepreneurship with the your uncle and the TV.
Kenny:Oh, yeah. So my beloved uncle, my uncle Jim, won at Alliance Club a coloured TV. And no one in our street had a coloured TV. He'd won it at an auction kind of prize thing, and it was a RCA XL 100 colour instant on, big feature. You didn't have to wait for it to heat up.
Kenny:And so we got it home, which was shocking that we had a colour TV. No one else did. Mom actually needed a cover for it. I remember that well. It was so important and demanded to have a cover at nighttime to go on.
Kenny:And I I thought I could monetize by having my friends come over and give me money or candy to be able to watch, as little kids at TV on on Sunday nights. First, it was him sing, and then it was Disney in color. And that was spectacular. And mom would actually draw the drapes because she didn't want anyone to know that we had a color TV, which is even more funny. But it was it was it was a moment of the North End for sure.
Kenny:So the Boyce's family had a color TV.
Tamara:It's foreshadowing almost. In this next chapter, the early days of Winnipeg's Film And Special Events Office is where things really start to get movie like for you. Kenny, tell us about how you came into your current role.
Kenny:I was working for Mayor Thompson, Susan Thompson, who's we had a wonderful relationship, and I thought she was a good mayor, and I was chairing the Osborne Biz. I'd done that as a volunteer for about five years, co chairing it, and dealing with issues like squeegee kids and poverty issues and so forth. And I got a, you know, I got a little bit, involved in some of the visiting film sets at the time and working a little bit with local promoters. And this thing, hip hop, kept coming up and helping people that had made some bad life choices to get across the border, for business development and and to perform. And, so that was kind of, that was that was good.
Kenny:That gave me a little bit of source of income. I had a consulting company, and then I was appointed to the board of revision for the City of Winnipeg, where citizens, could come in and appeal their taxes if they felt that was unfair to have an understanding. And mayor Thompson thought that I'd be reflective of the appellant's age, the average ages, which were new homeowners. It had a lot of really, mature members that sat on the committee. Some of them occasionally would take a a little little sleep during a hearing maybe or something.
Kenny:That was kind of weird and so forth. But it was you know, I I I really learned that that we only have one taxpayer, we have to respect them and get have an understanding how we respond to them when they have questions. So that that was kinda cool. And then I visited back to the city again, and they wanted me to open a film office that was through mayor Glen Murray. And film was just starting to get busy, and, and I said that I I would be interested in that.
Kenny:I said that, I think it's gonna only pick up. We're a desirable location. I used to joke. I used to say Charles Wood or Hollywood. You know, that'd be kind of a a place that you've come to Winnipeg and scout and and do films.
Kenny:So I opened that that office. And then during that time, I was doing some cultural and some event stuff. The Buckwald Report, which was a really interesting report for Winnipegers. Harold Buckwald was an extraordinary citizen. He was a lawyer.
Kenny:He wanted to make a change, and he thought local government could be the leader on that. We were funding arts and culture at about a penny a day per capita per citizen that paid tax, and he wanted to double it. Put your 2¢ in, he said. I said, I agree. So mayor Murray believed in that.
Kenny:The cultural policy review was talking about the creation of my office at the time. Spoke about the Winnipeg Arts Advisory Council becoming the Winnipeg Arts Council. It talked about public art. Everyone's like, what's public art? So, well, you know, you go to the big American cities around the world, they have a piece of art sitting out of the medium and and public land.
Kenny:What did that look like? So, he got enough votes, and, I made a quick learn of it and helped educate the politicians so they could vote in favor of it, and it happened. It was great. It was good for Winnipeg, and we enjoy the benefits from that report passing at council.
Natalie:And since that start, there has been just massive growth around special events, film, and the work you do.
Kenny:Absolutely. It's me and a whole team of partners in the city and the province, the elected officials, the government of Canada, everyone comes to the aid, the purpose built Canada Life Centre. You know, when Eatons was gonna come down, we're gonna put an arena there. I'm like, really? Like, I walked that block.
Kenny:Would that look like? Right? But it happened. That was, you know, the mayor at the time and the politicians believed in that. So Eaton's came down, and that brought more, class A concerts to Winnipeg.
