Speaking Municipally

Mack Male:
Patience is a virtue. This week, we take an initial look at Edmonton's new city council, which looks eerily similar to the old one.

Stephanie Swensrude:
Plus, we discuss delayed results, missing ballots, and monumental recounts.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 329. The first one after the election. We made it, Stephanie.

Stephanie:
Oh, just barely. (laughs)

Mack:
Just barely. I guess we're still kinda in the middle of it to some degree.

Stephanie:
I've gotten so many texts over the past, like, you know, since i- Monday night, and people going, "I bet you're so glad the election is over." And I'm like, "No, it's just starting."

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
"I have so much stuff to," like, th- something... Like, the podcast, and the Taproot Exchange tomorrow, and all of these articles analyzing the new council. Like, it's barely half over. Uh, they're very well-meaning text messages, but like, ugh. (laughs) I didn't realize that it was gonna be just as much work after the election. But of course, it is stuff that I'm always happy to talk about.

Mack:
There's a lot to be done to help people understand what this means for them and what the outcome of this election is. Uh, we're gonna get into all that. First, just very quickly, I wanted to ask, y- you've talked about on the show how happy you are to be in this job and to get to cover the election. And I know what you just said is that there's a lot of work to be done and you still have more to do, but so far, did it live up to the billing? Is it what you were hoping for?

Stephanie:
Well, you know, another thing that I'll say is that on Tuesday or early Wednesday, I put in the title for this podcast episode, and I put in, "Well, that was anticlimactic." Because at the time, it was pretty bo- it was like pretty, pretty boring and uneventful. Of course, that was before the many mishaps which we'll get into later. Um, it was kind of a little bit anticlimactic though. Um, however, I said that, I mentioned that to a friend that we were talking about it, and he was like, "Don't you think there are many people in the world that would be happy to have anticlimactic, boring elections?" And I thought, "You know what? You're 100% right." I am, I am glad to have a pretty stable, relatively, you know simple election.

Mack:
I've covered several municipal elections now in my time both Taproot and before, and I will say in upon reflection that I kinda like the fast ones. So, usually, I kind of feel like we get to election night, it's eight o'clock, the polls close, there's all this anticipation. We got the dashboard. People are ready for results. They've got parties going. A- and then it's like 45 minutes and we know who won the election, and it feels anticlimactic in a different way.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Right? It's like we didn't get to benefit from all that pent-up energy and excitement, and this time, it was the complete opposite, and that-

Stephanie:
Tough bunch.

Mack:
... we waited hours, and I was up till almost two o'clock that first night just doing results stuff.

Stephanie:
(laughs)

Mack:
And then, you know, still several days later before we finally knew the full tallies.

Stephanie:
Ooh.

Mack:
And so I kind of wish that the next election could be somewhere in the middle. (laughs)

Stephanie:
Yeah if you're listening, Edmonton Elections, can you just put it somewhere in the middle so that we have like a good amount of, you know, tension and, and drama, but not f- multiple days' worth? Thank you.

Mack:
Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, we're gonna get into all the election stuff. But first, as you know, Andrew Knack is our mayor-elect. Andrew Knack will be Edmonton's 37th mayor. He pulled out the victory. You know, when results started coming in on election night, it was actually pretty close between him and Tim Cartmel, his nearest competitor. But in the end, Andrew Knack ended up with more than 78,000 votes, 38% of the vote, compared to just under 62,000 or 29.8% of the vote for Tim Cartmel. So, he widened his lead as the results came in. He was always in the lead. It was not a situation where it switched back and forth. Um, and, and I... It was interesting to see that my prediction, and not only mine, lots of people predicted this, is that it would be closer than other elections panned out, right? That is the case. Uh, in the last election, Mayor Sohi had more than 105,000 votes on his own, and, you know, several of his challengers, you know, like it was mor- more than dou- almost double what Mike Nickel got, right? And, and more than, easily more than double than what Kim Krushel got in third. It's a little bit more spread out this time. We had Michael Walters in third with about 24 and a half thousand votes, Omar Muhammad in fourth with more than 20,000 votes.

Stephanie:
Now, that is a whole other topic, that I don't even know if we'll have time to get into that, but I just wanna say, where did he come from? I have never seen him in, in real life. He backed out of so many election events, and yet somehow he pulled in like a str- he was in third place there for a good while on election night.

Mack:
Quite a while.

Stephanie:
I don't know wh- how that happened. He was shining bright, I guess.

Mack:
This is one of those ones where you're like, "I wish he had run for council." You know? He runs for council-

Stephanie:
Totally.

Mack:
... and he probably, he probably wins wherever he runs, right? Um, and, and I get there's different factors behind that, and reasons why he might have chosen to go for the mayor's seat first. Maybe he'll do a Diana Steele thing here and, you know, run for council next time. But yeah incredible support for him. And then Rahim Jaffer in fifth with just over 4% and Tony Catarina behind him at about 3%, and then we get into sub-one percent for the rest of the 13 mayoral candidates. So, quite a big uh, spread, but, you know, closer at the top than we've seen in past elections. So, Andrew Knack is our new mayor. You went, Stephanie, to his campaign headquarters when he gave his victory speech, which didn't happen on election night. It happened several days later. Uh, what did you take away?

Stephanie:
What I thought was interesting is the very first thing he said was, "Edmonton chose independent leadership." So, it was a very big dig at the concept of parties, and I think...Uh, later on, he did giggle a little bit about, um ... And he said something about the cost per vote and how it'll be (laughs) interesting to see how that lines up. Yeah, in his victory speech, some of the highlights, he talked about growth. That was one of the, another one of the first things that he talked about, you know. Um, we're obviously getting a lot of people coming into the city, and how we deal with that is gonna be super important. He did a bit of a call-out to other levels of government. This is a quote from the speech. "To our partners in the provincial and federal government, Edmontonians have spoken. They want those experiencing homelessness and addictions to have support and housing. They want to feel safe in their communities. They don't want backroom deals on major projects. They want fair and equitable investments that help our province's capital city grow and prosper." And then he went on to say that he will always be in good faith, he'll be clear about what Edmontonians need and how the city will lead. "We won't agree on everything. That's okay." Um, then just more about, you know, working together. But I thought that was i- it was i- it was interesting to hear him kind of take a stance against the province in that way. That was th- that was the vibe that I got.

