Speaking Municipally

Mack Male: 'Twas the night before election. This week, we reflect on the biggest issues of the 2025 campaign.
Stephanie Swensrude: Plus, we cover advanced voting turnout and some last little bits of election analysis.
Mack: Hi, I'm Mack.
Stephanie: I'm Stephanie.
Mack: And we're...
Both: Speaking Municipally.
Mack: Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 328. The last one before the election, which means n- next week it'll be all about results. Uh, but we've got a few things to talk about still before Election Day. I was looking up for the titles, we were, w- before this we were talking about, "What should we call this episode?" And I was like, "Well, let's make sure we didn't call it what we did last time." And I just thought it was interesting that our pre-election episode in 2021 was called It's Thyme-Election (It's Election Thyme), thyme spelled like the herb, T-H-Y-M-E, because at the time, we were still doing food puns. And I just wanted to bring that up, because that's how long ago the last election was.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: You know, four years, kind of feels like it went by in some respects, and in others it feels like such a long time ago, Stephanie.
Stephanie: Yeah, I would've, like, just been starting to listen to Speaking Municipally at that point. Um, I barely remember the fact that you used to do the food puns. And for me, like, my entire professional career so far was pretty much started around that election, so yeah, it, it feels, for me it feels like it's been a long time since the last election. And (gasps) a- a part of me is, like, a little bit sad that it's almost over. I've had all... Though it's been crazy and stressful, I've, I love this stuff, and I think it's important, that it's so nice to see so many people talking about municipal issues and democracy. Let's have, let's do an election every year, guys.
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: I wish every year was an election year.
Mack: Oh, be careful what you wish for. (laughs)
Stephanie: Yeah. No, no, I'm just joking. I'm not serious. (laughs)
Mack: We do, of course, have lots of city council stuff to nerd out about in the time-
Stephanie: Indeed, indeed.
Mack: ... in between elections, and so, you know, it's almost here. Next week is gonna be another long week, because we won't know exactly who won on election night, it's gonna take a little while. And then there will be lots of sense-making to be done and we'll be talking about, "What does this mean?" And, "Who is the next council?" And, "What does it seem like they're gonna try and do based on, you know, what they ran on and what they said during the campaign?" So, lots more to come about that. Uh, we do have some new stuff that we wanted to share this week. So, if you are finding yourself in this final weekend still undecided, and I don't believe that people are undecided, Stephanie, you know when those polls are like, "41% are undecided," I'm like, "Really?" I mentioned this to somebody yesterday, and he said, "I think it's just, you know, in the back of your mind people know that undecideds are coveted." You know, based on American politics, if you're an undecided everybody wants you.
Mack: And so it's maybe one of those, "No, I'm o- I'm special, I'm undecided."
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: But anyway, if you truly are decided- undecided, you don't know who to vote for, take the Taproot survey as a starting point. We think it's a really g- great place to start to do your research. You can find it at taproot.vote. If you wanna go directly there, taproot.vote/match. Uh, same 30 questions that candidates took, as you know and you can answer the same questions and then see how you align on the views. So, that's been out there. If you're listening to Speaking Municipally, you've probably already done that, but maybe your friends and your family and your colleagues haven't, so feel free to share it with them. We do also have some new stuff that we put up for this final weekend. So, one of them is a candidate pitches page. So, if you go to /pitches after the candidate's URL, you can see all the pitches that they submitted in one place, and we'll put this in the show notes. So, when candidates had a opportunity to submit their survey response, we also gave them a space, an open space basically, to say, "Make your pitch to voters." And we have had that on the website f- from the beginning on each individual candidate's page, but now we have it on one page, and it's just kind of a fun place to look at how all of the candidates, one after the other, are putting themself forward toward voters. So, check that one out. And then the other one I wanted to mention is, we, we heard from people who are using the tool that it would be nice if there was an easier way to compare candidates. And you can kind of do that already by looking at, say, the, the ward page, or when you, when you actually complete the survey you get your matches with all the candidates there, or if you look at the survey question. But we have a new comparison page that makes this a little bit easier. So, I'll put in the show notes this link, Stephanie. Four, four, up to four candidates at a time that you can compare. So, we, I did this one here. We've got Cartmell, Jaffer, Knack, and Walters. And so you get side-by-side views of all their responses on all the questions. You get an overview of how aligned they are. And I think it's kind of a fun little tool to see how the different candidates match up. So, what did you think, Stephanie, when you took a look at that?