Kenny:The province of Manitoba got involved in the tax credit, the crew depth, the crews became more skilled. There was crossover. People were coming from across Canada and The States to move to Winnipeg to do film, and, that industry was off. Right? So we had great locations, amazing crews, aggressive tax credit, and the ease and ability to get around in Winnipeg.
Kenny:Really, really important. Right? I always joke I sell against Toronto. Say, if go Downtown Toronto for the day, you forget your wallet or your purse. Someone buys you lunch, you go the day without lunch.
Kenny:I can go home for lunch. It's so easy to move around the city. We don't really you know, we're we're very fortunate. So the film industry found that attractive. So we went from 8-10 millions of dollars working with my great friends at Manitoba Film and Music to attract film here, we went into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Natalie:And just for fun, because we started by talking about your current office, but you started working out of kind of a bizarre space.
Kenny:One of the first offices I had was on the Second Floor at City Hall, which is now the office of the CEO. It was the mayor Thompson's dining room. And there was most people didn't know that, but there was a full food service operation for the campus on the Second Floor. There was one at the Public Safety Building, and there was one at City Hall. And the mayor had a dining room that she would entertain EPC guests and so forth pre or after council during the morning and the afternoon.
Kenny:And, I got to take that over, which was really cool too because it was it was my first spot at City Hall.
Natalie:At a dining room that doesn't exist anymore.
Kenny:Correct.
Tamara:And a lot of people listening will recognize what it's like when a movie is filming down the street. There's the trucks, the big lights, the generators. It's exciting to see, but can you remind us of what the film industry actually does for Winnipeg and its residents?
Kenny:You know, it it is it is very interesting. It instills civic pride for sure. Everyone loves to have big movie stars or we're telling our own story. You know, the Guy Maddens of the world, the Noam Gonicks, the the independent filmmakers that we have here that have won multiple prizes around the world. They rent trucks.
Kenny:They have they rent equipment from secondhand dealers. They, they buy multiples of everything they have. And not like a true Winnipegger. They're not asking for the biggest deal. They just wanna make sure that they get it.
Kenny:I ran into a guy once as an example that just him and his partner made decals. And I'm like, you make decal? And he goes, yeah. We have films busting for us. I said, how so?
Kenny:He goes, well, we do all the police stations. We do all The US post office boxes. We've deckled all the cars to make them look like US police cars, as an example. But, you know, we also have deckled for Toronto and Montreal and Chicago because we do a lot of Chicago films. We're Chicago of The North.
Kenny:And that made me very proud that, you know, we have dedicated people in rental industries, in lighting, in purpose built sound stages, that all have business cards that say film sales, which is fantastic. It is an industry that's mostly unionized, pays very, very well, and creates great opportunity that allows young people to want to stay in this town and make a decent living.
Natalie:And then here you are, you're kind of placed in the crosshairs of these big events. Your office has a dual role of both supporting citizens and supporting the productions. Wondering how you find that balance.
Kenny:Yeah, that it's always a very you know, you never want to be the person to say no. It's gotta be safe. I always say it. It's gotta be safe. I'll work backwards from safe.
Kenny:Having an understanding, preserving urban film locations so we can go back again and get into neighborhoods, dealing with complaints in the now, even if it's evenings or weekends in the middle of the night. My team and I always try to start from a place of yes as long as we can and use common sense when we have to say no, right? As a special constable, I'll go out and inspect often to see that we're protecting our bylaws, that it makes sense and people can have a good safe time, and the universal design of an event, where everyone can participate to the oldest person that might need special assistance, to young people, a new parent, etc. But we need to have a vibrant community, and safety is paramount in everything that we do.
Tamara:On that topic, on the topic of saying no, what are some places that we won't let folks film?
Kenny:Portage and Main. Portage and Main. Portage and Main. Everyone wants to film at Portage and Main. I think we might have done it maybe just once at sunrise in the summertime.
Kenny:I sun up at 5AM, a film with Rob Lowe. I feel it was in a in a in a heist movie that we did, and that was the scenes when they got of got out of the truck running after the bad guys. The it's funny when we did Amazing Race Canada in Winnipeg. They went to Portage and Main, but they wasn't sure how to cross it at 07:00 in the morning on a Sunday. So they're just jumping barricades.
