Speaking Municipally

Mack Male:
A sovereign Edmonton within a united Alberta. This week we look at reaction to the Alberta government's directive that Edmonton must revert its zoning bylaw to the parameters that were in place before 2024.

Stephanie Swensrude:
Plus, advance voting for the referendum is now open, and we look at the impact of agencies, boards, and commissions in 2025.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 376. It's a crazy time in the news in Edmonton and Alberta, Stephanie. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Indeed. Yeah, it's just been a wild last week and it's made a little bit more wild thinking that we're recording this a day early, so it just feels like everything's moving so fast.

Mack:
Yes, we usually record on Thursdays, as you may know, but today we're recording on Wednesday, Oct. 14. And so keep that in mind when you're listening to this episode. Probably stuff

Stephanie:
Yeah, 'cause it feels

Mack:
is going to happen on these files in the next few days.

Stephanie:
Yeah, it feels like everything changes every day.

Mack:
Well, we're gonna get into zoning bylaw, we're gonna get into referendum and some other stuff, but first we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by the Office of Councillor Michael Janz, which invites you to hear Veronica O. Davis on Oct. 28. Davis is the author of Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities. She will share her vision for a more equitable, people-centred approach to transportation planning. This is also your chance to share your hopes for better transit as council prepares to make budget decisions for the next four years. Proceeds from the event will go to Edmonton Transit Riders. Tickets are available now at michaeljanz.ca slash Veronica Davis. That's michaeljanz.ca slash Veronica Davis. Get yours today.

Mack:
Okay, Stephanie, let's start with the zoning bylaw reaction. There's been a lot of it over the last week since we were at the news conference and heard about the directive. I think it's important to point out that nothing has actually happened yet, right? Like there — the province hasn't even said to city council, thou shalt do this, aside from what they announced in the press conference and the news release. Is that correct?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so I actually did talk to Mayor Andrew Knack today and he said that there's still nothing in paper — on paper that the city must do and the provincial government has indicated that it may take up to three weeks for the city to receive this. So that's almost a month into the three-month deadline. Even on a good day, even in, like, a normal time, it's really hard for city administration to get public hearing reports together. Normally, this can be a process of taking like maybe even a year to get rezoning applications in, let alone a complete change to the infill parts of the zoning bylaw. Okay, so three weeks from now, the city gets the actual directive. You know what else is supposed to be happening in about three weeks? The four-year budget is supposed to be dropping. So at

Mack:
Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie:
the same time that the city is supposed to be making its biggest decision for the next four years, a different biggest decision is going to be coming up too. There's also a really big logistical issue with calendars because something happens at the end of December every year. Lots of people go on holidays.

Mack:
That's right. Christmas break.

Stephanie:
Everything kind of slows down and stops then. The only — and

Mack:
And council doesn't start again usually until almost midway through January, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So basically Knack said that if we were — if the city was going to comply with this three-month deadline, the only available date to have this public hearing for the zoning bylaw would be Jan. 8. And that means due to advertising requirements for public hearings, which is a thing that the city has to do. They have to put out notices you know, a couple weeks before — I'm not sure of the exact day. The only day, like the last day they would have is Dec. 23. I don't think many people are gonna be checking their mail and reading the paper

Mack:
Ha ha ha.

Stephanie:
on Dec. 23, 24, 25, etc. And you know, the city got a lot of flack for a lot of the engagement during the original zoning bylaw stuff going on during the pandemic, online, you know, people had other stuff on their mind. That's, I think, valid critiques. What about having like two weeks of engagement during Christmas?

Mack:
Right. Yeah.

Stephanie:
That also doesn't seem like a very good engagement strategy. Okay. And then of course we get down to the legal challenge that Edmonton City Council finds itself in because there are kind of two rules that they're dealing with right now. When a councillor goes into a public hearing, they must approach it with an open mind. That's why you hear, like if you ever talk to a councillor before a public hearing, they'll say, "Well, I'm approaching it with an open mind, but this is what I think right now, blah blah blah." And then the other — exactly.