Mack:
I mean, that matches with what he told us in the Taproot survey, right, that he would stand up for Edmonton's autonomy.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And I do think it's really interesting that he, he, he led with Edmonton chose independent leadership. I think that's really interesting. It's very consistent with what the majority of people have said consistent have said, right? So, the province's own research on this, more than 70% of people don't want parties. In the Taproot survey, more than 27,000 people voted, 83% of them said they don't want parties, and, and members of council should be free from party affiliation. And to his credit, Andrew Knack has been very consistent on this point.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
He's always been in the news. He's always opposed parties. He never once seemed to consider, you know, can I use this to my advantage even though I don't agree with it? Like, he's just not a fan of municipal parties. We have since learned, since the result of the election, that our new municipal affairs minister in Alberta would like to have parties continue in Edmonton and Calgary for the next election. There's a long way to go before we get to that, but I-

Stephanie:
(laughs) Yeah, come on. Let's not talk about that yet.

Mack:
Y- You know, the only reason I bring it up is if you thought the mi- that perhaps the outcome here and in Calgary, where they also elected an independent mayor, would cause the province to declare failure on this. It doesn't seem, initially at least, like that is going to be the case.

Stephanie:
Another thing that he mentioned in his speech was he congratulated the regional mayors of council. I always considered Andrew Knack to be a bit of a regional guy. You know, he was on the board of the Edmonton Regional Transit Services Commission, I think was the name. And he was the one who introduced the motion to try and get the regional transit plan together. Of course, that failed back in the budget deliberations for 2023 to 2026. So he's always been like a very regional guy. And then one of the questions from the media was, "What are you gonna do on your first day?" Which is kind of like, a lot of mayors have, "On my first day, I will, you know, introduce this, da da da da da da." And he just said that he would, "Sit down with council to develop a shared vision."

Mack:
Well, people should read your coming up at council-

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
... uh, on the agenda next week to understand this. Like, I think it's an interesting question, because there isn't really one first day for a new mayor and a council. Like, they have onboarding, they have the swearing in ceremony, they have that first meeting, but it's kinda ceremonial. Then they do have, like, an official meeting. So there's lots of firsts, I guess when you're a new cas- a new mayor in council.

Stephanie:
Right. And also, I mean, a lot of politicians of every single level, but we had some in this municipal election said, "On my, in the first 40 days I will do X." Which, well, when do you start the first 40 days? Because the first actual meeting where things get, like, discussed I don't think is until November 19th. So, like, where do you start? (laughs) But I don't think any of the people that promised that stuff got elected. (laughs)

Mack:
I don't think they looked for the calendar when they made those promises, right?

Stephanie:
(laughs) We don't have to worry about that. (laughs)

Mack:
And you know, one of the main things this new council's gonna have to do is just budget. That's really the work of the first few weeks of December, and then we get into the Christmas break, so. Uh, on the regional thing that you mentioned, this was a question on our Taproot survey, and Andrew Knack was among the candidates who who chose, "Re-establish a strong metropolitan approach with shared priorities." And so interesting to see that he offered those congratulations right away here, upon being named the new mayor. Okay, well, I wanted to just say about Andrew Knack that whether you supported him or not, and whether you think he should be (laughs) our mayor or not, I think you should feel voters really happy with the outcome of this election. Because I feel like in Andrew Knack we have a mayor who always, always shows up, a mayor who always gives 110%, and he genuinely leads with curiosity. Like, he asks people's opinions. He engages with people no matter how vitriolic they are. He, he loves the job. He was so broken up about leaving council when he made that decision. If, you know, you don't agree with him on the issues, that's one thing, but I think, you know, as we saw Michael Walters and other s- people talk about in their, in their congratulations to him Knack is a, is a man of character, and he ... You know, you can be sure that he's gonna do the job here, and he's gonna do his best at that job. So I think we ... He's got all the ingredients to be an outstanding mayor, someone who can listen to his colleagues, find ways to collaborate, be re- responsive to the needs of citizens, and, and all of that. I mean, he's gonna face all of the same challenges that all mayors face. You cannot please everyone, and that is a big thing to get over. You have to have a pretty thick skin. I think Andrew Knack is pretty good at that. But, you know, it's a different ballgame when you're in the mayor's seat. You know, there's differences of of information, right? He's gonna know more things than other people do, and you gotta deal with the challenges of that. So I think there's lots of hard things, but I feel like he's got that sort of foundational value set that-... is necessary to be successful in the role.

Stephanie:
So you don't think that he's too nice, as some have characterized him? You don't think he lacks the bite that a mayor needs?

Mack:
I mean, do we need a mayor that has a, a strong bite? I don't know. I guess it depends on what it's for. As we've talked about, he ser- he clearly seems like he's gonna stand up for Edmonton and he's going to, you know, take a firm stance with the other orders of government, maybe just a little bit differently than Mayor Sohi did, right?

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
And, and that could be interesting. I think it'll, it'll be interesting to follow along and see how Andrew Knack's approach might evolve over time as he builds those relationships or, or, you know, develops those relationships in a slightly different way. But as a person who's caring, I think I want my mayor to be someone who's nice and somebody who, who cares about the city and about its people and about doing a good job and, and all of those things, and I think he is. I don't think he's a bull in a china shop, and I don't think that's the kinda mayor that we want. We had one of those, and people look back fondly on the Mandel years, but there was a lot of problems that came out of those years as well that subsequent councils have had to address and deal with. So, you know, no mayor is gonna be perfect, and, and I'm sure Andrew Knack is gonna have lots of flaws that we're gonna be talking about over the next (laughs) four years. But at the outset, I, I think voters should feel confident that we have a mayor who's here f- you know, as they say in the reality TV world, for the right reasons. You know? And you can disagree about policy, but he's gonna do the job.

Stephanie:
I also think another... You, you brought up his collaborative spirit, and I think that that is going to be really shown with this council in particular. So we lost Hamilton, Rice, and Cartmell, which would be three, you know, councillors that maybe wouldn't always vote on the same side as the more progressive side of council, and we kept a lot of, like, the progressive folks. I just think that this means that... Because he has this history of working with th- all of the returning incumbent councillors, I just think that it's gonna be really easy for everyone to row in the same direction, as they say. I think that it's gonna be possible to really work together and, you know, approach things with a team approach. Um, when you think of, again, Mayor Sohi during budgets, always introducing those huge omnibus motions that were able to, like, snip here, snip there and get the tax increase down a little bit, I can see Andrew Knack definitely being able to do stuff like that and sort of working to create consensus among his council colleagues.

Mack:
I hope so. I mean, I feel like he's got some elements of Mayor Sohi in, in what you just described-

Stephanie:
Totally.

Mack:
... but also some elements of Mayor Iverson, who he served with.