Kenny:They won't have to do that anymore, by the way. But so, yeah, those are kind of the places sometimes not, you know, not allowing, having we do a lot of events in the old Market Square and and exchange as an example. Right? So watching your noise, really important. So, you know, people moved into the Exchange, but no one if you have to get up, you have to get up in the morning.
Kenny:So vibrant communities are really important. Sometimes saying no is important. Portage, and Main would be one for sure. It's just awfully hard when you have tens of thousands of cars passing through every day.
Natalie:And and this is something I never realized, but a lot of productions, you know, beyond what they leave on film, they also leave a physical legacy here in our city.
Kenny:Yeah, often for film and the film communities, they will donate to a school or a park or a library and a legacy. If they have leftover items that they feel they can repurpose, they they they will do that. And they do support where they go in because they wanna be welcomed back again and again. Episodical television, TV series as an example. We have some really big TV series you'll see announced in the next few days in Winnipeg that go back to most of our childhoods as an example.
Kenny:So when they they come in, they wanna come back year after year. So they they know being good neighbors and good visitors is really important. So when there's a prop that's left over, if if it's worthy to go to a playground or to beautify a park that they've been visiting or in just being totally green but having good product of food or supplies to donate it to a local charity that might be based around that area is always great.
Natalie:Is there a physical piece someone might recognize right off?
Kenny:Not that well I would say just smaller parks around Peanut Park every time we film there the film community tends to leave a planting behind of the gardens that continues to grow, which is really nice for the neighborhood there as as an example. Nothing that of larger that comes to mind. Sometimes they're more, disposable, and that could be in the item of food stuff or clothing. But the there is a green feel to most of of the films that we do locally and to our visiting productions. We actually have officers, green officers, that are working for the film committee, making sure it's as green as possible.
Kenny:So bringing their own water container, doing the maximum we can do to recycle, buying locally as much as you can. That goes a long way, especially now.
Tamara:That's the film side of the film and special events. Let's switch over to the other side, the special events side. You have a recent story about how active you are in bringing these events to Winnipeg. I understand the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival that you had your hands in there a little bit before we got it.
Kenny:Yeah. They, you know, it was a great promoter and had an idea to bring a comedy festival across Canada. And Winnipeg was on the map, but it wasn't on the map, wasn't sure of locations. Brought them to Winnipeg. It was not the prettiest days of of February, beginning of March, looking around to find the quintessential, the perfect site.
Kenny:Drove around four or five different locations, tried to convince them, had to have an understanding, helped because it finally was a city asset. It was a Singaporean park, which we have a special operating agency that runs it on behalf of the city. They were great partners in that. It was risky because it's outdoor. It's 10,000 people a night over three nights.
Kenny:Comedy needs really quietness around. They can't be in the air path. They can't be by a squeaky train. They can't be by cars. The comedian is, like, quiet.
Kenny:They wanna be heard. And that worked out really, really well. The weather was tricky year one a little bit. One day they were like, are we canceling? Because, you know, the weather in July could be quite humid.
Kenny:It was very, very hot. And, but it was a success. Came back, year two this year and I think multiple years. So we know that we wanna attract, national and international events to Winnipeg. Grey Cup is here this year as an example.
Kenny:The Sea Bears is here. This is an example. The CEBL championships, which will be in Winnipeg. And, with tourism, Travel Manitoba, EDW, the elected officials, they help give me the power to attract and persuade these events to come into our great city, which is fantastic.
Tamara:When you mentioned bringing them here and you kind of toured around, what's what's Kenny like as a tour guide?
Kenny:I get into a car. I find out what kind of clothes and the to make sure they're warm enough, especially if they're coming from somewhere warm. You gotta so I have extra jackets and boots. I know that sounds a little peculiar, but I'm like, what size are you? Medium perfect.
Kenny:I'll just bring an extra jacket, some schwag that's branded, toques from Winnipeg and hats, filling the car with bottles of water, trying to figure out where we're gonna get a little bite to eat, dietary restrictions, looking at venues, trying to find the right people to meet you at the right time, taking through neighborhoods that would exemplify what they're looking for. Those things, even for film and for special events, to sell what we have for sure. If there's an opportunity to meet the mayor or elect an official from the area, I'd arrange that as well. And, then my provincial counterparts or whoever I'm trying to work to attract with as well just to say hi. Making sure that the accommodations are right for them.