Mack:
Yeah. Because they're required to by the Municipal Government Act, right? It says you have to — you can't make your decision ahead of time. You can't go into it knowing how you're gonna vote, in theory. Even though in practice, I mean yeah, okay.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So what are they supposed to do if Dan Williams and Danielle Smith have told them that you must revert to the zoning bylaw as it was before 2024? And then — but then the other thing is if they say, "No, we're not doing this, we're not reverting," because they're voting how they truly feel, which is, I'm sure for a lot of them, it has not changed from the last, you know, from a week ago. I'm sure many of them still support the bylaw as the way it originally stands right now. If they say no, they also can be fired because they are not in compliance with the provincial directive to revert the bylaw. So either way, they're kinda

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
hooped.

Mack:
And so the mayor's been in the news this week saying that he's considering taking the provincial government to court over this, about the lack of directive in writing that administration can work with, but also what you're describing about this, you know, conflict in the Municipal Government Act rules for how they're supposed to approach this. And so maybe that'll go ahead. Maybe there'll be some legal action. Maybe not. But we know that they've called an emergency council meeting for Friday, Oct. 16. So when this episode is coming out into your podcatchers. And I guess it's to assess the legal, financial and logistical implications, which it sounds like there's a lot to unpack there. And so this private — is this a private meeting or a public meeting?

Stephanie:
No, and actually today again when I was scrumming Knack, he was like, "I wanna make it clear that this is gonna be public, out in the open, and we want Edmontonians to be able to tune in or come and see it in real life." Come check out City Hall if you've never been. I will be there. I'll see you there. But yeah, he — it's really important, he says, for Edmontonians to like understand what the process of the next couple months is gonna look like and that's what this meeting is gonna be about. I'm sure there will probably be a private section of the meeting. But overall it's probably gonna be mostly, if not all, public.

Mack:
And I think that aligns with some of the criticism that the mayor levied at the province, right? When he first remarked on the directive last week saying that council does its business out in the open mostly. It's not like cabinet meetings that are behind closed doors at the provincial level. And so it would be bad, I think, if this council meeting were not public. So interesting that he's encouraging people to come and attend, which is a little bit beyond what they would usually do. Okay, so we might have an update on Friday, sometime after Friday, about some of the implications. Maybe we'll get a bit more clarity from administration. Yes, there's a lot of other priorities on the go, but there's a lot of people that work for the City of Edmonton. One person I'm sure can be tasked with starting to track down some of this information. So we'll see what we get. I know we're going to get into some reaction from other councillors and and other, you know, local folks here, Stephanie, but first of all, why not just call the bluff here. Right? I think the mayor's making a bit of a show of the fact that this is a legal predicament that we're gonna be in. There's not a lot of time because we haven't got the directive in writing. There's other stuff going. But just, just call the bluff. Just don't do anything. Rag the puck. The longer that this goes on, the less likely it is that it's gonna actually follow — they're gonna have to follow through on it, right? I obviously am not a lawyer, and I guess this isn't the professional advice that they're receiving from administration or from the lawyers at the City of Edmonton, but why not just delay, delay, delay? Has he — has he commented on any of that?

Stephanie:
So I I straight up asked him at this presser today, "Why don't you just say no and call their bluff?" And he didn't really answer it, you know, being the kind of

Mack:
Ha ha.

Stephanie:
diplomatic person that he is, he didn't kind of take my bait. But

Mack:
Okay.

Stephanie:
but I I agree. I mean, it makes me kind of think of so today, while we're recording this, over in Toronto. Finally, after a two-and-a-half-year-long battle, they actually are taking out those bike lanes. And they did what you're doing is just jam it up in the courts, drag your heels, all that, all that kind of stuff. And I mean, be for real, if the Alberta government actually removed the, you know, seven or eight councillors that I assume would say no to this, at

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
like at least seven or eight, come on. There's no way. Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah, make them follow through on that, right? This is very different than Chestermere, where they've had, some issues with their council and the province has stepped in or another smaller municipality. We're talking about Edmonton and Calgary here, right? Like call their bluff. Is the province actually gonna follow through on that? It would be a huge story if the premier of Alberta chose to remove the mayor, the the democratically elected mayor of Edmonton over not reverting the zoning bylaw parameters to pre-2024. I just don't see maybe this is naive of me, Stephanie, but I don't see a world in which they follow through on that threat.

Stephanie:
So, I I think the same way, but also every day in Alberta, something insane happens, and you just think there's no way. It's kind of like that, there's like this tweet about Donald Trump that's like, "He can't keep getting away with this," they say about the man who keeps getting away with this. Like it is

Mack:
It's true.