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
Like, he, he knows his stuff. He won't talk about it at length in the same way that Don Iverson used to, but, you know, he really can get into the weeds and he can go toe-to-toe with you on the details, and I think that's powerful for somebody who wants to be able to pull people together and convince them of, of what they need to do. But, you know, there's work involved here.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
Like, it takes real effort and work, and it's a different role as the mayor than it was as council to bring all those people along. So I don't think we should assume that because he's a little bit more progressive that the progressives are gonna fall in line. Like, that's a real job that he's gotta focus on. There's work to be done there. And I think back to this last term and, you know, one of the other splits, I guess, right? There is the sort of progressive, non-progressive split, but there was also the new versus old councillor split, certainly, especially early on in the term, right? And Andrew Knack often sided with Hamilton and Paquette and Car- you know, the people who had been there for a while rather than the new people, so I think that's kind of interesting. He's kind of been with and against some of those folks. My favorite thing about this topic, though, is what Andrew Knack himself likes to say. The last time he was on our show I think he talked about this. "Another classic 7-6 vote," "Another classic 8-5 vote."

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, he's very much of the opinion that there aren't blocs that you always vote with. There's municipal issues that you try to make the best decision you can, and sometimes you're on the same side as somebody and sometimes you're not. And I think his-

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
... realistic approach to that is actually a really refreshing one to bring to council. I don't think he's gonna approach this as, "We've got a progressive bloc and we don't," 'cause he genuinely doesn't believe that, I think.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Uh, yeah, I, maybe I misspoke. I just, I meant it's sort of a combination of a bloc of more progressive and the fact that so many of them worked together over the previous four years to-

Mack:
They have a relationship, right? There's familiarity with one another.

Stephanie:
Yeah. They have a relationship- and I think they have this sort of, like, bond almost-of being the 2021 to 2025 council that passed the $100 million Active Transportation Expansion Plan and the zoning bylaw on the district policy. Do you know what I mean?

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Those three things are hugely defining pieces of policy that the 2021 to 2025 council... That'll be their legacy. And now that so many of those people have rolled over into the 2025 to 2029 council, I think that they will, like I said, be kind of moving in the same direction, continuing on to be the zoning bylaw, district plan, and bike plan council.

Mack:
Yeah, I think they're, I think that's a really fair point. And they're, can I say trauma bonded in some ways, right?

Stephanie:
I was, I was gonna say that, but I didn't know if that was-

Mack:
I know. (laughs)

Stephanie:
... inappropriate. That was exactly what I was gonna say, though. (laughs)

Mack:
Uh, it's what comes to mind.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
'Cause they also had to deal with the pandemic and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So much.

Mack:
And so there's a lot of reasons that this council-

Stephanie:
A shooting too, right?

Mack:
Right, yeah.

Stephanie:
Like, maybe that's, maybe that's part of it too.

Mack:
Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Okay, well, we're gonna talk more about Andrew Knack in upcoming weeks. Hopefully he's gonna be on the show. Uh, before we get into some of the other details about the election and some of the results Stephanie, why don't you give us your overview of how you see our new council. What did you take away from who got elected? And we'll talk just about the final people here. We'll get into the recounts in a minute.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Okay, so in case somehow you haven't checked out taproot.vote to check out all the survey results, I'll just do a l- little rundown of who won. In Ward Anirniq, Erin Rutherford, incumbent. In Ward Dene, Aaron Paquette, also incumbent. In Ward Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi, Jon Morgan, who beat out Jennifer Rice. In Ward Karhiio, that's Karen Tang, obviously incumbent. Ward Metis, Ashley Salvador, incumbent. Ward Nakota Isga, Reed Clarke, who is a new councillor with the Better Edmonton Party. Ward Odemen, Stevenson Anne Stevenson, incumbent. Ward Papasoteio, Michael Janz, incumbent. Ward pihesiwin, Michael Elliott with the Better Edmonton Party. Ward sipiwiyiniwak, Thu Parmar, which we will definitely get into this race who is a new councillor, Independent councillor. Ward Sspomitapi, Joanne Wright, incumbent. Ward Taasitowininiwak, Karen Principe, incumbent with the Better Edmonton Party, so-

Mack:
Nice job. And just to clarify for folks who maybe can't quite, "Who was that again?" So as you mentioned, Jennifer Rice is out in Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
Uh, Nakota Isga where Reed Clarke was elected, that was Andrew Knack's ward. Uh, Ward pihesiwin where Michael Elliott from the Better Edmonton Party was elected, that was Tim Cartmell's ward.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
And sipiwiyiniwak where Thu Parmar has been elected, that was Sarah Hamilton's ward. So those are the ones where we had changes from who we had before.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so we had n- nine incumbents if you count Knack, which I will, right? 'Cause he just was moved to a different position. (laughs)

Mack:
Sure. (laughs)

Stephanie:
And, and we had four new councillors, only one incumbent lost, that was Jennifer Rice, which I was n- I was I thought she was gonna win for sure.

Mack:
Of all of the incumbents, like, she was not at the top of my list for someone who might have been at risk of losing her seat.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
Uh, you know, incumbency is a real advantage, and we'll, and we'll talk more about that. But yeah, certainly a surprise about Jennifer Rice in some, in s- well, in some ways.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
What else did you notice?

Stephanie:
I know that I know that some people were wondering if we were going to go back to having, like, one woman on council, but we kept the same... Oh wait, no, we, we lost one woman. We lost her. Where did she go?

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
Uh, (laughs) we have seven women and six men compared to eight women and five men before. And like you, we were talking about earlier, they don't typically l- fall along party lines, but I would say nine are generally on the more progressive side of the political spectrum, and four are generally more on the conservative side which is similar to, or it's the same, I would say, as it was with the last council.

Mack:
I'm thinking of of what our podcast co-founder Troy always used to say, which is, you know, "The way that people campaign and the way that they govern is often different." Um, you might, you know, campaign from the left, govern from the center, or, you know, those kinds of things. And I think that's sort of interesting and true with councillors as well. So, I think it's a safe assumption at the outset that Reed Clarke, Michael Elliott, Karen Principe, all associated with the Better Edmonton Party, are going to be conservative. But will that hold for the next four years? Especially if the party is not really probably gonna do much or be in existence? I don't know. So let's talk about those new councillors. Um, and let's start with Jon Morgan. So he's the new councillor in Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi defeating Jennifer Rice.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
Uh, what do you think about Jon Morgan?

Stephanie:
Well, I think... I was trying to describe, 'cause at, at first I thought he was pretty progressive, then I looked back into, more in depth in his platform and that, my opinion started to change. Um, I will put it this way, that I think that he'll fit in really well with that, like, center, slightly leaning left part of council that I would characterize as, like, Rutherford, Paquette, Wright, Knack, maybe Tang. I think that he'll fit in really well with that, like, center left-ish.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Um, he is a former transit operator. He's spent some time on, like, the board of the EFCL, the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. If you look at some of his answers to the Taproot survey, which we'll link all of this in the show notes if you wanna take a deeper look, but some standouts, I thought that he... One of the questions was, "Do you support increasing taxes in line with population growth and inflation, or would you rather cut taxes, or are you okay to increase them more than population and, and inflation?" He said that he would keep them below inflation. He wants to slow down infill development. He thinks that climate should be a consideration in every decision, rather than just some. And he, another interesting thing that he wrote in his context that he was allowed to add was that he doesn't want to see any more P3 projects.