Kenny:You know, they're East Coast, they might wanna stay one place, West Coast another, but making sure they get what they need and then follow-up. Everyone can sell. Everyone has to close. Closing can be problematic because they might be looking at other markets. So I always like to call just at the end of the day and then when they're back and then, you know, and also taking a great selfie.
Kenny:Sending them to say, was great to meet you, and, like, I probably have 30,000 photos on my phone. It's always like it's kinda memorable. Right? You know, the fun thing during during the pandemic was meeting with people. Often, I had a picture, I would print it out and put it on that little famous board in the back, and then I would call them on a Teams meeting.
Kenny:They would see it there going, oh, there's a picture of me in the back of the wall. It was a little thing that would take down later, but it was at the time was fact, people would often know it because, like, who's on oh, wait. That's a picture of me. So it was it was a clever little thing that I thought it was cute, but I I did it over time and time.
Tamara:A salesperson.
Kenny:Always a salesperson.
Natalie:Ken, you've got this great perspective as a Winnipeg insider showcasing the city to the outsider. But when you're asked, why Winnipeg? Tell us, you know, how do we do? How do we hold up against, say, a Toronto or an Edmonton?
Kenny:I well, it's a whole bunch of things. I talked about the ease and ability to get around in the city, the affordability, the great restaurants. Like, the great restaurants. We have really good food. You have to eat in other North American cities or somewhere else in the world.
Kenny:Well, I'm not sure that was not as good as I would get us home. Have a lot of newcomers that bring their culture culture of great food, blends them with Canadian food. Sometimes we see the strangest, you know, soups or, poutines all cross over. Right? Those are examples of of why, people would want to choose and come to Winnipeg.
Kenny:I think the welcomeness of Winnipeg is just as friendly on the license plate. You can't beat that really when you're trying to sell something. I pointed that out last time. On on the film side, it is the cost of doing business. The American dollar has been weak for a long time.
Kenny:We all know that. It's very attractive for, for film visiting. It's harder to buy concerts in US dollars. But the support of the community to go out to events, be it Festival de Voiture in the middle of winter, or even when you're at the lake in the summer, you're still going to the comedy festival, people support arts and culture. I think we sell more tickets per capita mostly than any other Canadian city for arts and culture.
Kenny:Winnipegers believe that is so important, and they they show that in their pocketbook and how they turn up at events. Right? Whiteout parties would be a great a great example. So the, you know, we want to live here for a reason. Sometimes we get Winnipeg bash and we hear winter peck and stuff like that.
Kenny:I still say in our lifetime, if given opportunity, we might have the opportunity to own our homes, have a real front yard, a real backyard, and know our neighbors. I'm not sure you could say that in other Canadian cities.
Natalie:And and that cost of living, we have that, you know, a little more disposable income.
Kenny:We do for sure. Everything that we seem to do seems to be more favorable to us in how we do it here, and that counts. There's nothing like the roar of a stuck tire in the snow revving at nighttime, but your neighbour comes out and helps you. That's one of the things. Right?
Kenny:So I think that we're very fortunate, and I think we build relationships with people, and we create an environment where they want to come back if they're returning. And if not, when they're here, they share that experience with the rest of world that people wanna visit Winnipeg.
Tamara:We keep bringing more and more films here. What are those really attractive features of this city?
Kenny:Oh, all sorts of things. Having the Exchange District, kind of like a national historic designation. Right? One of the largest collections of Chicago style architecture in the anywhere in the world, which could be New York as well or anywhere in the Midwest. We have, Lake Winnipeg on one side, which is rocky, sandy on the So you can do ocean or water.
Kenny:Or lakes in themselves. We have so many. We number them. We have so many. We have an actual desert here, which is amazing.
Kenny:We seem to do a plethora of Christmas films in the summertime, which everyone laughs at us. But again, the the beautiful architecture, the beautiful small lower profile, streets is very, very attractive. The welcoming of the business, and residents tell us to come into the neighbourhoods time and time again. I think that's it. And the ease and ability to be able to get around.