Stephanie: Well, I love this. I have, I'm, I'm looking at it now. I put some notes down to talk about how similar some of the candidates are, and this is just, like, really helpful to show, because, you know, among those top four candidates, there's a lot of agreement especially on big issues like infill. All four, Cartmell, Jaffer, Knack, and Walters, all four answered, "Slow the pace with stronger regulations," which almost all of the people in the whole survey answered this way, but to "To revitalize downtown, grow the residential population." Now, several of the answers, obviously have different answers too, but I've, I think that a lot of people believe that the four top candidates have pretty similar views on things, and this kind of confirms that. And of course, you know, Taproot is, the, the Taproot survey's a bit limited. It's not a perfect tool to get to know everything about a candidate, so look at their platforms more in depth, look at the context that they added, but I think this is a pretty interesting way to look at all the information.
Mack: Yeah, I'm excited to have this on there, so hopefully people find that useful as they're doing their last-minute research here.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: Well, not everyone is doing last-minute research. Some of you have already voted. Uh, so we got the numbers the other day from advanced, advance voting, so this, there was five days in which people could vote. Uh, started, I think, on the 7th and went through to the Saturday, and the city says more than 41,000 people voted in advance over those five days, including more than 10,000 people on that last day, the Saturday, which kind of makes sense. That's the weekend, you know?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: People are maybe a little bit more able to go and vote that day. So 41,000-
Stephanie: Yeah, that's the day I voted. That's the day I voted. It was very busy in there. (laughs)
Mack: Very busy, yeah.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: So 41,000. In 2021, we had 60, almost 64,000 people, but it was over 10 days. So what that means is it's actually a higher per day turnout for advance voting this time than last time, which is maybe a signal that voter turnout won't be as bad as we've been thinking given that there's the postal strike and people aren't getting the little voter information cards, and, you know, teacher strike is disrupting people's usual schedules and all the rest of it. But, so that's a bit encouraging perhaps. It could also just be because there was only five days, you know, people had to rush to go and do it, and so there was maybe a slightly higher turnout as a result. But what do you make of these numbers, Stephanie?
Stephanie: At first glance, seeing how the turnout was higher per day, was higher each day, that was giving me a lot of optimism. I am an optimistic fool. I'm really hoping that voter turnout will be closer to 40, 45% just with all of the, you know, discussion around such heated issues. But then seeing the kind of caveats without, you know, it's only over five days, and there was different hours, I don't really know if it really means much. My, my optimistic self is hoping that this means that we're gonna have a high voter turnout, but I don't know.
Mack: I think above 40% would be quite an accomplishment. So just for comparison, in 2021 when we also had an open mayoral race, turnout was 37.6%. In 2017 when Mayor Don Iverson ran for his second term and it was a landslide, 31.5%, and then back in 2013 open mayoral race we had 34.5%. So low to mid-30s would be the safe bet. I, I hope that we could beat that, but I'm just not too optimistic about that this time, given all those other factors that are, that are going on. And I think the other challenge about 13 mayoral candidates is that you end up, I think, with a bit of analysis paralysis sometimes, and, you know, people are like, "I don't know who to vote for," and, "There's too many platforms to look at," and, "I don't even know where to start." And then voter, you know, election day comes and goes, and maybe you don't get the opportunity to go and express your democratic right to vote. So I don't know. I, I guess mid-30s is what I'm thinking it'll be. I hope it's higher.
Stephanie: Yeah, I have, I have a bet riding that it'll be higher than it was last time, so everyone get out (laughs) and vote so I don't lose money.
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: Please. Please.
Mack: Oh, for Stephanie's sake, get out and vote.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: Well, we'll find out more about turnout next week obviously. Um, there's still some campaigning to be done, however. Candidates are still out and about putting up lawn signs.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: I heard Andrew Knack was spotted out putting up his own lawn sign recently for somebody who requested one. You know, they're doing forums still. They're door-knocking, doing all the things. Um, there's additional campaigning on specific topics, right? Things that have come up again and again. And so we thought we'd talk a little bit about some of those themes that have come up consistently. Um, I know this is not in the notes here, Stephanie, but the one I wanted to mention right off the top was public safety, right? That is something that I think has been pretty frequently cited. It came up a lot in our research when we were talking to voters. It's the number one issue that this recent CBC poll, the most recent one, I think, that looks at issues found 85% rated improved public safety and in- and reduced crime as important. So that one stands out to me, and it's one of those issues that I think is perfectly, you know, illustrative of how interconnected and complicated everything is, and also how we do, like you were saying earlier, agree on a lot. I think all the candidates agree that we need to do something about public safety, but what we should do and how we should go about it, they've all got slightly different viewpoints. You know, some might lean more toward enforcement. Others might lean more toward root causes or perhaps working with the other orders of government to try to address those root causes. So, you know, broad agreement that, yes, something needs to be done about public safety, and we hear you voters. That's important. Not necessarily broad agreement about how to go about achieving improvement in that area. Uh, what are some of the other themes that have stood out to you?
