Speaking Municipally

Mack Male: The spookiest season of all. This week, we're excited for the new Warehouse Park and scared about the impact of the postal strike on the election.
Stephanie Swensrude: Plus, we bring you the scariest audio of all, candidate soundbites.

Mack: Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie: I'm Stephanie.

Mack: And we're...

Both: Speaking Municipally.

Mack: Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 326.

Stephanie: Yes, welcome. Uh, it is now October. Uh, the f- fall air is so crisp. I'm going for lots of walks in the, in the r- river valley and just feeling so cozy and fall vibes. Love it. (laughs)

Mack: Enjoying the different colors on the leaves?

Stephanie: I know. Yeah.

Mack: Yeah, it's really turned fast.

Stephanie: Yeah. I, I don't know. Maybe everyone thinks this way, but when I was a kid, I swear that it would go from green to white, as in it would snow, a- and we would have no in between, and in the last, like, five years or so, I think that we've gotten a longer fall, more, more fall colors. Maybe I'm just r- misremembering, but if we are getting a longer fall, you know, that is one win for climate change.

Mack: (laughs)

Stephanie: Maybe climate change isn't so bad after all.

Mack: I like to keep in mind that it's the shoulder season, right?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: And so we get this shoulder season in the spring and in the fall, and it's an opportunity to enjoy the city in a different way and to, you know, still go sit on a patio, go to the park, and those kinds of things, right? Uh, I'm enjoying that with the family right now as well.

Stephanie: Yeah, it's so nice. I, I kind of hate the heat because it just... You can't escape it. With cold, you put on an extra layer, a cute little scarf. Anyways, sorry. Enough weather chitchat. (laughs)

Mack: I wish it was a little warmer. Okay.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: Well, before we get into the rest of this episode, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie: This episode is brought to you by Triovest, a Colliers company. Triovest professionally manages ATCO Centre Edmonton. It's one of the greenest office buildings in Canada, even though it was built in 1982. You might know it. It's the big red tower with the distinctive arch on 100th Avenue and 105th Street. ENERGY STAR Canada recently honored ATCO Centre Edmonton as a building of the year for its energy efficiency. Now, the building's operator is looking toward AI to improve ATCO Centre Edmonton's performance even more. Our special series on this extraordinary building concludes in The Pulse on October 9th, and if you missed any of the installments, they'll all be linked in that finale. Many thanks to Triovest for making this possible.

Mack: That's such a cool series to hear about s- this, this building that predates both of us and and how it can be one of Canada's most energy efficient ones. And I was thinking about the building because I was walking downtown with my daughter yesterday, actually, and Beaver Hills House Park is at the point now where they're putting in the landscaping and the sod and all of that, and so they had these trucks on 104th Street and 105th Street full of grass and, you know, other things that they're gonna put in there. And so sad, there's these beautiful mature trees in front of the ATCO Centre building, and a truck, one of these big 500-ton trucks, had crashed into one of the trees and it had, you know, dumped some of its load and it ripped the, the truck in half essentially, it looked like. I mean, the tree, the tree-

Stephanie: Oh my God.

Mack: ... must be pretty strong. And it was just one of those really interesting teachi- teaching moments 'cause, you know, my daughter looked at it and she said, "Oh no, the truck is broken." And I looked at it and I'm like, "Oh no, I hope the tree is okay."

Stephanie: (laughs)

Mack: Like, those trees are so significant and important and they take so long to grow that big. And, you know, I hope I hope the construction folks figure all that out and if there is any damage that, that it's accounted for and everything. But, um, really interesting, you know, for this historic part of our downtown and, and the trees are part of that, right? And so even with all this construction going around it, it's, it's sad whenever we potentially lose those old trees.

Stephanie: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well, speaking of trees and downtown do I have a story for you, Mack, this week? Readers of The Pulse will have seen this story, came out early this week. It's about Warehouse Park. Now, first, Mack, I wanna ask you. When you're walking or biking around the area surrounding Warehouse Park, so you know, generally, like, 106th Street to 108th Street, 102 Ave, in that general area, how does, how do you feel? What, what's the vibe of the couple blocks surrounding the park currently?

Mack: Yeah. I feel like I've got a pretty unique view of this because I go past it every day on the bike lane and then I walk by it several times a day usually when I'm going to the coworking space, and then from the coworking space, I have a bird's eye view up on the 10th floor of the park. And, you know, the construction is annoying. I think everyone has been complaining about construction in, in this election season all over the place and, you know, it's impa- it's an impact on cyclists and pedestrians too. So, you know, you walk down 106th Street, it's mostly closed to traffic, which is good from a biking point of view. You don't have to wait for the light so much. You can just go. But, you know, the barricades move all the time. There's mud and dirt everywhere. You get to peek in through the buildings into the park and see glimpses of what's happening there. Um, but, you know, it's, it's one of those things where you're like, "I hope this comes along faster and we get there." And, and in recent days, it started to look like that, right? It started to look like a park. There's greenery in there now. They're doing landscaping. They're, you know, thinking or um, preparing all of the picnic tables and the other amenities and stuff. And so I'm... Uh, at this moment, I'm just very excited to get in there and see what it looks like, and I'm trying to keep my expectations tempered because m- I know there will be things I don't like about it.

Stephanie: Yeah. Now, what about the, n- not the park itself but the surroundings of it? So, right now there's lots of... Well, there's probably 75% or more is surface parking. And then I think the Alberta Craft Council, a really cool little shop is right there. I think there's an Indian restaurant. There's a couple of small condos. But vast majority is surface parking lots, correct?