Mack:
Interesting. That's pretty specific. (laughs)

Stephanie:
Yeah, yeah. I know. Uh, that just, which is nice that we have the context so that pe- people can add those things now. Again, we'll see if that position keeps keeps, stays the same in the next four years, but yeah.

Mack:
Yeah. Yeah, I, I think your assessment that he'll fit in well is my first read on him as well.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, I don't think he's gonna be there to cause lots of drama or anything like that. I think he's gonna look to be kind of hitting the ground running in a collaborative way-

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
... and learning from those, those councillors that he largely agrees with on, on the issues, right? So, yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Okay. Uh, what about Reed Clarke in Nakota Isga?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so of course, this is the former CEO of the Edmonton Stingers, also former CEO of Sport Edmonton. Um, he ran with the Better Edmonton Party. And Mac, correct me if I'm wrong, but he didn't originally, like, start with Better Edmonton. He was running, and then he was asked to join. Is that correct?

Mack:
I don't remember exactly. Been a long campaign.

Stephanie:
Okay.

Mack:
But that sounds sensible to some, to-

Stephanie:
Yeah, and-

Mack:
... to, to... It sounds kind of related to maybe what happened.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and j- I say that because I saw signs on, like, pictures on his page with signs that did not have Better Edmonton branding. So he was kind of running already and decided to join up with Tim Cartmell's party.... some of his policy ideas he wants to bring the unit maximum down to four units in the mature neighborhoods, so maybe kind of returning to the mature neighborhood overlay, and now this is relevant because Niakota-Isga contains Glenora and some of those, like, very affluent inner neighborhoods. He also wants to restore parking minimums and then prioritize infill on nodes and corridors, so that's busy streets, like, I don't know, Stony Plain Road and nodes and corridors, so nodes are like, you know, center- centers and corridors are the roads. Um, (laughs) something funny in his, on his website is that he has these, like, sports metaphors, like a game clock for faster permitting, and I'm just wondering if, like, the the whole time this next four years, if he's just gonna be, like, always dropping sports metaphors. Maybe, maybe not. (laughs)

Mack:
I mean, that could-

Stephanie:
(laughs)

Mack:
... that could be, that could be interesting, right? Uh- sports metaphors work in some ways, they're really horrible in others, but that could be kind of interesting.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Uh, I want to know what you found about what he said about the survey, but I thought since I just looked it up while you're talking here, you are right.

Stephanie:
Okay.

Mack:
He started running in May, and then was part of the Better Edmonton Party launch in, I think it was July, so I'll put this in the... or June. I'll put this in the show notes. Um, Post Media wrote, "When asked point blank for a vote of confidence in Cartmel, Clark shifted the focus to his own campaign."

Stephanie:
(laughs)

Mack:
So maybe not a super strong party supporter throughout, uh ...

Stephanie:
Yeah. I think Reed Clark is one of the candidates that could have won with or without Better Edmonton support.

Mack:
I mean, he certainly has the name recognition-

Stephanie:
For sure.

Mack:
... I think, right? And, and probably could have. I- it's an interesting calculation to me that he would think maybe being part of the party would, would help, or maybe at least in the best case, not hinder his ability.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I don't know.

Stephanie:
Hm. So the Taproot survey, his answers were kind of all over the place, so I don't really know if it's even worth looking at them. I'll give an example. He, for regarding homelessness, he said that we should fund supportive services to alleviate suffering, but then when it comes to funding services that are provincial jurisdiction, he said we should pressure the province to fund those. And then another thing was he said he had no position on bike lanes or whether we should choose bus rapid transit or LRT. So, you know, the, the Taproot survey is n- not a perfect, flawless thing, but you can go look and see what he said. Read his, read his platform online.

Mack:
Yeah. It's really interesting. I'm glad we've got this record of his thinking at this time at least. I would say just of all the new councillors, the four of them, he's the biggest wild card to me.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
I think it's... will be very interesting to see how he forms, finds, discovers, creates his role on council-

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
... and, and what that'll look like. I do think it's interesting that he'll bring a different perspective, maybe more of a business perspective than some other councillors, and I think he's probably got, you know, a much different network and the, the sort of Venn diagram of, of connections he's got, I think, is quite different than some of the other councillors, and so that can be a good thing from a representation point of view. But yeah, and policy wise, and that's supported by the answers to the Taproot survey, bit of a wild card.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and I'm also not surprised that he got elected in Andrew Knack's ward because I... or former ward, but 'cause I kind of view him as, like Andrew Knack's Waluigi or Wario. (laughs)

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
Like, he's a very... I, I think that he's, like, kind of center, like a fence-sitter and could fall either way on certain topics. That's the vibe that I get from him.

Mack:
Interesting.

Stephanie:
Which is what I think about Andrew Knack 'cause I totally think of Andrew Knack as a fence-sitter.

Mack:
Okay, what about Michael Elliottt? Pahisiwin.

Stephanie:
Yes. So another Better Edmonton candidate, of course, the former head of the Edmonton Police Association, former I think former police officer. Although, I think some website said that he was currently a staff sergeant, which I highly doubt is true anymore, but anyways, yeah, I thought that Reed Clark's platform was, like, scarce on his website, but Elliott has almost nothing on his website. He did answer the Taproot survey though. Um, some of the standout things is that he would increase taxes in line with infla- inflation or population growth. Um, he was one of the few people that said that we should stop infill development and revisit policies. Of course, you cannot legally stop infill development. The city must give out a development permit to a development if it m- meets all the rules. But, you know, for safety, for community safety, he said that he would increase enforcement, not-

Mack:
I'm shocked.

Stephanie:
... surprising at all. (laughs)

Mack:
I'm shocked.

Stephanie:
A police wants to increase enf- uh, what?

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Um, and then for, you know, kind of the active transportation stuff, for bike lanes, he wants to build only what's planned, and he prefers bus rapid transit over LRT.

Mack:
I think Michael Elliottt is a fairly safe, conservative person-

Stephanie:
For sure.

Mack:
... on council. I, I don't think it's inappropriate to label him there. We'll see if that's proven wrong in the next four years.