Stephanie: Yeah well, I'll say first that CBC and Postmedia and everyone else, all the other media organizations have been doing some great reporting this week with, like, really rich deep analysis, so credit to all those journalists. Love you. But an- another big issue for this election has been affordability, which is a super, super vague term, but I think what a lot of people mean when they say affordability is keep property taxes low. Even though, of course, there are many other factors that impact affordability. Uh, obviously like the price of gas, the price of groceries, things that the city has nothing to do with but also the cost of transportation, which in a way the city could have indirect and direct impact on. But yeah, affordability, AKA keeping property taxes low, and this that, that Janet Brown polling that you mentioned kind of confirms this. More than 75% of respondents to that survey said that property taxes should be kept low, and, uh-You know, the CBC article says something like that, "E- Many Edmontonians want council to pursue goals like improving snow clearing, maintaining roads, dealing with crime, and addressing homelessness, but they also indicated they don't want to pay more for it," uh, which is kind of a classic thing. (laughs)
Mack: Yeah, this is where you get into that magical thinking, right?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: We heard this during the forum that we hosted with the public library last week, and candidates were talking about, um-
Stephanie: Oh, my sh-
Mack: ... property taxes in some of their responses, and, and you definitely get that magical thinking of, "Yes, we're going to reduce taxes or maybe even roll taxes back," I think one of the (laughs) candidates was talking about. But that just does not match reality when it comes to how do you pay for all the services and, and how do you pay for that growth that we're continually seeing?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: So I think it's surpris- what's surprising about it to me is that it's only 75%. I mean, who out there is saying, "No, we should try to raise taxes as much as possible"? I think everybody was like, "Yeah, try to keep it as low as possible." Maybe it's just reflecting the fact that a quarter of respondents to these polls at least feel like y- it's maybe not super realistic given all of the demands that council has.
Stephanie: I think, like, the operative word here is "as possible" because many people would say, "Keep property taxes low, but don't you dare close the libraries on Sundays," whereas some people would respond and say, "Uh, yeah, close the library, I don't care. I just want a lower tax bill." Or, "Close the pools-" or you know, "Uh, stop the bike lanes. That's ke- you know, keeping it as low as possible would involve cutting bike lanes." So, I think that's where the, the difference of opinion and, like, kind of the imperfection of polling really, really shows. Uh, with property taxes, a few of the top contenders, their positions are Omur Mohamed has promised to freeze property taxes. Tim Cartmel said that he would keep them within inflation. Michael Walters says that the proposed 6.4% increase for 2026 needs to be cut in half at least. Andrew Knack, though, on the other hand, said that he doesn't think that these promises are realistic with Edmonton's growth, kind of like what you were saying, Mac and that lower taxes could mean sacrificing critical services. Uh, but he wants to instead restructure how council creates budgets. Now, that is referring to zero-based budgeting, which I, this always makes me giggle because if you go back and look at articles from around that time, Andrew Knack and Tim Cartmel worked together on creating the zero-based budgeting process, which just makes me laugh because now they're... It's very like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, sorry-
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: ... theater kid moment, but it's very (laughs) like political foes that used to be friends yeah. (laughs)
Mack: I mean, when you serve on council together for a period of time, you're gonna end up working together.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: You're gonna end up agreeing with them quite a bit actually. We know from past voting records that, you know, council votes together a lot more than they vote apart, right? So perhaps not surprising, but I agree. That is sort of amusing. I love the Hamilton reference.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: You know, freezing property taxes, keeping them within inflation, cutting that percentage in half, like all of these things sound good. And if you're maybe a average voter out there who doesn't know too much about how the budget works and how the property taxes come in and what that covers, that might sound really appealing. But it's gonna be pretty hard for those candidates if they're successful to then keep their promise when they're in office. Like, there is just some reality that you're gonna run into. Uh, you know, we heard this from the mayor in our interview with him, right?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: That anyone out there who's saying you can cut property taxes without affecting services is not being truthful. And I think he's right. And anyone who's served on council, which includes three of the front-running candidates, four maybe if you count Katerina, should know that, right?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: So it's surprising that, you know, we still hear these promises about taxes going super low and-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... m- it's gonna be pretty hard.
Stephanie: Yeah, and also, I think I've used this reference before, but it's not like the mayor has, like, a lever on their desk that is like, "Property taxes," and he can just go (imitates lever moving) and move it down. Like, you have to help create a budget to lower that tax rate. Amarjeet Sohi was pretty successful at doing this. He would introduce those huge omnibus amendments to move things around and lower the tax increase because he worked with the rest of council to, you know, lower the taxes but... Or lower the proposed increase rather. Uh, but yeah. Just saying as mayor that you will lower taxes is not necessarily true and sort of maybe praise... Uh, I don't know if I wanna say this, but y- yeah.