Mack: Yeah, there's a lot of surface parking lots around there. I feel really bad for those businesses 'cause, you know, it's been a long time for this construction and I hope they benefit from it. I hope they can make it through and then... and benefit from the, the park being there. But it's great to see the parking lots go away and to see this, you know, in- fantastic amenity right in the center of our downtown sprout up. And there is some other construction nearby. We're seeing,... you know, some residential buildings and things going up around the park. Of course, the big, big tower of the parks is up there now, and that's really cool to see. But there's still a lot of, you know, empty buildings, vacant buildings, empty lots around there and, you know, I'm hopeful that that'll all change.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, have I I, I did some investigating. So I remember back when this, when the final plans for Warehouse Park were shared, I remember s- seeing there's still so many parking lots around here. The whole idea was turning parking lots into paradise, and there's still so many lots around. I kind of criticized the city, I think, a little bit, for saying, "Why didn't you go bigger, why didn't you go bigger?" But the thing is, is that I, I started to notice this flurry of activity all of a sudden around all of these surface parking lots surrounding the park. And you know, um, this happens a lot where developers will, by law, they, like, propose this big skyscraper, like, 40 s- 30, 40 stories, um, this visionary thing, this new addition to the skyline, and then it gets slowed down and it stops and then it stays in for a parking lot and people use it for the Oilers games. Which, um, yeah, that, that happens a lot. But I noticed a few things happening that made my spidey senses start to tingle.

Mack: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: First thing, administration asked council to approve a sole source contract with EPCOR to upgrade electricity infrastructure on either side of the park using money from the CMHC's Housing Accelerator Fund. Uh, on its own, that's not a big deal, you know, it's just, "Hey, can you we just need to upgrade this infrastructure," but I noticed that they said in the report that this would, this is important for housing supply because it'll help get 1,800 units around Warehouse Park online. And I thought, "Okay, well, that, the parks building that you mentioned from McLeod, that's only 1,000. 800 more units? Where are these coming from?"

Mack: Yeah.

Stephanie: And then, I noticed, I think it was the next week or something at the public hearing, a couple of developers were down zoning their lots. So I mentioned 40 storey buildings, Henry Edgar's development group, o- or he's part of the Autograph Development Group, he had proposed years ago The Shift, which was two 40-ish storey towers with about 780 units of housing between the two of them on 106 Street and 102 Ave, in that general area. And then, and s- he is down zoning, which I just thought was so interesting, because it's downtown, everyone always says, "Well you have to have skyscrapers because the money is, or the land is so expensive." So that was the second thing that I noticed.

Mack: Yeah, those are both really interesting. And it sounds a little bit then like what we hoped would happen is happening which is that the park would spur some development.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: Now, I've been talking to some folks in the development industry, and I wonder if one of the reasons we're getting these shorter buildings rather than the taller ones is because of the cost of materials and construction. And, you know, I've heard folks in the sector say, like, "If we had a specific incentive that would help, you know, bridge that cost, we might end up with more tall concrete buildings going up because the economics would be a little bit more viable right now." But I do remember a conversation with some folks from the city a long time ago about, you know, buildings downtown like this, and, you know, at the time, it felt like the only thing council was approving was, as you say, like some 40 storey you know, super shiny thing that you know is never gonna come to fruition. And the comment was, "Well, what if, instead of one 40 storey tall- tower, we had four 10 storey towers?" Like, we're gonna have the same number of people, but we're gonna spread it around a little bit, it's gonna be more human scaled, and it's probably faster to get that kind of, you know density there. And so I thought that was really interesting. And so now, we're starting to see a little bit of that.

Stephanie: Yeah. That's basically exactly what developers told me. So I spoke to Henry Edgar, who's with Autograph, and I spoke to Ian O'Donnell, who's with WestRidge, and they both kind of said that building these shorter buildings... So Autograph is planning to build six, maybe seven storeys, with up to 250 units. WestRidge is currently building one six storey wood building, and has two more in the works. Uh, they just went to the Edmonton Design Committee. So there's all of these six-ish storey wood buildings, which again, is just not what you expect in a downtown. Ian O'Donnell was very specific that Warehouse Park was a big, a big reason why there's, they're seeing more development around here, because, um, you know, these are s- small, gonna be smaller apartments, and these people are gonna want somewhere to hang out, like a, you know, the, the neighborhood backyard. The other thing that is another, like, kind of government incentive was the Downtown Student Housing Incentive, which of course was introduced a few weeks ago, and both, um, WestRidge and Autograph are planning to apply for that. And I just thought it was really cool t- to see all of these programs or incentives or, like, taking away roadblocks, they get introduced and then, like, weeks later, it's like 800 more units of housing are being proposed. Now, I wanna do a big caveat, I get accused (laughs) a lot of being a shill for developers, and I want to just say, I understand that n- all, all of this is gonna happen. Um, of course developers have been criticized for saying they need the public money or else they won't build. Um, all of these developments, or almost all of them, are yet to break ground. I'm very aware they could be canceled again, I could be sounding like an idiot right now. I, I understand th- these accusations (laughs). Um, I don't know, but I just think it's cool to, to imagine this area that has, that is, like, really d- um, devoid of any sort of energy, it's just surface gravel parking lots, and then all of a sudden in a few years 800, at least, more people living there. 1,800 if you include the parks, which we're not even talking about those are actual towers.

Mack: Yeah.