Stephanie:
every day something crazy happens in Alberta politics, and I'm like, whoa, never thought that would happen. And then the next day it's like, never thought that would happen. So I don't want to give them any ideas of, "Bet," but yeah.

Mack:
I guess that's true. I never thought we'd be where we are discussing this issue,

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
right? Okay, I want to move into a little bit of reaction because other folks, obviously, aside from the mayor, have let it be known what they think about this. I don't know about you, but it's been a topic of conversation with almost everybody I've run into over the past week. Stephanie, give us a rundown. What have city councillors been saying after the news broke last week?

Stephanie:
So we'll have a bunch of links to social media pages, but several of the councillors have come out saying pulling back from the the infill issue and saying if you're Albertan, you should be concerned. This is deeply concerning because this is a it's an erosion of local democracy, which you know that's kind of what we've been hearing this whole time. I was really interested in what the folks would be saying — what the a little bit more anti-infill councillors would be saying. So you know, not to generalize, but I went and looked at councillor Karen Principe, Thu Parmar, and Mike Elliott for their takes. Councillor Thu Parmar said she was holding a dichotomy of feelings. "On the one hand, it's not ideal to see the provincial government stepping into an area that has traditionally been within municipal jurisdiction, land use and local planning. Decisions about our neighbourhoods are deeply local. I believe municipalities need the ability to thoughtfully balance growth with the character and needs of the communities they serve. At the same time, I hear the frustration from many residents in ward sipiwiyiniwak," and basically saying, "Yeah, I don't really — it's fine." Karen Principe said, "Decisions about Edmonton should ideally be made here by a council that listens to Edmontonians. Provincial intervention should be exceptional. Mechanisms like this exist for a reason, but their use deserves scrutiny." And then she goes into saying how she's always opposed the zoning bylaw. "Today's provincial announcement reinforces the concerns I've raised from day one, and I support a pause to ensure we get this right for the residents of Edmonton." So saying both things. And therefore not really saying anything. And then Mike Elliott says his statement on the provincial direction regarding Edmonton's infill policy. As far as I can see, absolutely no scrutiny of the fact that this is an erosion of local democracy. So interesting from those those three councillors.

Mack:
Yeah, and then I also saw Councillor Jo-Anne Wright, talking to reporters, basically said, "Until they give us more detail about what they want and how they want us to proceed, I'll reserve judgment." And it's like, I think you can apply some judgment here. I don't think this

Stephanie:
Ha ha.

Mack:
is a "reserve judgment" situation. I think this is a "call it what it is," and this is provincial intervention into municipal affairs. I'm not sure I love the "I'll just wait till they give us more details" position.

Stephanie:
Yeah, unless they come out and say, "Well, well, we never meant — we never meant to change the zoning bylaw. We never said that." Unless they come out and do something like that, then I agree with you, Mack.

Mack:
Yeah, so far it's pretty clear what they want the city to do.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
We also heard from Edmonton Neighbourhoods United.

Stephanie:
So Edmonton Neighbourhoods United, ENU, one of the organizations that was right up at the podium with Premier Danielle Smith on their Facebook page. They celebrated the change because it is a win for real estate investors. That's one of the only things that they've posted since this announcement that real estate investors win. And the article they linked to is because it allows for higher profit margins in sought-after neighbourhoods like Glenora, Strathcona, or Parkallen. That's

Mack:
Yeah, we should really be looking out for the real estate investors in all of this.

Stephanie:
it's just like it's so weird, Mack, because I thought that the anti-infill groups were so worried about affordability.

Mack:
Yeah, right.

Stephanie:
But it seems like it's a win for real estate investors.

Mack:
Some members of the business community have

Stephanie:
Okay.

Mack:
been celebrating this for similar reasons, but actually was interesting to see what Doug Griffiths, who's the CEO of Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, had to say. He said businesses look for consistency and to have the rules suddenly change, some of them maybe have made strategic investments. It's going to be a little disconcerting. So not as strong language as I would hope to see, but also just hinting at the fact that instability is bad for business. And this provincial government, he's not saying this, I'm saying this, this provincial government has created a lot of uncertainty over the past couple of years with a variety of its decisions, not just, you know, this one with infill, but think back to the moratorium on renewable energy projects and the uncertainty that that created and the sort of pause in investment that resulted. You know, anytime the government makes these last-minute-seeming decisions to to change really important policies, it's hard for businesses to plan around that. So maybe we'll see more criticism from the business community as the implications of this become more real. You hit — you hit on this last week, right? What about the projects that are already in the process? What happens to those? Do they have to go and redo the rezoning applications or or what have you? So I think there could be real costs here. I'm sure we'll hear more reaction from others in the coming days. And you'll be at that council meeting, like you said, on Friday. So there'll probably be some additional reaction following, you know, whatever we learn at that meeting.