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: It's not very-
Mack: I will revise-
Stephanie: Go ahead.
Mack: ... what I said actually about how it could be hard to keep your promise 'cause I suppose you're right. All they need to do is put a motion out there that says, "We're gonna freeze property taxes," and everyone will vote no and then they can say, "Well, I tried. I tried," right? (laughs)
Stephanie: Ugh, yeah. (laughs)
Mack: Part of the issue with taxes is related to growth. Part of it's inflation, of course. People talk about keeping up with inflation, but the other part of it is growth. And I think this is super interesting. My prediction, Stephanie, is that when we look back on the 2025 election, the primary issue will be population growth. A lot of these other challenges I think really stem from that, and we haven't really been talking about it in the way that I think we will in the future (laughs) as a, as a problem of growth or the challenge of growth. It's not a problem. I think it's a good problem, but it's, like, the challenge of dealing with growth. So when we talk about infill or affordability or housing or any of those kinds of things, I think a lot of them are related to this idea that hundreds of thousands of people have moved into our city, and we haven't built things, we haven't provided services fast enough to keep up with that growth. And so there's pressures. And so when you hear candidates like Andrew Knack saying, "You know, a lot of the 200,000 people in the last few years have moved outside the Henday, and we, we haven't built libraries there. We haven't built, you know, more roads there. We haven't built all the infrastructure there, rec centers and stuff," I think he's, he's really onto something. And so I think population growth will actually be the defining issue, even if we don't quite recognize it as that right now. And you saw there was some polling about this too.
Stephanie: Yeah, f- first of all, you are so right. It's like this, it's like this ghost that's kind of in the background, and then we will eventually realize that all along, y- you know, infill all these things that you mentioned are like symptoms of population growth, but they're not challenges themselves. So anyways, very interesting. Uh, so m- more polling from Janet Brown, she found that there was some correlation between those that are concerned about growth, so they think that it's gonna have a negative impact, and which candidate they might be most likely to support. So people who identify as more right-wing on the political spectrum, they're also more concerned about growth, and they're more likely to be s- uh, supporting mayor candidates that are a little bit more right on the spectrum. Understandable. So in Edmonton, these people that are concerned about th- that, that, that growth is going to be negative, they're more leaning towards a candidate like Tim Cartmell. I didn't really think about that much much before I read this. What about you, Mac?
Mack: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Uh, I don't know why it would be a right-wing, left-wing thing actually. You know, when I think about population growth, it's obviously there's pressure on services and, and, and all of that, but it doesn't seem to me like a right-wing, left-wing thing. And I think in broad strokes, most people would agree that growth is a good thing. Like, we don't want our city to stagnate. We don't want our economy to stop growing, you know, because we're not able to attract new people here. We talk about attracting people here and businesses here, investment here all the time. Like, everybody talks about that. So growth, I think, is overall seen as a good thing. The challenges that come along with it, you know, don't really, to me, lend themselves to the political spectrum necessarily, right? Right-wing versus left-wing. I suppose if, if what the opinion researchers are finding is that people are leaning more towards Tim Cartmell, that tells me that his messaging around things that are connected to growth, like perhaps infill, is maybe resonating more than some of the other candidates and, and what their take is on how to deal with the impact of that growth. Um, I think that's pretty interesting. That's, that similar research or the same research, I guess, you know, they looked at Edmonton and Calgary. Uh, 62% of people in Edmonton suggested that population growth feels too fast. 23% in Edmonton said about right, and only 13% said they don't know, and the remainder said it was too slow, just 2%, something like that. So most people, the majority of people feeling like growth is too fast, and I think that's really interesting, you know? I, I wonder what that's based on. Uh, a separate question was how those residents feel that growth has affected them personally, and here, it's 56% say a negative impact. And I just, I wonder what that's about, right? Like, I know they have some man on the street types of comments in this CBC story too that we'll put in the show notes, and you know, this person in Calgary was talking about it feeling too overcrowded, but then a lot of the other things are things like challenges finding a doctor, wait times for health services, trying to book swimming lessons for kids, no parking at soccer games. Like, a lot of these things, especially the healthcare stuff, don't feel like municipal issues to me obviously and, and I wonder how much of what people are saying here in this, through this poll about growth is, is not necessarily about decisions that city council has or will make but is about all the other things.
Stephanie: Yeah, so like you said, this... Somehow it hasn't really come up that much in this election campaign, but it, it is still growing. Alberta is still calling even though we, we hung up the phone and disconnected the phone line. They're still coming. Uh, yeah, the latest estimates from StatsCan suggests that Alberta's population went past five million on Canada Day, July 1st. Uh, it's only expected to climb with the provincial government projecting that the population will grow by two million over the next 25 years.