Stephanie: Uh, the Valley Line LRT, the Warehouse Park itself, the new NorQuest building, more students at MacEwan. I think that this has the potential to, like, shift the epicenter of downtown a few blocks over, because I mean, right now, you could maybe say City Center Mall is kind of like the epicenter, but I think that this is, like...This is a huge deal, and I was so excited when I discovered all of these, um, all of these new developments that are coming down the pipeline now.

Mack: And it does feel really aligned with, you know, what we talked about last week on the survey and what we're hearing from people across the board, which is that we need to boost the population downtown, the residential population downtown. A lot of the candidates agree that that is what we should be prioritizing to revitalize downtown. And so, this is sort of that foundation work, the park and, and the e- electricity and the zoning and all those kinds of things that make that housing possible, and so I think that's pretty exciting. Um, you know, just to, to build on your caveat, the other thing is, you know, wood frame buildings have a pretty poor reputation, because there's been a lot of those that have gone up in our downtown that have had significant special assessments to address shoddy you know, building practices. And so hopefully, this new batch, this new generation of buildings that we're seeing, you know, can, can set a new bar for quality and avoid some of those challenges.

Stephanie: Yeah. Um, another just really nerdy, dorky urbanist thing that I wanted to talk about is one of these buildings is, it backs onto the park, and the original plan was to, 'cause, so there's like a, a lane that separates the park and this building, you know, like an alleyway kind of, and the original plan was for this building to have like the dumpsters and some visitor parking back there. But instead, I think the Edmonton Design Committee said, "No. Please make it-"

Mack: Makes no sense.

Stephanie: That makes no sense.

Mack: Yeah.

Stephanie: That would be hideous to have, you know, you're trying to enjoy a nice day at the, at the park, and you're staring at a stinky dumpster.

Mack: Yeah.

Stephanie: So instead, they have like a patio that is going to look out onto the park. So on one side, it'll be like the actual street, and that'll be, you know, active edge is fronting onto the street, and then on the other side is gonna be like a patio. So I just think, I don't know, I'm, call me a cockeyed optimist, but I think that it's gonna be really cool. I cannot wait for this park to be open. I emailed the city, and they said that the park is progressing on schedule to be completed this fall. An official opening date will be shared when it is confirmed. I also visited the park the other day to take some photos of it. I saw people mowing the lawn, so that-

Mack: Mm-hmm.

Stephanie: And it, it smelled nice, and that was kind of a sign that we're getting closer to, to opening. So, um, yeah, I think super exciting, and I just hope that everything goes well.

Mack: It won't be long now.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Mack: Also not long away is the election. Advance voting starts on October 7th, I think it is.

Stephanie: Oh, my goodness. Yep.

Mack: And election day, of course, is October 20th, so we're gonna start to hear more about voting here right away. And I imagine one of the things we're gonna hear about is the postal strike. I, I know there's a postal strike because almost every company I've ever done business with chose to email me to say, "Did you know there's a postal strike?" And it's like, "Yes, thank you."

Stephanie: Thanks for letting me know. (laughs)

Mack: (laughs) What did you find out about the postal strike and how it might impact the election?

Stephanie: Yeah, there are three main ways that I saw that the postal strike might impact the municipal election. So the first thing is special ballots, mail-in ballots, that sort of thing. Um, I looked on the city website, and it said this. "Despite the Canada Post strike, voters who apply for special ballots will receive their packages. If you're able, you can switch your delivery method to pick up from the elections office, and we'll notify you when it's ready. We're working with alternate service providers to send out special ballot packages to electors who are unable to pick up their package in person. They'll be sent via courier after October 8th." Uh, so if you are someone who needs a special ballot or something like that go to the city's website. That is some information you can get there. Um, a second thing, though, that I haven't seen as much you know, people talking about, but the voter information cards. So there's those cards that come like a few weeks before any election, and they say, "Hey, there's an election coming up. You can go to this place to vote in advance, or you can go th- to this place to vote on election day." I'm not sure if those are gonna come out via the mail. I don't know if they're going to be hand-delivered by courier. What do you think, Mack?

Mack: I don't know. We'll have to find out from the city what they're gonna do there. I mean, I do know all of that information that's on that card is available on the website. So you can go to edmonton.ca/elections and you can find out where to vote. We've also got a tool to help you do that at taproot.vote. And you don't need those cards on election day, right? When you show up at the polls, you just need some identification, and the city's got a, a long list of things that are valid for ID on their website. Uh, you need to be 18 years or older, a, a re- a Canadian citizen, and a resident of Edmonton at the time of the election. Those are basically, you know, the requirements for you to be able to vote in the election. Uh, in terms of ID, you know, if you have a driver's license or something like that, that's accepted. But if you don't, then they've got some other, you know, documents that you can use, things that confirm your name and address, like a bank statement or, or something like that. So the voter information cards aren't strictly required for you to be actually go and cast your vote, but you know, you were mentioning before the show, I think it's a really good point, that's the way that some folks will find out that there's an election happening.

Stephanie: For sure.

Mack: It feels like we talk about the election all the time, but not everybody's quite as plugged in.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: And so that'll be potentially bad for turnout if those cards don't make it out.