Tamara:Was there one film or production that wanted Winnipeg to double as something else that you're like, really? We can double as that? And then it happened, and you're like, woah.
Kenny:You kill me.
Natalie:The movie?
Kenny:The movie. You kill me with sir Ben Kingsley. We played Frisco. We played Detroit. We played Boston.
Kenny:And I think we played Chicago. And I'm like, how we have no real hills in Winnipeg. We found a street in St. Boniface that doubled for a little bit of a hill. So, yeah, at sometimes I mean, some are natural. Like, when we did Shall We Dance, Richard Gere was in Winnipeg.
Kenny:Right? He was he was at City Hall. We had you know, we we there are different ones in different locations that when you read the script, how can we do that? We just greenlit 1963, the assassination of JFK, and we're gonna do the Dallas Book Depository. We're gonna do Dallas, and it's all gonna be Winnipeg.
Kenny:And I had a driver all fresh eyes going, how would where's the grassy knoll in Winnipeg? I think I found it. I'm not gonna share it yet, but I think I found it. And, you know, the camera sometimes, as we say, can cheat, but we have really diverse neighbourhoods that are still intact. River Heights is still intact from the thirties, forties, and fifties with a lot of streets with no infill .
Kenny:When we did Brad Pitt and Jesse James in the exchange, we could get more than a 80 degrees of turn of the century, buildings. So you don't think about doing a film like that where you take everything electrical away. You take out the light posts and the parking stations, and you put wood sidewalks down and soil, you hope it doesn't rain. And then you bring a whole bunch of horses in with 300 background actors, and then you have Brad Pitt walking around smoking a cigar going, this is gonna be a great day. Yeah.
Kenny:So those are good days, but you have to use your imagination. There is just some that sometimes we simply can't do. Not often, but I think when they're coming to look, they have a feel. Right? What what And then we have sound stages.
Kenny:We now have five sound stages going into one, two, four, five, we're going into a six one soon, that we can cheat things on these sound stages. So when we can't find it out in the street, we can build on the stage.
Natalie:Now, have a reputation as a great connector, and you've shared a lot of stories that way. But will you share with us maybe some wisdom there?
Kenny:Wow, yeah. Connectivity is always always say what you mean and mean what you say. Right? If you don't know the answer, I've learned in my career, say that. People appreciate it.
Kenny:I don't know, but I'll get back to you. And then make a note to get back to you. I spend a lot of time sending voice notes to myself and emails to myself and and and and talking to myself to make sure that I remind myself to do the things that I'm going to say. And I think that that's probably the best thing that you can do. When someone gives you a business card, take time to read it.
Kenny:Don't put it in your pocket. Try to understand who they are and what they And would that be a future network? Or can you be a network for them? Those are simple life things I learned. I try to keep my emails clean every day, and I try to respond to my calls within the hour.
Kenny:And I go to bed every night with no texts in my inbox every day.
Tamara:I don't think there's anybody else who can say that they do that.
Kenny:People that are retired. I don't know. I I it's I I worry about retirement. I'm not sure what I'll do all day. I think I'll but I that's my energy, level.
Kenny:And sometimes I think it's better where where we have, we have connectivity, so it's nice to actually call somebody. That's why emojis were invented. Right? Because you can't talk about the inflection of a text. You have to add something.
Kenny:Because I can say nice shirt. I can say nice shirt. I can say nice shirt. That's the difference of being able to connect with someone verbally. Those it is nice shirt.
Kenny:So I so I I think that I think that's really important. And as as as we serve the citizens of Winnipeg. Right? So you know you're doing a great job when you call a citizen back, and they say to you, thank you for getting back to me so quickly.
Tamara:Have you ever been in front of the camera?
Kenny:Once. After doing the film, shall we dance with Jennifer Lopez, Richard Gere, Stan Tucci, Susan Sarandon, it was like a clown car with a lot of stars that kept coming out in the script. They thought they would honor me. And I said, no. I didn't think I could do that.
Kenny:I thought it was conflict. And they said, no. It would be fun, and I could, bring a friend. And I said, okay. I said, I'll do it.