Mack: Yeah, just-
Stephanie: Oh my gosh, that's so much.
Mack: Crazy growth. And then here in Edmonton, of course, we had the city plan that was talking about getting to a million and then to two million and, and all of the estimates, uh... Someone will fact-check me on this. My understanding is that the estimates of city plan are now seen as too conservative-
Stephanie: For sure.
Mack: ... and that growth has been, you know advancing a lot more quickly than that, and so we're gonna have to take a look at that and see maybe we have to update our plans here. So yeah, that growth is a good thing, I think, overall, but it does definitely bring some pressures that city council's gonna have to deal with. So I definitely think that's gonna be seen as the defining issue of the campaign, even though we don't, we haven't heard candidates out on the forum stage using those words necessarily. I think it's come up in some cases, but, like, there hasn't been questions about that. Questions are about infill or about bike lanes or about, you know, the things that are associated with growth.
Stephanie: The way that a city grows during a huge boom of both population growth and, like, building growth, infrastructure and building growth, it, it, it changes the vibe of the city a lot. Like, so Toronto, as far as I understand, grew a lot when, like, streetcars were the main form of transportation, and that's why there's that, like, pretty dense, compact nature of parts of Toronto. We grew a lot here more in the automobile age when, you know, the suburbs were really exploding in popularity, and now we're doing another big push of growth here in 2025. And I read this CBC story today talking about where these building permits are being given out, and 75% of new homes are being built, like...... uh, between 41st Ave. Southwest and the Henday. So ne- going on the way to the, on the, on the way to the airport, which I think is something that we kind of instinctually understand. But seeing it laid out that even though people are saying, "Infill is taking over all the neighborhoods," the vast majority of new homes that ha- are being built in Edmonton are still sprawl.
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: And it's, it's going to affect the way that our city is for the next, I don't know, 50 years, that we're building all this stuff out to the airport and not in the middle of the city, not as much dense. And I don't know. It's, it's I, I think that the, the infill discussion, yes, it's, it's so immediate because it's right beside people's houses, but, like, do not be fooled. We are still building much, much more sprawl than we are building infill.
Mack: That's right. And we know that, that sprawl does not pay for itself. And that there's great expense that comes with servicing that over time, including future decisions that need to be made about, you know, schools, and do we keep schools open in inner city areas, more mature areas, to build new ones out in the suburbs where people have moved, and getting services out there and all those kinds of things. But I actually think, you know, when you were talking there, I was thinking about something else related to growth. I actually think that maybe the biggest challenge for folks around this population growth is not those kinda direct impacts of, like, the cost of servicing these areas and what that'll mean for property taxes. I think it's kind of about identity.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: I think for a lot of folks who have in their minds that Edmonton is a big small town, that doesn't hold true anymore, and it's really hard for people to update their belief system about how they view their community and their city. I think if folks go about their day thinking that Edmonton is a big small town, and then they constantly run into all of these things that come as a result of growing to be a city of more than a million people, you gotta update that belief system about Edmonton. It's a big city. It's a, it's true that it's been one of the biggest cities in Canada for a long time, but it, it has big city challenges now, big city problems. It's not a small town. It hasn't been a small town for a long time. And, and some of the pushback may be about these things related to population growth is perhaps about identity. Now, we should probably do some more research on that.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: But that's, that's what I'm feeling at the moment.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Uh, so like I said, great stuff coming out of all the journalists at the city. Keith Grind had a great column all about infill, so definitely go read that. We'll link it in the show notes, and also we'll link to a recent Substack post from former Mayor Don Iverson where he said, "The best answer is not a false trade-off between these options," so suburban growth and infill. "It's actually all of the above, including infill potentially beyond today's comfort zone. From the perspective of fiscal efficiency for the city and for the fundamental goal of housing supply, more is better." But I think that's interesting how he's acknowledging that, like, people are going to be uncomfortable with this because it's, it, we might not have a choice anymore.
Mack: Yeah, and, and I, we do want both. We do want all of the above, right? We do want housing choice and, and diversity, and there's lots of reasons for that, right? Uh, not least of which the more housing we have, the better we'll maintain that affordability advantage, and that's good for economic reasons and all kinds of other factors. Uh, and the more choice we have, the more kinds of families we can accommodate, and, and that's really important as well. So not surprising, I suppose, to hear the former mayor, Don Iverson, talking about that, given his work with CMHC. But yeah, so in usual Don fashion, a very smart, thoughtful, you know, well-reasoned take so definitely go check that out. Well, what are some of the other coverage you've seen this week, Stephanie, that we, we should highlight for, for listeners?