Stephanie: Yeah, it, it really worries me, actually, and I wonder if like they'll show up after whenever this, the Canada Post strike is done, and people will be like, "Ah, I wish I would have known s- so I could've gone and voted." Yeah, I don't know. That's, it's worrying me quite a bit. So I'm, that's why I'm trying extra hard to get the Taproot voter survey and voter information out. I'm like telling everyone I know, "Please spread it", spread it around and tell your friends to tell their friends." And then the third way that it's impacting the election is that it's affecting campaigns. Now, this story we'll link it in the show notes, and it comes out of Calgary, which in, if you didn't know, all municipalities in Alberta have their municipal election on the same day. But I've actually heard this from candidates here in Edmonton. I was talking to a candidate and they echoed this, is that they have all of this campaign material that they put in the mail, and now it's not gonna reach their voters or the, the households.So, um, this is from the CBC story. I'm just reading from it here. The strike has already had a significant impact on some campaigns, like Heather McGray who's running for the Calgary Party in Ward 7. She estimated about 35,000 pieces of campaign material that were meant to be distributed in the ward by Canada Post won't be circulated. She took several days to get all the campaign materials back, and now they're dropping the elections literature off while door-knocking. But this ward, I guess, has many residential towers, so not being able to reach voters through the mail is even more of a challenge. Her team needs to contact condo associations and apartment managers to try to get into buildings for door-knocking.

Mack: Yeah, I think that's a challenge for, for, for residential towers. It's hard to get into those buildings. They're-

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Mack: You know, security's obviously a little bit different and once you get in, if you have somebody who can let you in, then it's then it's okay. But, um, I did hear that as well that, you know, candidate materials were getting held not intentionally, just because of, you know, the implications of the strike. And so, you know, that's quite a bit of money potentially for some of these smaller campaigns that, you know, is locked up, they need to get back, so that's challenging.

Stephanie: A counterpoint to this in the article was that it, it creates a more even playing field. So one of this candidate's opponents, independent candidate Mike Atkinson said that he has more than 80 volunteers contributing to his campaign. He was already planning to lean on the volunteer base rather than use Canada Post which would have been more costly. And he said, quote, "For an independent grassroots com- campaign like ours where fundraising isn't necessarily our biggest strength, especially when we're going up against party candidates who maybe have a bigger political engine behind them, having something like the strike come in levels the playing field a bit." So, interesting counterpoint.

Mack: There's a lot of assumptions in there, right?

Stephanie: Yeah. (laughs)

Mack: And I have some some clips that we're gonna play in a little bit from some candidates that from here in Edmonton that, that touch on this. But, you know, one assumption there is that parties actually raised a bunch more money. And that they're actually deploying it to that candidate against that independent candidate.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: You know, and there's quite a big difference between a mayoral campaign and a, and a council campaign in, in a, in a specific ward. And so, um, maybe it levels the playing field. I'm not sure. But we'll, w- we can get more into that in a minute. Um, hopefully this, this strike and the other impending strike October 6th potentially is the teachers strike, you know, won't have too much of a down impact on, on the municipal election, but, you know, those are justifiably hot topics for peoples. The teacher one especially is a thing that a lot of people are gonna be paying attention to and focused on, and that might take some energy and some focus away from the municipal election. I suppose it might make the school board part of the election a little bit more interesting. And, um, I just wanted to mention that I, I think I talked about it in a couple of recent, e- e- an episode a few weeks ago, and also I talked about it on CBC that, you know, when the strike happens, it is the school board who kinda sets direction around policy and around budgets and things like that. And, you know, at least for Edmonton Public, and, and this might be the case for a lot of the larger school divisions, just a clarification I've, I've heard from them about that is that they delegate how they respond in the strike to the superintendent. So, of course, it's the board who hires the superintendent. They just did that here in Edmonton Public. Um, but, you know, the way the division responds to the strike is, um, is, is delegated to that superintendent. And so, you know, it, it's underlines how important those school trustee positions are because they're the ones who decide who to hire for that role and who can, you know, set that, that broader strategy. So, I think that's interesting and so maybe, maybe it won't take attention away from the election. Maybe it will actually bring some interest into school board elections if people will be looking for more information about those candidates.

Stephanie: Yeah. I wonder if there's any information on how many ballots are put in the box with a vote for mayor, a vote for council, but nothing to do with school board because people don't understand that that's part of the municipal election, 'cause I know that some people don't. Um, and then I wonder if this year there's more people for the school board.

Mack: Well, we'll have to see if we can get some data about that.

Stephanie: Yeah, totally.

Mack: I did go to a candidate event recently, um, that was put on by the REALTORS Association of Edmonton, an election partner of TapRoots, and there was a lot of candidates in the room. And so I had an opportunity to walk around and, and interview some of them, and I thought, "Since I'm doing this, I'm no Troy Pavlek. I'm not gonna make a video, but I might as well capture some audio and just get some clarity on some things." So, Stephanie, I've brought you some audio clips from candidates and I'll just go through some of those now. We can, we can play a few of those and hopefully this helps people understand things a little bit better. So, I talked to Rahim Jaffer. Uh, he... I've seen him out on the campaign and he will stand there and talk to somebody for as long as they need. He's very good at that aspect of being a politician. So I waited my turn and I did get to ask him, I said, "You know what? Uh, we've poked some fun at you on the podcast recently, so help me understand." And I asked him about, you know, the joke we were making around turnstiles at LRT stations, which is something that he wants to do. And also free transit, which seems like they're at odds. And here's what he said about having both of those things together.