Kenny:And so when I first started my career, and I asked my bosses, I said, I'll donate my salary, which I did to Harvest, which was great. I was surprised by the check for just a background act. It was a twelve hour day. It was at the Indigenous centre at Higgins And Main, and I was in the final scenes, which is so sweeping that the camera goes like this and I'm that. So that's my hand just going by.
Kenny:The other person was Evelyn Hart from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and we were both dance judges. So I stood in a tuxedo, which I thought was kinda cool, though I realized the shoes were plastic, those little shiny shoes, which almost killed my back. And Evelyn, as a dancer, doesn't stand that long, but we had we had a fun day, and everyone came by to say hi. And it's milliseconds of the end of the film. So I always, you know, I always tell people they can be in film, but you never know what happens to the film afterwards.
Kenny:Yeah. So that was a really, really fun day. And shall we dance was just a great because they were all the it was the time of Ben and Jen, and, all these movie stars were in Winnipeg, and Richard Gere was going out every single night. You know, Stan Tucci was a wonderful human being, ate in every restaurant because as we know, he's a big foodie. So, again, it was just like it was stargazing at its best.
Tamara:We're coming to an end here, and we've barely barely scratched the surface of some of your great stories. But you must have a memory of a really standout workday.
Kenny:Oh, there's been so many of them. It's like the next day after an election, the new mayor, the two new premier, new prime minister. Elections are always interesting. Visiting dignitaries, concerts. Right?
Kenny:Like yeah. Yeah. Into the tour concerts, international leaders. I wasn't here when the pope came to visit. I've always wanted to do a papal visit.
Kenny:But I've taken I provided service, her majesty, the Queen. So I met the Queen. That would probably be a pretty cool day.
Natalie:You gotta tell us about that day.
Kenny:That was one of of a few visits she was here, and I was the city's lead for the royal tour. It was a very, very, very hot day, and we had a concert at The Forks. And it was probably 30 degrees. It was, I call it, three shirt day. That's where you're literally changing your you're changing your shirt in the car.
Kenny:So I started the morning, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna have to change my shirt again. And then we had opportunity with another colleague at city hall to meet the queen and do a photograph of their majesty. So, we went to lieutenant governor's house, and her honor was there that day his honor. And we were introduced to her majesty and shook hands, then we did a photo. It was pretty cool.
Kenny:Not bad for North End boy.
Natalie:And, you know, last one, and this is if if people listen to the podcast, they know this one's a rerun of a question. And it is we wanna leave everybody, though you've given us so much already. Something that for you, you wish everyone knew about Winnipeg? It can be work related, it cannot.
Kenny:So on work I have a wonderful team. They make me successful. People in the industry do an amazing amount of hard work. Winnipeg is a place where you can come before, have a great life, a great standard of living, a good quality of life, and a a sense that you have the ease and ability that when you want to go away, because people say that it's cold, you can afford to do so. If you want to retire and have a high standard, you can you can enjoy what this community offers.
Kenny:It's a big, small North American city, but it attracts and maintains people. And Winnipegers are Winnipegers. They move away. A lot of them do come back. And people say, why Winnipeg?
Kenny:And I say, why not Winnipeg? So, you know, when you get people spell out Winnipeg, Winnipeg er, they might have different spellings. But it all means the same thing. We're in the center of of Canada, and we provide, I think, an amazing chance to have a great life. And that's what most people want in life.
Natalie:Brilliant. Well, you so much.
Tamara:Thank you.
Kenny:Thank you.
Tamara:And that's a wrap on Kenny Boyce. I'm sure he had a lot of stories that maybe he wasn't at liberty to share with us.
Natalie:I don't know. What are you saying? We didn't get to the the root of everything.
Tamara:Oh, Natalie. I see where you're going.
Natalie:Growing towards our next episode because we are talking to the city forester. Martha Barwinski is joining us to really, you know, shed a new light on the way we look at our urban canopy.
Tamara:And we love trees and we also love to hear from you, our listeners. If you have
Tamara:topics that you would like us to delve into, please email city-podcast@winnipeg.ca and we'll see what we can do about it.
Natalie:Thanks for listening.