Stephanie:
(laughs)

Mack:
I think it'll be very entertaining, and I don't know if that's what we want from council, but it will be entertaining to see the two Michaels serve together. So Michael Janz and Michael Elliottt have famously clashed in the past. Michael Janz has been a vocal critic of police, police funding, accountability, transparency. You know, Michael Elliottt, in his position as the president of the Police Association, often was the person pushing back on that. There's a whole bunch of other less savory stuff that I won't get into on social media and things like that. Entertaining, perhaps. I think this is an opportunity for Michael Janz to show some real leadership.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
You have a new councillor, he's been elected. You've got to find a way to bury the hatchet and put all those differences aside and collaborate and work together for the things that you both agree on, because as we know people agree on a lot more than they disagree on. So I think there's an opportunity for Janz here to, to be the-... more senior council member who's got a term under his belt and, and offers some leadership and a way forward. We'll see if that-

Stephanie:
Kind of be-

Mack:
... happens.

Stephanie:
... be the bigger person in a way.

Mack:
Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah. That is a good thing to hope for.

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
I don't know if, if it will happen, but I will not make any... You know, I w- I won't throw anyone throw anyone out quite yet. Anything's possible. (laughs)

Mack:
Anything's possible, including Thu Parmar winning in Sepur Winewok.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So she's the fourth new councillor. Uh, what did you find out about her?

Stephanie:
So, th- the research I have on her is a little bit sparse because up until a little while ago, I thought that she... That Darrell Friesen had won, another better Edmonton candidate, so I had all this stuff written about him, but I should have known. The difference was only six votes, so I shouldn't have you know, done that. I acted too soon. Uh, yeah. Thu Parmar, I think th- one thing I will say that because of her... I will, like, always think she's a girlboss because of this win. Like, I think it's such a cool, like, an intense storyline to have. She was behind by six votes, and then all of a sudden she was ahead by 600. We will get into that, dear listener. We will get into that. But yeah. Anyways, so Thu Parmar, she won in Sepur Winewok, which is Sarah Hamilton's former ward. Um, she has spent time on the board of the Cameron Heights Community League and with EFCL, so potentially there's with Jon Morgan, you know? Some partnerships there. On the Taproot survey, she was one of the only ones, like, o- out of the people that got elected, she was the... One of the only ones that said she would wanna lower taxes. Oh, and also whenever I talk about the Taproot survey, Karen Principe never ended up filling it out, so if I ever say she was the only one who da-da-da, like, Karen Principe might have the same answer, but we wouldn't know. Um-

Mack:
Same as in 2021, unfortunately.

Stephanie:
(laughs) Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah. She would prioritize citywide mobility over 15-minute districts. She is one of the only ones to say that we should expand outside of the Henday as the market demands, you know, outside of the 41st Ave S- Southwest boundary. She said that she wants to slow and fill with more regulations, and she was also one of the only people to say that having a climate lens on all decisions would cause unnecessary delays. So she is a, she is, like, a pretty conservative person, I would say.

Mack:
Much less centrist than some of the other people on council.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
Um, that'll be, that'll be pretty interesting to watch. You mentioned that, you know, she went from six to 600. I think it's even more impressive than that, because for most of the first 24 hours of election results coming in, she was in third.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, she was behind Giselle General and only kind of pulled up to the, the six vote thing pretty late in the game, so it must, must have been such a wild ride for her over the last f- over the l- this week, right? Just feeling like you were in third and then seeing you were very close, oh so close and then actually winning. Like, just incredible.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I bet her stomach was, like, in knots the whole time. I know that if it were me, even I might... My tummy would hurt even though I had barely any stakes in the game, just watching the results come in because it was so stressful.

Mack:
Yeah. (laughs)

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
All right, so that's our new council. We look forward to talking with all of those councillors and learning more about them. Um, we should just move on to incumbents here for, for a minute. So yeah. Wasn't this supposed to be the election where all the incumbents lose?

Stephanie:
I thought so. That's what like, Lorne Gunter was saying.

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
Um, that (laughs)-

Mack:
Never trust Lorne Gunter.

Stephanie:
(laughs) This was the the... Supposed to be the change election where every incumbent was out. Like, we were talking about, I think last week, how we were seeing signs that weren't even for a s- specific candidate.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
It was just anti-curre- current council.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I was... I didn't th- I didn't think that the incumbents were gonna do as badly as people were saying, but I also didn't think they were gonna do as well as they did. I was shocked that they all made it back in... Except for Jennifer Rice. I thought Jennifer Rice was for sure safe. Yeah, shocking turn of events.

Mack:
I think it's pretty impressive that Jon Morgan won there, partly because... And we know money's not everything, but Jennifer Rice by the July 31st date had raised more than any other council candidate. Funke Olukede, who was running in that ward, also one of the largest fundraisers.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, Jon Morgan was dwarfed by both of them in terms of the money of, of it all, but it didn't matter. He pulled out the victory, and we've seen that in the past where councillors who spend a lot less are able to connect better or, or find the, the way to win. So, I don't know that we know yet why Jennifer Rice lost, but just a few things came to mind, right? So, there's obviously allegations of harassment and abuse of her staff, and she's got a judicial review of that coming up in May next year. It's been in the news. I wonder if people were thinking about that. I don't think that is the thing you go to the ballot box to cast your vote on, like I've said a bunch of times. I think people generally prefer to vote for something rather than against something. You feel better about yourself when you've cast a vote for something. So, you know, there's that. On the sa- in the same vein, I think she's been bad at her job. She's often unprepared, she doesn't understand the mechanics of council, and I think she's earned a bit of a reputation for how ineffective she's been as a councillor. So, I mean, those are factors maybe, but I don't know that they're the biggest ones. On the Taproot survey, we asked people what they think the most important role of a councillor should be. 70%, overwhelmingly, 70% of people said it should be community representative. And I think back on the last four years of Jennifer Rice, and for all her flaws, I think she's been a community representative. She has the meetings. She gets out and talks to constituents. Whenever she's talking at council, some of it is incomprehensible, but often a bunch of it is, like, "This is what I'm hearing from constituents." Like, I feel like she genuinely tried to represent what she heard from people in those meetings, even if, you know, the way she went about it or what she was looking to do was maybe at odds. And yet they didn't choose her.... they chose Jon Morgan. I think that's really interesting. Um, I don't know why. I'm curious to know more about what, what went wrong down in Eppikokanipisitciw for Jennifer Rice.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
She seemed surprised as well in reporting that Post Media did. But I feel like it's probably not one thing. It's probably, like everything, a combination of factors.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I also think that... (sighs) I don't know if I'll be able to express this right, but I think that the people who are tuned into council know how incompetent she is, know how unprepared she always is, and know about the allegations of abuse. I don't think that that's the same group of people that would be out in her ward lining up to have a coffee with her. Uh, does that make sense? Like I think that people that would be kind of swayed by a coffee meeting are not also the people that are watching her on council and seeing how unprepared she is.