Rahim Jaffer: I think one of the big things that we've seen is that the safety issue with many c- concern for many Edmontonians is that having just access on the platform without some sort of a barrier keeping those that maybe shouldn't be on the transit off the transit, and those who are intentionally wanting to buy tickets, voodoo, whatever, be on the transit, keeping them safe. 'Cause unfortunately we've seen examples of, um, harm being done, damage, even fatalities on the, on the transit. So, trying to make it safe with a turnstile system I think is something that many countries, many cities have done. It's not unusual. And there's ways to also accommodate free transit by allowing either the system that you choose, currently we have w- the ARC card in those zones that you're traveling that we would identify as a free zone, you would h- we have the technology to be able to allow that free movement. And-... especially when we talk about trying to get more people who are coming to the city, supporting the city, attending events, whatever it might be. There's different ways we can have them either access to get the free transit, either through apps or through other ways, through hotels, other ways that you can make it easier for people to access that. And the cost side of it, like, there's other cities who find sponsorships and other ways of people to be able to reduce the cost. We feel that from the revenue currently from transit, you can carve off a little bit to create that free zone. But if you also couple that with potential sponsorships, now you're not even taking, hopefully, anything out of the coffers, but you've got to think out of the box a little bit.

Mack: So, you know, he- I think his point is- is good, right? That we can have turnstiles and you can still use ARC cards and we can still track, you know, data for usage and all of that. It's just, you don't have to pay for filling up the ARC card, right?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: So that makes sense. And then I thought it was interesting that he talked about this idea of paying for this with sponsorships and- and getting more corporate money in to supporting transit. Like, I don't know exactly how feasible that is, but it's kind of interesting to hear somebody think so outside the box and so creatively.

Stephanie: The Booster Juice LRT station in Terwillegar (laughs).

Mack: (laughs) That- that comes to mind. The other thing I asked him about, which we talked about on the show is just, you know, we had that question about the 500 police officers. Is it net new or is it total? And he clarified that it's total, and so I pointed out, "That's less than what we've added in the last two years per year." You know, and he- he talked a bit about how, um, there's the risk of attrition. He's worried about Edmonton losing police officers to this new potential provincial police force, and- and he pivoted really to talking about you know, how we need to make sure we have a good relationship with the province on the police file and how, given his experience at the federal level, he thinks he can come and do that. All right, another candidate I wanted to talk to at the event was Aaron Paquette, and I really just had one question for him, Stephanie, which is, "Why do you want to come back?" And here's what he said.

Aaron Paquette: Well, you know, I've got a lot of iron still in the fire that I think have to be seen through, and, um, over the past year and a half, I've managed to develop I think what is an absolutely workable fiscal plan for the city that will allow us to get off this treadmill of lower services, higher taxes. Um, it's not rocket science, it just hasn't been put together before, and I think that it absolutely needs to happen. Uh, we are heading toward a fiscal cliff, municipally, that a lot of people aren't seeing, and I can go into detail on that. But, um, I- I really think that we need someone on council who sees this and takes it seriously, because if you look, of course you want to focus on the potholes, on the roads, on the parks, all of that stuff, but if you run out of money, none of that happens. Yeah. And we're quickly approaching, um, an- a point where not only will it affect the City of Edmonton, but the entire region.

Mack: So, you know, that unfinished business is- is really what he was talking about. And he, you know, he talked about this fiscal cliff coming, right? That's a- that's part of that unfinished business that he- that he brings up, and I've heard more people talking about that lately. Another person at the event was Tony Caterina, a former councillor, who's running for mayor, and I asked him the same question. "Why do you want to come back? You were out, you know? Councillor Paquette's still in it, but, like, you were gone. Why do you want to come back?" And, um, you know, he- he said that he sees it the way that Councillor Paquette sees it, that there's a big money question here. And, you know, he doesn't actually want to come back, he thinks the city needs him to come back. So here's what he said.

Tony Caterina: Well, it's not that I wanted to come back. I think the city right now needs me to come back uh, with my experience both o- on council and lived experience, I think is very, very important, and intelle- the intellectual knowledge that I have on what's worked and what hasn't worked. Uh, and I'll agree with Aaron the fiscal status of- of the city is critical right now. We're at a crossroads that if things continue the way they are the spending not under control and tax hikes really anything else that the city wants to do it will not be able to to accomplish. We have to establish that, uh- uh, really prudent spending in order to control our taxation, and I think for the next four years that's the direction we need to we need to go. We have to be extremely conservative on the fiscal part of- uh of the city.

Mack: Have you heard Tony Caterina much yet, Stephanie? Has he been at any of the forums you've moderated?

Stephanie: No.

Mack: Good old Ton Cat, we go way back. That was the hashtag on- on Twitter, Ton Cat back in the day. Uh, I think it's so interesting that people like that are just so willing to serve again, you know? He did his time on council, you'd think he'd be out enjoying whatever comes after it, and here he is wanting to come back. And whether you agree with him or not, you know, wanting to make the city a better place, I think that's interesting. Another person I talked to at the event was Gizelle General, who's running in Seepewahnewauk, and I was asking her about, you know, what is she hearing about, what are some of the issues that are coming up, and I've not heard this yet. Have you heard anything yet, Stephanie, about Lucy the elephant?

Stephanie: Ugh. No, not- not, like, not municipal election related.

Mack: Well, you know, there's people who care a lot about that topic and they always seem to bring it up, so here's what Gizelle said about that.