Stephanie:
Yes, just much more to come and there's so many different facets like not only the housing affordability, for example, business stability as we are talking about, investment, so much, so much to unpack here and we will continue to do so.

Mack:
Okay, well, there's another thing happening in the news right now, Stephanie, in Alberta. All of the national news podcasts that I listen to have been focused on the referendum that is coming up. So we are now into advance voting. Started on Oct. 13, following the Thanksgiving weekend. Elections Alberta. This is crazy to me. They expect turnout to reach 80 to 85 per cent.

Stephanie:
I know I saw that too. I was like, whoa.

Mack:
That is shocking if it gets to be that high. I am not as optimistic as they are, but you know,

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
there was more than 650,000 mail-in ballot requests received. That's about 20 per cent of all registered voters. And advance voting is open from Oct. 13 to 17, and they're expecting that there could be long lines. Maybe people waiting up to 90 minutes. Maybe they shouldn't have had 10 separate pieces of paper that you have to put into 10 separate boxes and it would have gone quicker. But anyway, here we are. This is what they're

Stephanie:
no. Yeah.

Mack:
doing. This is such a strange time, I feel like, in Alberta politics.

Stephanie:
I know.

Mack:
I mean, you got people like Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney, former premiers and political rivals, joining forces to say, Alberta should stay in Canada. Really interesting who this issue is bringing together. And then of course, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been in Edmonton and Calgary at rallies and things like that. He's coming back again to the province, I think, later this week. And obviously he's encouraging people to to vote remain on this. But overall, Stephanie, it's hard to to now. I mean, we're already thinking this way, I think, but we get to this referendum, it's Oct. 19. So by the time this episode comes out, advance voting will almost be wrapped up and our next episode comes out, the election will have been done. We're not sure if we'll have results by then. We might have some preliminary results. But it's hard to look at all of this happening and not think about it in the context of the infill discussion and just feel like, what's the point? The province is gonna do what they want anyway, aren't they?

Stephanie:
I don't wanna be too doom and gloom, but you're right. It does feel like no matter what, they'll hold a binding referendum in the future anyways. It won't be for a couple of years because you can't hold one during an election year, I believe. So it won't be in 2027, but it could be in 2028. And I think that even if even if they — this — the separatist side gets 20 per cent of the vote, I think that'll be a strong enough mandate for Danielle Smith. And I think they'll get more than 20 per cent of the

Mack:
I think she has not committed to an amount, right? I think she's when — when she's been talking

Stephanie:
She is not. Mm-hmm.

Mack:
to reporters, she hasn't indicated what level of mandate would be required for her to feel like we should go forward. So I think you're right about that. Well, I was reflecting on this feeling of despair a little bit and and then I remembered that our co-founder Karen Unland talked to Senator Paula Simons recently during Taproot Exchange, which is our members-only livestream, and they discussed a bunch of things on Sept. 25. One of them was the referendum and you know kind of the view of an Alberta senator in Ottawa at this time of discussion of separatism and things like that. And she directly addressed this idea of, you know, feeling this despair and why it's important not to give in to that. So we're gonna share with you a clip from that conversation. Here's Senator Paula Simons with Karen Unland.

Senator Paula Simons:
I have to say, I I was sort of in a slough of existential despair in June. June was not a good month for Paula Simons. I was pretty I was pretty worried about what was happening here. I have to think that whatever the outcome of this referendum, and let us let us be blunt, it's largely performative. I mean, whatever happens — is all the questions are non-binding. And Danielle Smith can do whatever she wants, no matter how we vote. And that may make you feel like, well, why should I bother? So please don't think that way. Please, please go and vote. Please, I can't tell you the number of progressives I've run into recently in my own very crunchy granola neighbourhood, where I live, people say to me, "Well, I'm not going to vote because it just, it just dignifies this. It just, it makes it look like we're treating this legitimately. And the best response is to not vote at all." And so I've pulled my punches like literally, Karen, because I would like to punch people in the throat when they say things like that. But I have not done so because some

Karen Unland:
Right.