Mack:
And there's a lot less of us who pay enough attention to know that she's got these challenges, right?

Stephanie:
(laughs) Yes.

Mack:
Most people wouldn't know. I mean, it's in the news, I suppose, but the story about her judicial review was like 2024 sometime, like-

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
... a lot has happened since then. I don't know if people still remember that stuff, right?

Stephanie:
Totally. Yeah, not, there's not as, like not as many people are nerds like us and our listeners, Mak. (laughs)

Mack:
That's right. Okay, what else did you notice on incumbents?

Stephanie:
Yeah, well basically this was supposed to be the one where all the incumbents were booted, and uh most of them weren't even close, except for Jennifer Rice, who she only lost by, I think, a couple, like fewer than 1,000 votes.

Mack:
Yeah, sh- Jennifer Rice lost by 630 votes, so about-

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
... 3.6% of the vote in that, in that ward.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so sti- still not a, like total rejection, right?

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And then the closest races were for Erin Rutherford in Ward Anirniq. Uh, she won by 10 percentage points, and she was 1,400 votes ahead of her nearest competitor, which was Jesse Watson. And then the sec- the second-closest raced wa- race was in Ward Sspomitapi with Joanne Wright, who was 17 percentage points or 2,000 votes ahead of the Better Edmonton candidate, Harman Singh Kandola. Um, those, the three core wards who have a lot of those infill gripes, which of course was apparently one of the top election issues, that was Ward Metis, Ward Papastew, Ward O-day'min. In the respective wards, Salvador, Ashley Salvador won by 20 percentage points. Michael Janz won by nearly 40 percentage points. Anne Stephenson won by more than 30 percentage points, so like a wide margin in those core neighborhoods.

Mack:
Yeah, I mean, Janz had a huge, huge victory here, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like way more votes than anybody. I, I was looking at the, the split between the party candidates because I heard rumblings that people thought, "Oh, you know, maybe the PACE and Better Edmonton candidates would split the vote and, and therefore allow these incumbents to get reelected." But in almost all cases, that didn't matter. The incumbents ended up with more votes than the PACE and Better Edmonton candidates combined. So-

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
... parties did not seem to be a factor in helping these incumbents get elected, at least not directly.

Stephanie:
Y- I think, yeah, definitely not when you add up the numbers like that. But I do think that potentially if instead of running, for example, Ward Papastew, if instead of running two party candidates that basically have the same platform and then uniting them as one and having like a stronger, you know, more right, more conservative more anti-infill, like a stronger one, you might have been able to have a stronger campaign, gotten more people overall out to vote. Actually, the great example of this is in Ward Metis because Caroline Matthews and Justin Thomas, both like really strong candidates, but they're both exactly the same. They're both cops who are, or like, like involved in law enforcement, and they are pretty anti-infill. So I think that if the people of Ward Metis had seen one united Conservative, wait (laughs)-

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
... one united Conservative candidate against Ashley Salvador, maybe more people would have gone out to vote. Maybe people would have even switched from Ashley to, to the Conservative side. We really don't know.

Mack:
I hear what you're saying, and I think this gets to voter turnout a little bit.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Okay, so let's switch gears and talk about that.

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
30%, 30.3% I think (claps hands) is the latest number, so about 30,000 fewer ballots cast than in 2021. So voter turnout is lower overall, and I'm looking at all of these incumbents getting reelected. And to me it's a little bit of a story that the people who were the loudest and angriest about this just didn't turn out. They did not get the vote out.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So had we u- united those Conservative-leaning candidates under one on, in each of those wards, I'm not sure that it would have made much difference because what this tells me is that people were angry enough to post online, not angry enough to actually go out and vote, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Which is very interesting. Okay, well on, on voter turnout, I wanted to mention we got some really great listener emails after our last episode one of them from longtime listener, Robin. Uh, she reached out to helpfully point out that we were derelict in our conversation about voter turnout last week in that we didn't account for population growth, which is really embarrassing because I feel like we talk about population growth all the time. But when we were talking about advance voting and whether or not-

Stephanie:
Right.

Mack:
... you know, the per day amount was higher or not, you know, Robin helpfully pointed out that actually advance voter turnout was down because of population growth. So when you take into account our overall population as well as the number of eligible voters that we have in 2025 versus 2021, that per day number doesn't matter. It's, it's worse. It's, it's actually-

Stephanie:
Down.

Mack:
... down this time. Um, so I think that's, that's interesting. And so when we talk about this 30% turnout, you know, 30,000 fewer ballots, it's, it's it's worse than it might at first appear 'cause we have, you know, a greater population, and, and it's still lower than it was in 2021. So I thought that was really interesting. Thanks for sending that over, Robin.What do you think, Stephanie? Is there anything we ... Well, well, I mean, like how can we get turnout to be higher? You were hoping for, like some ridiculous percentage-

Stephanie:
(laughs)

Mack:
... and it didn't happen. (laughs)

Stephanie:
Oh, geez. Tell me how you really feel.

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
I've been loaded-

Mack:
Not ridiculous. Very, it was very optimistic, very optimistic.

Stephanie:
No, people, multiple times over the past week, people have been like, in real life, they're like, "Stephanie, that is insane. Why would you say that? You're dumb." Well, not actually.

Mack:
Not dumb. No, no.

Stephanie:
But like I've been ridiculed. My name is being drug through the mud because I dare to be-

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
... optimistic about voter turnout. Uh, isn't it in Australia where you get fined like $20 if you don't vote?

Mack:
Something like that, yeah.

Stephanie:
I don't know. I-

Mack:
Make it requirement, yeah do it online and let them count them digitally.

Stephanie:
How dare you suggest such a thing.

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
That would lead to like monumental recounts and and, and lost ballots. Oh wait, no. That's what the manual count led to. Anyways, we will get to that. Um, I don't know. Yeah, the lo- low voter turnout, I totally agree that the people are much louder online than they are in, at the ballot box. And it reflects what I've said before, especially when you come back to infill, where 95% of people living in Edmonton, if you said the word infills to them, they wouldn't understand what you meant.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
The other 4% go, "Oh, they're putting something on that empty lot. Cool, great. That's fine. Whatever. I don't care." Now, the other 1% is split maybe about 50/50. Half of a percent are people that are super pro-infill and will go to the meetings and really are into infill and like the other f- half a percent are the really angry people that'll show up at meetings and be mad about infill. But the vast majority of people do not care. Also, I'll tell a little story. I won't say whose campaign it was, but someone working on a campaign of one of those core neighborhoods told me that the, this, a voter said, "You know, I hate what the candidate, what like the councillor has done for infill. I really hate it. But everything else this councillor has done, I really like. So fine, I'll vote for this candidate." And then the person I know working on the campaign was like, "Can I push my luck and give you a lawn sign?" And the voter was like, "Yes, fine." So even like it's not, it does not rank that high for people, stuff like infill. It is very much, it's almost like a culture war issue where people are, don't actually care that much.