Giselle General: So I tell them, I give them the important context that I'm not an animal welfare expert, so that I will understandably defer to the advice of the experts in this field, whether it is the staff at the zoo and even other, um, resources. And I tell them that, of course, the welfare of the elephant is very, very important to me, so... And personally, if it makes sense to transport her in a way that doesn't kill her, why not, right? And the other angle too that I am worried about is the cost, right? Because as far as budget items, people are worried about all these defined spending...if there is a way to transport her in a way that she will arrive safely and does not cost the taxpayers money, I'll be very open to it.

Mack: So thankfully, as she said, it doesn't seem like it's a big issue for people in her ward, but for those who care, they're very passionate about it. And so maybe we'll hear more from the Lucy the Elephant folks before the election is out. I asked her what issues she said are... she's hearing about most, and she said there's two at the top of the list. So taxes, and, and she said it's not so much about lowering taxes, it's people want to have an understanding of what goes into the taxes or like what are they used for, but the other one was transportation. And she mentioned construction, of course, people complaining about that, but also speeding she said is a, is a big problem in, in the community there. So I thought that was pretty interesting.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Me and Giselle General actually go way back. One of my projects when I was at... going to NAIT in television school was y-... we had to make, I think, a three-minute-long feature, and I chose talking about, like, walkability and people getting around with transit. Do not go and find this online because it's extremely embarrassing.

Mack: (laughs)

Stephanie: Uh, I did not know what I was doing because I was still in school, but this was also before she was running for council 'cause she ran in 2021. Um, but no, she lives on the... she... at the time she lived on the West End and, like, didn't, didn't drive, took the bus or walked to get everywhere, and it was nice to get her im- input. Now she is running in Siboo Eneok and of course that is an open race. There's no incumbent because Sarah Hamilton is not running again. And last time she came in second. Um, Sarah Hamilton got 44% of the vote. Giselle got 23% of the vote. Sh- she came in second. Um, so it should be an interesting race to watch.

Mack: Yeah. For sure. All right. Another person I ran into at the event is a candidate down in O-day'min, and that's Anand Pye. And we were just chatting about downtown, both being longtime downtown people, and he brought up something that I've railed against for years and that is the connector between the e- Old Strathcona area and downtown. So here's what he said about that.

Anand Pye: I helped to, to start Grindstone Theatre uh, even before there was a theater, but when we opened our space on 81st Avenue, I would live downtown I have lived downtown for most of the past 20 years, and and was always trying to go back and forth from Whyte Avenue to, to downtown. So I remember being a student at, at the U of A and a student at MacEwan and wanting to go to the other side. We've got this big island, if you think about MacEwan, uh, there's a highway beside them, and that highway is closed. Uh, you can't get across very easily. Uh, and it, and it is a, uh... is and was a terrible feeling for me and MacEwan to be, to be cut off from the rest of the city. Uh, and I, and I felt the same way at the U of A. It's a bit, it's a bit far away from, from Whyte Avenue. So why can't we have a downtown to to Whyte Avenue circulator coming every five minutes? Uh, when I was on the Transit Advisory Board, talked about bus rapid transit, and and at that time and since until just recently, the city has said, "That's that's not how we want to spend our, our, our money." Uh, but we know that bus rapid transit is a, is a great way for the densities that we have in Edmonton to to accelerate things before the LRT.

Mack: So, you know, I've been talking about this for a long time, the transit connectivity between downtown and Old Strathcona needs to be greatly improved. I don't know where this'll go. I don't know if there's any proposals on the table lately to do anything about this, but I was interested to hear him bring that up. And then, you know, as we've asked about in the in the TapRoot survey, he also touched on BRT when I was talking to him and, and was talking a bit about, you know, what are the elements that you need in order for BRT to be possible. And it sounds like he's, you know, quite interested in, in pursuing that. And so that is a thing that has definitely become more of interest for candidates, I find, in this election that, you know, it didn't really come up in the past or it was easy to say, "No, we're not doing BRT, we're just gonna do LRT." More candidates seem open to that now.

Stephanie: Yeah. I actually today was just writing one of our little articles about, um, where the candidates stand on XYZ issue, and today I was writing about high capacity transit, and m- the majority of candid- candidates chose that they would prefer bus rapid transit over LRT.

Mack: Interesting.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Mack: Yeah. Uh, just a couple more. I talked to Stephen Hammerschmidt, also running in O-day'min. He's the candidate for the Better Edmonton Party in this ward. And I talked to him about his plan for shelters, which I think is pretty interesting. Um, he, he wants to basically bin- build ten smaller shelters around the city. Each of these would be about 20,000 square feet each. You know, he talked about them having this design that's a bit like student housing. And I asked him how he'd pay for that, and he suggested the province is pretty interested to help actually, and then he's got this really ambitious plan. He wants to build these in six to ten months, which I said, "I don't know, man. That sounds pretty fast." And, you know, he... to his credit, he was realistic about that. So here's what he said.

Stephen Hammerschmidt: Something's gonna go wrong here. We're gonna drop the ball. Some eggs are gonna get broken. I'm not under any disillusion that this is perfect, but this is the way to go forward and what we have right now is the status quo is absolutely not working. So this is something we've looked at and said, "This is where we're gonna take this now, and let's see what happens with this." And I think people are gonna be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Mack: Okay. And then the other thing I had to ask him about was the party, because of course on the survey, as we mentioned last week, he, he answered the question saying that, you know, council shouldn't have candidates around the table. And so he talked, uh... he answered the question by saying, you know, "Mm, they're a little bit more like a slate." And so here's what he said.