Stephanie: Yeah. Um, I loved this bit from Postmedia again from Matthew Black. He did another great analysis of the voting records of City Council. Oh my God, saying that I'm such a nerd.
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: Why am I getting so excited over this? (laughs) Oh, okay, anyways. Um, and this is uh, lending credence to my theory that Tim Cartmell and Andrew Knack are very alike, and maybe they're more alike than they are different, because he found that the two councilors in the last term, Cartmell and Knack, voted together 72% of the time on non-unanimous votes. So this doesn't take into account the weight of the vote, so it doesn't take into account, you know, voting for the budget counting more than voting for something not as impactful as the budget. But it does take out all of the unanimous votes, so that would be stuff like approving the agenda, formality things. So I think that that number, 72%, you can... Don't take it with a huge grain of salt, but do take it with a small grain of salt, but you know, somewhere in the middle.
Mack: And so they actually agree way more than 72% of the time because some of those unanimous votes are procedural, like approve the agenda, approve the minutes of the last meeting motion to adjourn, like all that kinda stuff. But some of them are just things that council has unanimously agreed on that are still important, and so they would've-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... agreed on those too, even though it's not reflected in the 72%. But I get why you'd wanna filter all those out and just focus on the non-unanimous vote. So this is essentially saying when there are multiple sides they're on the same side 72% of the time.
Stephanie: Yeah, I guess that is an important caveat because if, for example, you take a look at a public hearing, and typically at the beginning of a public hearing, there's... Let's say there's 30 items on the agenda, maybe between 10 to 12 will be items that no one signed up for, they're pretty, like, "Obviously, we're gonna approve this." A lot of times they're, like, out in the suburbs, just, like, a brand new suburb, "We just need to change this one lot," like, they're very simple things, and that council will just approve, like, 10 of them in one go so they don't have to go through and do the three readings for every single one, gets very tedious.
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: So...... although those kind of seem like small decisions, at the same time, they are agreeing on them, and it kind of goes to show that a lot of times, like, in general, municipal politicians generally agree on things. But anyways when you look at the survey with that handy dandy tool that we have now introduced, according to the survey, they agree on the following topics: infill; of course they both want to reduce units allowed on mid-block RS lots; and then on bike lanes, f- on the survey, they both said that they only want to build what has been planned so far. Yeah, of course with the- the imperfection of a survey, I don't know if they would 100% agree with that statement, but it lines up for our purposes here. For snow clearing, they both said that they wanted to improve both roads and active pathways which is kind of cheating but, you know, they agreed on that, and that's another example of, like, of course every municipal politician's gonna say that.
Mack: Yeah.
Stephanie: And lastly, the last thing that they agreed on, or the last important, like, notable thing that they agreed on here was that they prefer bus rapid transit over LRT.
Mack: Yeah, and I- I think, like you said, looking at the nuance to these questions is important. So on the BRT one, for instance, you know, Tim Cartmell has been a proponent of this fr- from the very beginning, his first days on council. Andrew Knack said, on the survey, that obviously in the upcoming four-year capital budget, bus rapid transit is the most realistic high capacity transit option that we will be able to fund, but he says he will still advocate to the other orders of government to expand existing LRT routes, for example, to Caledons. So y- again, a little bit of, like, trying to have your- your cake and eat it too. And then e- you know, even the nuance on the bike lane one that you mentioned, you know, in Knack's response, he's talking about the detailed bike plan and- and how this outlines where else we're going to build, so that might be a bit different than just thinking about what we funded, right?
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: And kind of saying, so- so planned, does that mean planned in the bike plan or does that mean planned in terms of what we funded and agreed to build, right? And so there's these little differences that are hard to capture in a- in a survey like this, but even Tim Cartmell said in his response bike lanes are needed. He just thinks we're not integrating them thoughtfully with community at the table, and that's the thing that he wants to change. So, yeah, pretty interesting. 11- 11 out of the 30 questions that those two- those two agree on, according to our little tool.
Stephanie: It's very handy. If you're still somehow undecided, go check it out and compare your- compare your folks.
Mack: Anything you wanted to point out about how they disagree? So they do obviously disagree on 19 of them, but...
Stephanie: Right. I think one important thing that they disagree on is funding provincial jurisdiction, and I think that's been pretty common on both of their two campaign trails, is that Andrew Knack has started saying, "We can't wait for the province to fund these things anymore, because people are really suffering," and then on the other side, Tim Cartmell is saying, "If we fund them, the province will be all too happy to let us do that, and we can't do that." Um, I think that's a really interesting dichotomy, and it's not a left or right thing. That's one issue that I think i- in, like, a regular circle of friends, many of them would disagree on it, do you know what I mean? Like, I don't think it's- that's a- that's a very thorny issue.