Paula:
of these people I like and respect and I have to have an ongoing relationship with them. So

Karen:
Yeah.

Paula:
so I've tried not to punch anybody in the throat. It would be very bad. I — that I

Karen:
Yeah.

Paula:
that I think the Senate ethics officer would caution me against.

Karen:
Probably.

Paula:
So please, if you're a progressive, please don't please don't give up. Please don't think, "It doesn't matter how I vote because the fix is in, the questions are — the questions aren't legitimate. She'll do whatever she wants. They're totally non-binding." That is all 100 per cent true. And that is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to vote for your friends, for your neighbours, for the people who are maybe not going to be able to understand the questions or what the questions could mean for their communities. We all have to — we all have to do our part here. This is, Marty Chan, the writer said to me the other day on social media that he feels like it's when we were in school. And you and I, Karen, were the people in group projects who did all the work while the rest of the group skived off. I know that about you. So and I know that about Marty. So the thing is, this is a group project, and you can't expect that other people will do the work for you so you don't have to. You have to be the Paula, the Karen, the Marty. You have to do the work. Because otherwise, I don't know what's gonna happen. There's a new poll out today, as I said, that says that support for separatism is softening. And while I find that heartening, I'm also nervous that people will think, well, why should I stand in a long line?

Karen:
Yeah.

Paula:
And even the long line discourse is making me nervous. Stop telling everybody how horrible the lines are going to be.

Karen:
Yeah.

Paula:
Tell people instead that they have a whole four — four days after Thanksgiving on which to vote. So, struggle out of your turkey coma and go to an advance poll on the Tuesday, the Wednesday, the Thursday, the Friday before. And those polls are long. I think they open at 9 in the morning and close at 8 at night. So if you can get to one of those advance polls, it will really help. It will really help. So don't don't leave it to the last minute and then say, well, the line was too long.

Karen:
Yeah.

Paula:
Paula Simons is giving you a zero on your assignment if you do that.

Mack:
I feel like she anticipated my feelings today, right? Basically saying it's not a reason to give up just because it might be true that Danielle Smith will do whatever she wants. So I appreciated the little pep talk from Senator Paula Simons. What do you think?

Stephanie:
Yeah, at the end of the — at the end of the day, even if I have to go wait in a line for 90 minutes, bring your headphones, bring a book, fulfill your democratic duty, and then like it's you don't you don't lose anything by voting. And whatever the outcome is, and then whatever Danielle Smith decides the outcome is, we'll deal with that later. But the very least you can do is vote coming up in the — on Monday or even before?

Mack:
And as she pointed out, get to one of the advance polling stations. If you haven't voted yet, by the time you're listening to this, there's still time to do that. And don't worry about the lines. Grab a coffee. You know, I it's not that bad. You'll make it through. And we'll see.

Stephanie:
It's like — it's the very least you can do. Please

Mack:
Absolutely.

Stephanie:
take the L for the evening. Tell your boss, "Sorry, I'm not coming in." Mack, sorry, I'm not coming in. And

Mack:
Ha ha ha.

Stephanie:
like figure it out, it's the least you could do.

Mack:
Okay, well next week we might have some results. We probably won't have that on our show, but we will follow up on the referendum in our following episode, when we know more about that. But of course you can find out what happens in The Pulse next week. Okay, one other thing we wanted to talk about today is ABCs.

Stephanie:
ABC, easy as one, two, three. Sorry. Yeah.

Mack:
A less fun version. Agencies, boards, and commissions. Wah wah.

Stephanie:
I won't.

Mack:
These are the important organizations that the City of Edmonton supports that council funds, that do important work in our community. Some of them are really big and it's kind of crazy to me that they're listed under ABCs, like the Edmonton Public Library, and some of them are a little less we're we're a little less familiar with in the news. Maybe Stephanie, first of all, give us the overview. This was just a report, right, on what these agencies did in 2025 and how much council spent on them, correct?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so they were meeting today on Wednesday, council was meeting to discuss all of this. So in 2025, the city provided $263 million to just over 1,300 recipients. That includes $137 million for operating subsidies for agencies, boards, and commissions, while $126 million supported individuals and then other external organizations. This is kind of wild, but it's only the second year that the ABCs, individuals and organizations have been required to report on outcomes. So a lot of the you know mechanisms are not very robust yet. The data isn't very good according to this report that went to council.