Mack:
Yeah, there was definitely more noise about it than it turned out to be, impact in this in this campaign, in this election. And yeah, maybe that contributed to that voter turnout. Okay, well you talked a bit about delays and recounts and everything, so we won't rehash all of that. We had to wait a long time for results. When we did get results, then we heard that there were recounts happening for various different reasons. There was ballot boxes that were found at various locations that had to be counted. And so we ended up with this change that we already talked about where Darrell Friesen looked like he had won and ultimately lost to Parmer by about 600 votes.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Shocking.

Stephanie:
Eh, I, see, I'm flabbergasted. (laughs) Um uh, I saw Troy Pavelic, our, our good friend Troy Pavelic said on- online that there could be a recount of every vote in the city, either, you know, Edmonton election put, doing that on their own volition or through a legal challenge because there were, were two other wards where people lost by, you know, about 600 votes. Uh, Raja Maghi in Ward Nakota Isga lost to Reed Clarke by 458 votes. Jennifer Rice, of course, lost by 630 votes. Um, if I were either of them, I would be asking for a re- recount. But I don't know if you, so I think you have some of the rules here, Matt.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Do you wanna explain some of the rules?

Mack:
Yeah, well, I looked into this. I thought similarly, right? When I saw the change, I was like, "Wow, that is concerning. If we can find 600 votes in this ward, what about in all of these other wards? Maybe we really should be recounting." And just first of all, we should say that this process had to be done manually. We had to count votes manually, just like all the other municipalities in the province because of this new provincial legislation. So it took longer and all of that. There are, I think, real questions here about why it took so much longer in Edmonton than say in other places like Calgary.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And I'm sure in the fullness of time we're gonna get into that, but on the recount thing there are three reasons that we can do a recount. So the first is that the returning officer, Eileen in this case at the City of Edmonton can order a recount within 44 hours of polls closing. Um, and there's three reasons that she can do that. So the first is a candidate or an agent or a scrutineer applies for that. They request a recount, and there's some rules about that that I'll explain, that the number of objected or rejected ballots might have affected the results. So if they think they had to throw away a whole bunch of ballots and that's gonna affect things dramatically, then she can choose to do a recount. The reason that we heard in this case was the third one, which is that an administrative or technical error may have affected the count. So that was when you saw the news and the news release come out and they were citing administrative and technical errors and people are like, "But they weren't allowed to use technology. What does that even mean?" It's because you gotta give one of these legislated reasons from the Local Elections Authorities Act to explain why you're doing the recount. So that candidate won. If they want to request a recount, they can do that if zero, if the result is within 0.5% of valid ballots, they get 72 hours to request that recount. So Raja at 2.6% and Jennifer Rice at 3.6%, they don't fall within that. So, you know, you're looking at it saying it's not within the 0.5% range, but it is within the range of votes that we found in this other ward. Is there really no recourse? And that would be the answer is there's a third way here that we can do this and it's a judicial recount. So candidates have up until November 8th, 19 days after the polls close, uh...... to request, essentially, a judicially mandated recount, so they have to file an affidavit, pay a $300 deposit, and you can't just do this because you think it's close and you got time and money to burn. You have to really allege that there's some sort of improper counting or something that affected the count in order for that judicial recount to be granted. So the, the recount that we saw with the six votes, that was within the returning officer's power to do that. They ch- chose to do that. In these other cases they have 72 hours after the results are posted, so basically until Monday next week, 'cause the results have to be posted by noon on Friday this week, like when this episode comes out, when you're listening to this. But none of the races are within that 0.5%, so really the only recourse for anyone who thinks something happened here is to pursue that judicial recount. This is according to the provincial legislation. So that's a whole bunch of context, hopefully to help you understand, like why and when can we do the recounts. Uh, I think the sentiment that Troy and others have, have mentioned here is just this casts doubt on what should be a completely trustworthy process and outcome, and I think it's a problem for Edmonton elections that they had this happen given the amount of time they had, the same amount of time as all-

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
... the other municipalities, to prepare for this process. And so I'm sure we'll learn more about that. Andrew Knack has said this week that the city auditor will look into this. We generally don't get reports from the ca- city auditor back immediately, so this'll be a thing that happens in the future. Um, but really concerning and unfortunate, and, and just horrible for the candidates, as we said, to have to go through that rollercoaster.

Stephanie:
The whole process from the really long lines that people experienced at the polls, I had friends waiting for over two hours, then how long the votes took to come in, like it was midway through Tuesday, even later on Tuesday afternoon, and we had like two out of 20 ballots or two out of 20 polls reporting for some of the wards.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Um, and then the missed ballot boxes and then the recounts that found 600 votes, embarrassing disaster. And I will be looking into this as a reporter. (laughs) I can tell you that much.

Mack:
Yeah, I think we wanna understand what happened here and what we can learn from this and what we can do differently.

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
I mean, it's a problem that we had to count ballots by hand and do this paper process. I think that is a fundamental issue here. But that doesn't mean that within those rules of that system we couldn't have come up with something better. And so I think we need to understand what happened here and, and what we can take away from it because it's really important that people trust these elections and the outcome of these elections.

Stephanie:
Totally.

Mack:
We don't wanna end up in a situation like they have south of the border.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I think that if Calgary and, or other, you know, mid-sized cities in Alberta had experienced the same thing, I wouldn't feel as strongly about this. But the fact that it was so much worse than Calgary, because Calgary knew their mayor the night of the election.

Mack:
Yeah, I mean, there's some suggestion that they, they prioritized counting the mayoral ballots.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And it did take a little bit longer for some of the counselor ballots, but-

Stephanie:
Right.

Mack:
... you know.

Stephanie:
But yeah. So and my conspiracy theory, if I can put on my tinfoil hat for a second, is that, um Edmonton did a terrible job to try to make the province look bad but then it just, like, severely backfired because it was, like, such a bad job.

Mack:
Yeah. I, I'm glad you prefaced that with conspiracy theory.

Stephanie:
(laughs) Yeah, I'm just joking, all-

Mack:
I know. Just- I think everyone here tried their best and really didn't maliciously go about doing anything wrong here. There's no suggestion of that. And I don't th- I don't think that should be the takeaway for people.

Stephanie:
No.