Mack: I- I think it's also pretty interesting, so basically we're saying Cartmell, in his responses and in his campaigning, has said, "No, we can't take on what is the province's responsibility." You know, we asked about if the city faces public pressure to fund those services, what would he do? He said, "Redirect that pressure to the provincial government." So, in both cases, there's a little bit of a stand up for Edmonton in a way, and pushback on the province, whereas in Knack's responses, you know, he's said, "Fund the services to ensure quality of life," and in his comment he said, "I will no longer use jurisdiction as an excuse when lives are at stake." Um, and instead of, like, working with the province, he would say, you know, he's, uh- uh, when they intervene on a provin- municipal matter, he said they would- he would stand up for Edmonton's autonomy, so kind of interesting. You kind of perceive that Cartmell is the- the one who would work best with the province, given that he has seemed to be closely associated with the UCP throughout his term, and that Andrew Knack might not be the one to work with the province. He's perhaps too different from this current provincial government in the way that they view things. I think another perspective that I've heard people talking about though is that we need somebody who can stand up to the provincial government, and who isn't going to be pushed over by the premier, and I- uh, you know, back to your comment about the disagreement in the circle of friends, I- I- you know, talking to four or five people even yesterday at an event, there was disagreement about which of the two of them would stand up better to the province, right?
Stephanie: Hm.
Mack: Do you want the one who's perceived as more friendly with the province, because that's gonna be better for Edmonton, they're gonna be able to get things done? Or do you want the one who maybe won't- isn't seen as someone who can stand up to Danielle Smith as much, but really, truly puts Edmonton first, you know? I think that's really challenging. It's- as you say, this is a very thorny one.
Stephanie: Yeah, and I think another factor is that although this is technically the province's jurisdiction, it is so viscerally close to people. You walk down the street and you're so olfactorially and s- like- like you- I'm- I- you're just so close to this issue, it- and it hurts people to see this, and then to hear the mayor, you know, and I'm not saying specifically any person, but if you were to hear the mayor go, "Well, this isn't our jurisdiction," I could imagine people being like, "That is cruel," even if it's true. Now, and- and- and that's another f- l- adding a layer of complexity, that it- it's-... who, who cares about the bureaucracy of whose jurisdiction it is? Like, please just help these people, it's so immediate and it's so intense. Do you know what I mean?
Mack: Yeah, yeah. Even though a lot of times I think that is what people perceive this council to have said.
Stephanie: Totally.
Mack: Right? Because there has been a lot of that pushback on the province and this is the province's problem. So, I think we gotta get on to the- the last little bit of our-
Stephanie: Yes.
Mack: ... uh, episode here. But there's one other thing I wanted to ask you about, and it's kinda related to that. There has been throughout this campaign a lot of discussion about incumbents. I've seen actually when I was driving around the other day on 107th Avenue so many signs for candidates, including some plain white and black signs that essentially said, "Vote for anyone except the incumbents. Don't vote them back in."
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: Right?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: And so there's been this conversation about, "We need change, we need new people." And so I find it very interesting that so many folks out there are talking about Tim and Andrew as the two frontrunners, as the choice for mayor in this election. Two people who have served on council for the last four years. Any- any hot takes, Stephanie? Do you think that this is going to be an incumbent, you know, victory or that they're all gonna get kicked out?
Stephanie: So, I think that the job of the mayor and the job of the councilor is actually very different. The mayor is like, "Who do you want to represent the city?" essentially, and then the councilor is like, I'm sure a lot of these people emailed their councilor and got a response they didn't like back, and are now dead set on getting them removed from office. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's a very different vibe. Um, I know, but I also do think that if Amarjeet Sohi was running, that this- the rhetoric of anti-incumbent would be- would be still there. But yeah, like, I am just thinking about I know a lot of councilors who have made people angry in the last four years, and that's where it comes from. It's, like, more personal almost. Whereas the mayor's race, it seems a little bit more removed from the populous, if that makes sense. Also, I did see a sign somewhere driving around this week that, again, it was just anti-incumbent. It just said, "If you're tired of..." It was- there was a circus tent and it said, "If you're tired of the circus at City Hall, get out and vote." Which is wild. (laughs)
Mack: Interesting, yeah. Well, I- I think it's really hard to unseat incumbents.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: And maybe one or two of them are gonna find it challenging. But I'm- I would be very surprised if we were talking next week and we have a wholesale change on council.
Stephanie: Yeah. I also wanted to say one last thing on that, is that a lot of the candidates themselves are running on a anti-current City Council platform, and I'm just wondering in, like, a year's time if they win if they're going to be like, "This job is so tiring."