Mack:
Yeah, I do think it is a bit surprising that this is only the second year. Now it's not obviously the second time that these ABCs have had to report to council. There's always been a report to council. There's always been information about their activities as part of the four-year budget discussions and the annual budget adjustments and things like that. But this is a bit more formalized or structured, I guess, of a reporting cycle that had to take place. So some of that funding, as you said, is for operating subsidies, some of it is for external organizations. And I understand there's this thing called council-directed funding that there was quite a sizable bump in this past year, 2025, from $7.4 million in 2024 to $20.1 million in 2025. It's not nothing. It's not huge in the context of the city budget, but it's still a significant — it's a tripling over that time period. Who's the big recipient?

Stephanie:
So I guess nearly half of it, more than $10 million of council-directed funding went to Qualico for its publicly accessible private spaces in its Station Lands development. So that's like just right on the north edge of downtown on 101 Street there. What I what I find interesting about this council-directed funding is that it does not go through any sort of internal, you know, program to ensure consistency, accountability, equity, or transparency. That is from the City of Edmonton report. So yeah, $20 million of it is just like, "Bye."

Mack:
The report says that the funding for Qualico for Station Lands was for this green and walkable public amenities. And I think it says it created 72,000 square feet of public spaces, including Roundhouse Park. I have reported on this development for a long time back when I was blogging and stuff too. It actually came up as a big point of discussion around the time that we were discussing the new arena at Rogers Place because there was this rival galleria project that was to be in the area where Station Lands is. Thankfully that did not go ahead. It was not one of the catalyst projects under the CRL, but development has progressed there, as you say. We did agree, I think, despite our better judgment, to fund a basically gold-plated pedway connection to this development. And, you know, there will be housing here, which I think is important. Like what we actually need downtown is housing. And so housing development here is great. There's EPCOR Tower and there's the Switch currently, with other projects planned. But none of those have come to fruition yet. This is gonna be a long-term, you know, development project. And some of the really important challenges around that space remain unaddressed. I'm thinking of the connections to Chinatown, some of the social service agencies that are immediately behind this, the horrible connection between the Royal Alberta Museum and the land behind it. And then of course that bridge over 97 Street, which remains a problem, even though we are making really good progress on Mary Burlie Park. And if you've been by there recently on 97 Street, it's starting to look really good. So I'm optimistic about what could happen there. But there's a lot of money that has gone into something that isn't really having an impact yet. It hasn't even come to fruition yet. So it's something to keep an eye on for sure.

Stephanie:
That whole area, all of those almost all of those things that you just mentioned, the ambiguous "they" really treat that part of downtown like the alley of downtown. Like it doesn't really

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
matter what it looks like. It's just a place to drive through to get to a parking spot. It's okay if you put your trash back there. It's okay if it's just blank walls and you know, nothing warm and inviting. It's really a shame.

Mack:
Well, we've put in 10 million bucks to hopefully change it, so we'll see if that happens. That's

Stephanie:
Let's make it green and walkable.

Mack:
right. Okay, before we close on this, I thought it'd be fun to look at a few of the other interesting facts and figures, some things that stood out to me when I was reading through the report from the ABCs. So here are some fun things, Stephanie, that I found. Edmonton Unlimited, which puts on Edmonton Startup Week and supports tech startups and things like that in the city. They recorded the number of cups of coffee they served visitors in 2025, which I think is amazing. 29,674 cups of coffee. Works out to about 81 cups of coffee per day for visitors.

Stephanie:
Wow, that's a lot. It's almost as much as I drink. Don't talk to me before I've had my coffee.

Mack:
I drink a lot of coffee, but that's a lot of coffee. Right? I just love that this is one of the metrics that they that they record, right? When

Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah.