Mack:
But I do think there's legitimate questions that should be explored.

Stephanie:
Totally.

Mack:
Well, we're going a bit long, but we've got two more quick things we wanna talk about. Uh, one is just this idea of left versus right. You know, we said off the top when we were talking about is someone progressive or conservative, doesn't always apply to municipal politics, but Andrew Knack has been talking to the media since he's been named the, the new mayor, mayor elect, and he said, quote, "There's no right wing way to clear snow off the streets. There's no left wing way to cut the grass. You know, we just have to work together as humans and that's what we'll do." End quote. And I think last week I said something about population growth is also not a left wing/right wing issue, like it touches everything, and so we did have a long time listener, Nadine, who reached out to challenge that, so thank you, Nadine, for doing that. Um, you know, she says population growth has always been a right versus left issue, and she points out that, you know, conservatives generally are interested in less, smaller, you know, they're interested in smaller government which impacts how you fund the public services that do the things like snow removal and cutting the grass and all of that, and, and so then they look for somebody else potentially to blame when those things don't happen. And, and I think she makes a really good point, thank you for bringing that up, and I understand what Andrew Knack is trying to say here, right? He's trying to say, "As the mayor, I have to serve everyone." When you walk out of your house in the morning and you see that your snow, i- uh, the street is impassable because it's covered in snow, y- you're just thinking about getting the snow cleared. You're not thinking about the politics of it all. But, of course, Nadine's right. The policies that we put in place about how much money to put behind those services, how to prioritize those services, those things are all political. I think Andrew Knack understands that. He's gonna get to that. And, and this is an oppor- or a, an attempt by him right off the bat here to just say, like, "I'm gonna serve everybody." And I, I think that's genuinely the approach he'll take. But it is a good reminder that it's not as simple as saying, "Oh, snow removal's a technical thing. It's not political." Lots of our decisions are political, and they have, those things have impacts.All right, lastly, I don't really love this, but I know we gotta talk about it briefly. Like, this council's got some big things to deal with.

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
Stephanie, what's on your radar?

Stephanie:
Yeah, this is... We can just talk about this for a small moment and then move on discuss it more in depth in a future episode. But I was kind of reflecting, and I was listening to Sarah Hamilton on Ryan Jespersen, her first time in front of a microphone since her infamous outburst. We'll go with that. Um, but yeah, like I said closer to the beginning of this episode, that kind of the legacy decisions, in my humble opinion, of the 2021 to 2025 council were the $100 million bike plan, the new zoning bylaw, and the district plan, and that policy.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Those are like huge things that really, that, that council will be remembered for. And now I'm wondering what are going to be the things over the next four years that the next council will have to deal with. Sarah Hamilton said the high-level bridge replacement is going to be one of those things.

Mack:
Really?

Stephanie:
Yeah. Because we're gonna have to find out how to fund it. We're gonna have to find out how to change like, you know, traffic flow to to deal with that because, you know, obviously Edmonton loves to close every bridge at some time.

Mack:
Not, you know, the four, next four-year budgets or provincial relations or a provincial election in 2027 or...

Stephanie:
I mean, to be fair, those things happen with every council.

Mack:
So does the High-Level Bridge. Do you know how many times they've talked about the High-Level Bridge?

Stephanie:
(laughs) Okay, fair enough. Yeah, but I I'm just wondering. That was just one thing, one example that she brought up-

Mack:
That's interesting, yeah.

Stephanie:
... that was going to be an issue for the next four years.

Mack:
That is interesting, yeah. Okay. Well, I guess we have four years to cover that and see-

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
... exactly what becomes a big issue.

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
We're not gonna make you wait four years though for the rapid fire.

Stephanie:
Police were called to the Edmonton Vote Count Center late on Wednesday after reports of a suspicious man creeping around the building. An eyewitness reported that the man was muttering about finding more of those misplaced ballots and only needing 10,000 more before he was spooked and ran off. The eyewitness described the man as average height and build with an engineer's ring on his pinky. Police ask those with information to contact EPS.

Mack:
He wrote a love story with Edmonton, and after a cruel summer with a bit of bad blood, he was able to shake it off. Edmontonians told Andrew Knack, "You belong with me," and elected the city's first Swiftie mayor.

Stephanie:
Residents were irate this week when it was revealed that Edmonton Elections had scheduled Take Your Kid to Work Day on October 20th. Returning Officer Eileen Giesbrecht defended the choice saying, quote, "We thought it would be a great chance for our employees' children to practice their counting." It was adorable watching the kiddos go, "One, two, three," and then when those little rascals kept misplacing ballot boxes, so we lost hundreds in votes and had to recount, ugh, so cute.

Mack:
(laughs)

Stephanie:
(laughs)

Mack:
Incredible, incredible.

Stephanie:
I, I put that one in there because my nephew just recently learned how to count to 10, and he does it probably about as slow as the-

Mack:
The way they counted?

Stephanie:
No, I'm not slandering the elections workers. I love you. Sorry. It's just a joke.

Mack:
Well, this is a good opportunity to say that. It's easy for us to get on the podcast here and criticize everything that happened and talk about whether people are left or right or whatever. And so I just thought we should say a couple of things. One is that for anyone who'd had the courage to put their name forward and run for council and discuss ideas and try to get engaged, thank you. I think it's important that people do that. Uh, I hope that... You know, of the 94 people who ran for mayor and city council, there's only 13 who get elected, and I hope the others find other ways to meaningfully contribute to our city and to our community. Uh, the elections workers and all of the volunteers and everybody who make this happen, it's a really thankless, hard job. And I, I, I'm-

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
I mean it when I say I think people did their best here and tried their best, and nobody had ill intentions. And certainly we can learn and we can improve, but, you know, it's important to recognize that you know, those folks had a hard job. And, and I think for the most part, everybody approached that with integrity and, and care and and that, and that's important. And, you know, to all the people that helped with all of these campaigns. I don't know about you, but I've been walking around even downtown or driving around the city this week, and you see people everywhere picking up signs.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I saw the Tim Cartmel team struggling to scrape the vinyl off the windows, you know, to shut down the campaign office.

Stephanie:
(gasps)

Mack:
It was looking really rough.

Stephanie:
Oh, that's sad. (laughs)

Mack:
You know? Like, they, they put their heart and soul into this, and it wasn't the outcome they were looking for, and they still gotta go and clean up the mess, you know? Like, it's a hard, it's a hard task, but it's what makes it possible for all of us to have these good conversations about the kind of city that we wanna have. And, you know, in, in some ways to go a step back and then hopefully two steps forward, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So I, I look forward to getting into all of that with you, Stephanie, in the weeks ahead. That's it for this week. Until next week, I'm Mac.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.