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: And like- or, you know, they get elected and then, you know, they have a few days of like, "(laughs) We really beat them, we really stuck it to them," and then city administration comes and drops off a 2,000-word manual. It's like, "These are..." Or 2,000-page manual, and, "These are all the rules that you have to learn." And they're like, "Oh wait, there's, like, a job that I have to do?"
Mack: (laughs)
Stephanie: "It's not just unseating the... Like, I actually have to do stuff?" And then quickly the- the glamour of City Council will wear off for them.
Mack: Reality will set in. That happens.
Stephanie: Exactly.
Mack: Yep.
Stephanie: (laughs)
Mack: Well, Monday, October 20th is election day.
Stephanie: Whoo.
Mack: Polls are open that day, if you haven't voted yet, from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM, so make sure you get out and vote. Remember, Stephanie has a bet riding on this.
Stephanie: Yes, please. (laughs)
Mack: Uh, if you're looking to see who you should vote for, you wanna do some research, take the survey if you haven't already, and please tell your friends. Spread the word. Taproot.vote we think it's a really helpful tool for folks and we hope that more people make a decision in this election that is based on issues rather than horse races. Our tool, our survey is a- is a way to help us do that. Um, you can also, at the site, Taproot.vote, you can find your polling station and lots of other information that can- that can help you. So, Stephanie, we should talk a little bit about election day. We do, on the website, have a results dashboard, as we have in past years. But it's gonna be a little bit different this time, right?
Stephanie: Yeah, because of all the hand counting and whatnot results are gonna s- start to trickle in, the hand counted results are going to start trickling in the evening of October 20th after polls close at 8:00 PM, and it's expected that we sh- could have an unofficial results or, like, a pretty good projection sometime on Tuesday. Correct, Mac?
Mack: Yeah. Tuesday is what we're thinking right now. So-
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: ... the city seems pretty optimistic about its ability to- to count all of these votes quickly enough, and you know, when we did a story, or you guys- you folks did a story a little while ago about the regional municipalities, a lot of them were also pretty gung-ho about getting the count done quickly. You know, it's in everybody's best interest, I think to have those results sooner rather than later. The longer we have to wait, the more void there is for misinformation to fill. So I'm sure they'll be keen to get it done. And yeah, Tuesday is what we're expecting in terms of we should know who the winner is, or the winners are I should say, on Tuesday. Now legally of course the official results aren't due until Friday at noon, so it's possible in a worst case scenario that we don't know until then, but it seems unlikely. We'll be updating our website as soon as we have the results, so that dashboard will update automatically as the results come in, and then keep an eye on our site and if you don't already subscribe, make sure you get The Pulse because we'll also put all of the information we know in there both Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning as well.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mack: All right. Election day to come.
Stephanie: (exhales) It's the-
Mack: One more weekend of campaigning.
Stephanie: The final stretch.
Mack: For us though, one more thing to do in this episode and that is the rapid fire.
Stephanie: Edmonton Design Week and Lit Fest both took place in the downtown arts district this week. While the DBA was happy to bring people downtown, CEO Penina McBryen said the concurrent events highlighted a lack of infrastructure downtown. She said, quote, "Rosewood was completely overwhelmed by the amount of pretentious hipsters converging downtown for these events, and it had to shut down its espresso machine after just a few hours. I hope this calamity proves to the city how urgent our infrastructure gap is."
Mack: In the final days of the election campaign, candidates are making last minute pitches. Mayoral hopeful Rahim Jaffer has promised to fill the void left by the now decommissioned Mindbender, that he will repurpose the high-level streetcar into a rollercoaster. He said, quote, "Edmontonians deserve a fast and fun way to travel between Strathcona and downtown." There will be turnstiles, so don't forget your ART card.
Stephanie: The Alberta government announced it will refresh its license plate, adding the motto, "Strong and free from the woke liberal elite." Albertans are able to vote for their favorite license plate concepts online. My favorite is the one with the Canadian citizenship indicator. Premier Danielle Smith reassured Albertans that there will be no interference with the voting. Government employees will count the ballots for best license plate by hand.
Mack: (laughs) I love it.
Stephanie: (laughs) Bangers this week. (laughs)
Mack: Well, that's it for this week, Stephanie. Next week, as we said, we'll talk all about results. I was thinking we'd say we'll have a new council next week, but I think technically that doesn't happen until the inauguration and swearing in the following week.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mack: But we will know who those folks are going to be.
Stephanie: We'll know. Exactly.
Mack: Join us, as usual, wherever you get your podcasts next week. Until then, I'm Mack.
Stephanie: I'm Stephanie.
Mack: And we're...
Both: Speaking Municipally.