Stephen Hammerschmidt: The Better Edmonton Party more emulates a slate than a party. We don't sell memberships. There's not a whip and so on and so forth. We've come together with a group of people that we have the high level three or four points of what we believe in that we're gonna stand by. And we will work together. On an individual basis, we still can speak our minds and do what we want and there could be some chafing. We're fully appreciative of the fact that that becomes down the path. There's not everyone that's excited about my policy on the ten shelters.

Mack: Sure.

Stephen Hammerschmidt: That's fine. There's not everyone that's excited about capping infill to four units. Sure. So we have this latitude to be independent, but we've also said we're going to...have a responsible city council. We're going to be, be fiscally responsible, taking care of the core responsibilities for the the city. No more vanity projects. We're gonna run this like a city again, and we're all in line with that commonality. So is it a party? Yes. Is it a party from a legal standpoint? It's really a slate.

Mack: So Stephen Hammerschmidt raising this idea that, you know, Better Edmonton is a more official thing, and he, in the comments that he was making afterwards we were talking, was basically suggesting that Working Families Edmonton, which is of course, an initiative of some of the unions and they've made endorsements, they've endorsed candidates in all the different races, you know, that they are, hmm, maybe operating to support those candidates without having to follow the same legal paperwork, which I think is interesting. It's not quite true. They are registered as a third-party advertiser, of course, and so they will have to file disclosures and things like that. Um, but this is the same kind of thing that Councilor Tim Cartmell, who's now a candidate for mayor, also talked about. So I asked him about, you know, his comments about the party going dormant, and he said that the party approach might actually help things be more open, and he talked a lot about them acting as a team. So here's what he said about that.

Tim Cartmell: Our intent was to get to know each other, was to treat each other with respect, to change how we govern. Too much of what has happened on city council for the last four years has happened behind closed doors. It has actually been cooked votes, crafted votes, preordained conversations and discussions that should've been happened, should have happened in the fore. And so we are determined to change that ethic. So will we work together? Well, we will have, we will have worked together on the campaign. We will have share a common ethic, you know, in the buckets that we're campaigning on, but no one's whipping votes. There is no opportunity for caucus. There is no opportunity for cabinet. There is no power imperative here. It is still a weak mayor construct. All 13 people get a vote, and people that are part of the Better Edmonton Party are gonna disagree on things, and we welcome that. We welcome the discourse, and we want to bring it out into the fore.

Mack: He agreed with Hammerschmidt to some degree, right, in, in basically suggesting that the party is a more official thing. They're legally restricted maybe in, in terms of what they can and can't do, whereas if you're an independent candidate, you don't really have to follow those same rules. Now, I don't know how much truth there is behind any of that or if that would sway you in any way, Stephanie, but that seems to be a little bit of the messaging that the Better Edmonton folks are putting out there. The last thing I asked him about was financial disclosures and fundraising 'cause we've heard in this election that parties have this fundraising advantage, and, you know, he said, "It remains to be seen if that's the case." And I asked him if they have a plan or a policy around how they would spend the money, because as, as we've talked about, when the party gets a donation, it's not restricted to a specific candidate. They can take that donation and then spend it how they want to. And so I asked him, you know, "Would you spend it equally on every candidate, or, you know, what are you going to do there?" So here's what he told me.

Tim Cartmell: Well, e- every ward is different right? And, and so and each candidate has individual and distinct needs. And so we're taking the feedback from the candidates about where they need support, what they need support for. Some need more funding support than others. Some have been able to raise money on their own through their own campaigns.

Mack: Right.

Tim Cartmell: Others have had less of an opportunity to do that. So, you know, it, we're, we're, it, it is an interactive thing about, you know where the dollars have come in and where the dollars have ended up going out. Uh, you know, part of that is that council campaigns tend to be ground campaigns, they tend to be door-knocking, a very door-knocking focus, so it's lawn signs and door knocking. Mayoral campaigns are air campaigns. It's advertising. It's you know social media promotions. It's it, it's a different, more costly campaign. So there's differentiation in everything. There is, there is no one size fits all because the wards are not all the same and neither are the candidates.

Mack: I really liked what he said there, right, that council campaigns are ground campaigns, mayoral campaigns are air campaigns. I think there's some truth to that. I do think that if you interpret his comments you might come to the conclusion that that means Better Edmonton is gonna spend a good chunk of its money on his campaign, you know, the mayoral campaign being the more expensive one to do. Uh, whereas the council ward campaigns are a little bit more about door-knocking and volunteers on the ground. All right, I've got two more to share, and I, I thought this would be a couple of good ones to end on. So I talked to Diana Steele. She is running for councilor in Nakoda-Isga. Of course, in the last election, she ran for mayor, and so I asked her, "Why do you want to run again and why councilor this time?" And here's what she said.

Diana Steele: Well, the reason I ran last time is because Andrew Knack was originally going to run for mayor, and he changed his mind, and he was going to run because Michael Nickel was run, Mike, Mike Nickel was running. And he changed his mind, so I said, "Well, if you're not going to run, then I will," and I stepped up and put my name forward when, of course, then every single candidate came forward. So he and, um, Kim Krushell, all the big players in the game. So I knew I wasn't gonna, gonna win. I, I had no delusions on that. But I had put my name forward, so I had to continue trying, and I thought I would never get involved in politics again. It was not a positive experience in any way. Uh, the candidates were wonderful. Some of the citizens were not as nice (laughs) as you would like them to be. Uh, so I thought I would never get involved, but fast-forward, I, I could see where the city was going over the last several years, and a year ago, I made the decision that I would run again but this time for a more realistic position, so council. And I'm in W- Ward Nakoda-Isga, so that's why I'm running in this ward. And of course, Andrew's running for mayor, so there's no incumbent. It's a fresh open seat with six candidates. I have a, a desire to serve. That's my calling in life. I know that. I served as a president of Prestwood Community League for eight years, and I did that for free (laughs) because it's a volunteer role. And it's not glamorous, just a lot of work behind the scenes. But I really love Edmonton, and I love helping people, and I love listening to them and then implementing what they, what they're asking for. So I thought, "I'll give it one more try," and if I'm not successful, this will be the last time you hear from Diana Steele in regards to politics. I will focus on my real estate career and go from there.