Mack:
I I used to I did a blog series a long time ago, actually, Stephanie, where I also tracked the the coffees that I bought, like lattes and things like that that I drank. And the reason I did that is because I'm a nerd, but also because each of those coffees to me represented a real connection. I almost always went for coffee with someone, had a conversation, had that relationship. And so I think that's probably why this figure is in here. It's not just for fun. It's like the there's there's a meaning to why they track the number of coffees, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah,

Mack:
Edmonton Unlimited had also said they supported startups or assisted startups who raised $32 million in grants and equity investment in 2025, which is up from 2024. So that's some nice improvement. Not, I think, as much as what we have seen in Calgary, but still great to see that growing in Edmonton. Okay, another one that caught my eye, Edmonton Public Library. Almost 12.3 million items borrowed and more than five million in-person visits in 2025. They have about 300,000, just under 300,000 active memberships. Those things are all up over the 2024 figures. So our Edmonton Public Library's branches and digital resources continue to be well used. And then they also had a fun metric that I thought was pretty interesting. They tracked the number of wireless sessions. So when you go to the library, you can connect to the free Wi-Fi. 8.6 million wireless sessions in 2025.

Stephanie:
Hm, yeah. Yeah.

Mack:
That's good. People getting free Wi-Fi.

Stephanie:
I love it. I've used it many times.

Mack:
Edmonton Arts Council, they did these green shack shows. They had 145 of them in 2025, more than 6,000 attendees, which is up by almost 50 per cent over 2024. So that's pretty cool. And then they also reported on the number of works of art. They had added eight in 2025, bringing the total to 309. So that's cool. Always good to have more public art in the city, whether you like it or not. I think it's a good thing.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mack:
And then the last one I thought I could mention is EFCL. And so the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. They talked obviously about the number of volunteer hours that they recorded. It was more than 321,000 hours. And they had more than 9,300 volunteers, which is up by a couple of thousand over 2024. So that's cool. Throughout some of the ABC figures there was some sort of nodding, I shall say, Stephanie, at emissions and climate change. And EFCL had a number of those. They said five leagues launched solar pilots in 2025, 15 ran air quality shelters, and 32 leagues logged about 144,000 kilometres of zero-emission travel. So that's pretty cool. I guess that's

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
cycling and rolling like other things that don't take gas or burn fuel.

Stephanie:
Or maybe it's just all Teslas.

Mack:
Could could be, I suppose. You know those community leagues, so rich with — flush with cash. Yeah. On

Stephanie:
Ha ha

Mack:
that note, they estimate 11 per cent of households have a community league membership, which is up slightly actually from the 10 per cent they had in 2024. So community leagues do a lot of great work. If you're not a member of your community league, I encourage you to check it out and potentially get involved.

Stephanie:
I mean, it's like I think between $5 and $25 and you get discounts to things I know some people who become a member just so they can get a really discounted gym membership at the city rec centres. Yeah.

Mack:
Totally. Yeah. There's very good perks for community league members. Okay, well, that's our show for this week, Stephanie. Get out and vote if you haven't already. We'll of course have information about the results as we learn them over the course of the next week at Taproot. If you're subscribed to The Pulse, our weekday newsletter, that'll be the best place to get that information. One of the things we published comes out on Monday. It's On the Agenda. A look at what's coming up at city council. Stephanie, you think there might be some interesting stuff coming up next week.

Stephanie:
Yeah, there definitely is. There's a ton of — it's gonna be a juicy week and the reports are already available if you wanna be a nerd and go read them. A few highlights, an update on the industrial investment action plan. So how are we doing with attracting industrial businesses to set up here so that we can ching ching have lower taxes for residents, allegedly. And the — and urban planning committee, we've got the Belgravia traffic assessment. If you ever drive around Belgravia area during rush hour, it is scary. It is not fun. And now the city has some ideas for how to fix it. Will it make it better

Mack:
Interesting.

Stephanie:
or will it just make it worse by encouraging even more people to drive through there? Stay tuned. And community and public services committee, a lot of interesting stuff with really related to like social services. There's gonna be a report about naloxone for transit inspectors, a community bylaw court. So you know, that's instead of fining folks 25 bucks every time they're caught doing drugs instead, let's bring them in and try to find more of a you know, well-rounded solution so that they don't need to do that anymore. Lots of interesting stuff. Stay tuned for more reporting on all that.

Mack:
Okay, that'll be in On the Agenda. We will have another episode of Speaking Municipally next week. I'm gonna be out of town and away, so we're recording that one slightly in advance. But we do have a fun interview slated for that that Stephanie has done. So stay tuned for that. And then at our next episode, I'm sure we'll break down all of the further developments from this public meeting on Friday, the referendum, and what council and committees have decided. Until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.