Mack: You know, to me, Stephanie, it's kind of disheartening to hear that it was such a difficult thing last time. You know, people are mean and, and you know, people who just wanna... Like, like Diana Steele, who put their name forward, they wanna serve, and you heard her talk there about how she wants to make a difference in her community. You know, that they have to put up with a bunch of negativity in order to do that. So I thought that was interesting, and it was a similar thing I heard to Terrie Holgerson, who's running for councillor in papastew. And I asked her why she wanted to run, and here's what she said.

Terrie Holgerson: There's three reasons. Um, one is that I spend a lot of time down in Terwilliger Off Leash Park, and I'm so very frustrated with the state of the facilities down there and the vandalism, and this has been going on for nine years. And we can't, as a city, come together, and you know, provide facilities in our, one of our, um, beautiful areas. Um, the other one is I had a granddaughter in January, and I want her to have a city to grow up in, as-

Mack: Congratulations.

Terrie Holgerson: ... as... Thank you. A city that isn't, you know, bankrupt and rebuilding like Detroit. Um, and the third is, is I, I am working, and it's not particularly fulfi- fulfilling. I would like to have, you know, more meaning in my life and actually help the people around me, um, be happy.

Mack: So on this podcast in the past, we've heard Troy say, "Don't run for council. It's a terrible thing to do." And him and Andrew Knack have had this back and forth thing, but I just thought it was so interesting to hear from these people who are running for council. They've put their names forward because, you know, they wanna make a difference, and they wanna have an impact in the city. And I think it takes guts and courage to, to try to do that. And you know, I'm glad they were willing to share that with us.

Stephanie: Yeah, I don't think that... You know, whatever your political beliefs, I don't think that in the Edmonton municipal election, that there are... there's anyone that's going, "I wanna make Edmonton worse, so that's why I'm going to run for council." I think that regardless of whether you think their ideas will make Edmonton better, I think that everyone is in there because they love the city (fake sobs) and because they want it to get better. So, I don't know. That's why I love this, this season so much, it's just everyone is so passionate. (laughs)

Mack: Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, we've got the rapid fire to go, but just quickly before we do that, we've had a really great response rate to the survey.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack: It's out there now. Um, a few more candidates have started to fill that out or have completed it since we last spoke, so that's great to see. We've had a lot of good feedback from readers and seen lots of encouraging comments online. We've had more than 4,500 responses so far. So that's a really good sign to me that, you know, we're able to have an impact for folks, that they are finding value in this survey, they're telling their friends and, and all of that. And so the survey's a big part of what we've done, but you folks are working on a whole bunch of editorial, too, right, Stephanie?

Stephanie: Yeah. So basically, I mentioned it a little bit earlier, um, we're gonna... Basically, every day between now and the election, we're gonna be posting some combination of the following, our version of award profiles, so here's the ward, here's who's running, et cetera, plus issue-by-issue breakdown of where the candidates stand based on our 30-question survey. Obviously, there's not 30 days left until the election, so we're not doing every single issue but we're doing a lot of them. And we're also still gonna have a few more just regular stories about the issues. So it's a fire hose of coverage. Um, tell your friends, if they're interested, if they said, "Uh, I don't care about the municipal election," or, "I don't know who to vote for. It's all so confusing." Taproot.vote. It's so easy. Taproot.vote. Not taproom, like many people think I'm saying. Taproot.vote.

Mack: There's another T in there.

Stephanie: Yes. (laughs)

Mack: Yeah. (laughs) Awesome. All right. Well, I look forward to all of that, Stephanie. Uh, before we go for today though, we've got the rapid fire.

Stephanie: Bruce McAllister, the executive director of Premier Danielle Smith's office, issued an apology for publicly calling for a high school student to be spanked during the Alberta Next panel tour. As his punishment, Smith said McAllister would be forced to tour around Alberta, get on stage and... Oh, um, oh, I'm sorry. I'm hearing on my earpiece that this joke has been deemed too risque for a municipal affairs podcast. Never mind. Sorry.

Mack: Good news for Edmonton's film industry. HBO is coming back to shoot season three of The Last of Us. Primary filming will be at the old Army and Navy building. No need for set dressing. It already looks like the zombie apocalypse hit.

Stephanie: Rahim Jaffer recently held a campaign event at a local dog grooming salon. The mayoral candidate posed with the puppers and doggos while promising to snip, snip, snip that budget and usher in a period of awesterity.

Mack: My favorite joke of the week by far. Nice job.

Stephanie: Oh, thank you. (laughs)

Mack: (laughs) All right. Well you heard Stephanie say it earlier, taproot.vote for all your election coverage. Tell your friends, and we'll be back next week to talk more about the election.

Stephanie: Yes.

Mack: Until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie: I'm Stephanie.

Mack: And we're...

Both: Speaking Municipally.