Prairie Sky Gondola | 76.2m | ?s | Prairie Sky | DIALOG

What do you think of this project?

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occidentalcapital said:
Can someone explain what just happened?
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As I understand it council determined they would not accept the terms of the lease arrangement for the lands required for Gondola towers and stations which were agreed upon in principle by the proponent (Prairie Sky) and city administration.

The factors making this decision centred a lot around the fact they have yet to conduct meaningful indigenous consultation which mayor Sohi compared to a infrastructure project he worked on as a federal minister. The council agreed they will be setting a new bar for consultation efforts prior to project approvals.

There was plenty of mentioning of just because we are saying no to this doesn’t mean we don’t want people to bring forward innovative ideas but from my layman’s perspective it does seem like a pretty big barrier to entry holding all private projects to a similar standard to government funded projects where these parameters are much more palatable. At the same time there are certainly plenty of private endeavours that undertake these timely and costly efforts without any guarantees (non government owned pipelines come to mind).

I tuned out at the last bit but it sounded like councillor Paquette was proposing an increased consultation effort for other initiatives looking to break ground in the Rossdale area such as touch the water.
 
I suspect that the sacred land to indigenous tribes is likely why there's been so little development in West Rossdale for at least a century, and that this will not only kill the gondola but other future development opportunities in West Rossdale. I wish the folks at Prairie Sky Gondola the best of luck with their projects in Red Deer and other cities.
 
One thing I will note about this project, unrelated to matters of Indigenous consultation and burial grounds, is a lot of Edmontonians very clearly have a very vocal disdain for any project of this innovative variety. All I've seen about it outside of this forum is endless uninformed rejection with zero attempt to even take two seconds to look into what exactly was being proposed here, and that has been the most disappointing part of all. Hell, if WEM was proposed today it'd never even get a sniff of a chance to get off the ground.

I know this sort of stuff happens everywhere all over, but man, Edmonton is just such an incredibly risk averse city.
 
northlands said:
One thing I will note about this project, unrelated to matters of Indigenous consultation and burial grounds, is a lot of Edmontonians very clearly have a very vocal disdain for any project of this innovative variety. All I've seen about it outside of this forum is endless uninformed rejection with zero attempt to even take two seconds to look into what exactly was being proposed here, and that has been the most disappointing part of all. Hell, if WEM was proposed today it'd never even get a sniff of a chance to get off the ground.

I know this sort of stuff happens everywhere all over, but man, Edmonton is just such an incredibly risk averse city.
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Once again Edmonton demonstrates that it is its own worst enemy and deserves every bit the reputation it has. Edmonton has been and continues to be a city that finds every way to not do get something done, or to get something done with very little imagination or vision, while other cities strive to find solutions to challenges to get stuff done.

What a small minded group of fckin morons on council.
 
I do wonder how this project got all the way up to phase 3 without certain questions being raised much earlier in the process. The gondola project could have been a victim of bad timing though. Sensitivity to indigenous issues/ concerns has heightened considerably from the time the framework for this project was approved back in 2018.
I really like this project but wished that there was more engagement with the Treaty 6 and 7 First Nations right from the start. That part of the process just seemed lacking for a project that was approved four years ago. Didn't have to cost much for initial engagement either with current digital meeting technology. Presentations could have been made and although not all, many questions could have been answered virtually with a plan to meet physically at a later date. ,That may have looked a lot better in front of council.

Opposition from the public of this project was mind blowing though. Regardless, I hope PSG doesn't give up on this one.
 
This was a very contentious debate, and Council had no easy decision here. This will be controversial, but I am supportive of engaging more with Indigenous Nations before proceeding further. This is what Council approved:
Council.PNG


It sounds pretty wholistic to me, and encompasses city strategies that someone else here pointed out. To me, this debate brings to mind the Oka Crisis/Kanesatake Resistance, where the Quebec town of Oka tried to expand its golf course on traditional Kanesatake burial grounds. First Nations resistors were derided as opponents of progress simply because they didn't want their ancestors' graves to be torn up and developed over by a golf course.

This is not as black and white; I am aware that some Indigenous leaders have spoken in favour of the gondola. But others have genuine concerns, and I think it's perfectly valid for council to say "Hey there, Edmonton has made some big mistakes in the past, but it's not too late to take a step back and try to break these colonial cycles."

I am still pro-gondola, I still want it to happen. But I want it to happen right. These sorts of things have been going on as long as colonial governments existed in Canada; traditional and sacred grounds were encroached upon - even burial grounds were built on - because settler projects were seen as inevitable marks of progress that were acceptable as long as the benefits to settler society outweighed the harms to Indigenous Peoples.

Edmonton has a chance to be a leader in Canada by doing something different here. If we want the Rossdale area to succeed in a way that we can be proud of, and that lets our children enjoy it with a clean conscious, then it is important to get consultations right and done in good faith, so that these debates around colonialism don't get baked into the development's DNA. I hope that when the time comes, the city steps up and supports PSG in this endeavour, rather than making them undertake it completely at their expense. I feel like that's a possibility, given the scope of the motion that passed.
 
The problem I have is that someone can now say their great great great grandparent died where a project that is beneficial to the city as a whole is planned to be built - killing the project.
Are ghosts from the past going to effect every decision we make? Where do we draw the line on this? Are we allowed to physically move graveyards (this includes non-natives graveyards)?
 
It's clear that more significant, meaningful consultation with indigenous folks was not done prior to this land agreement. Sohi basically said there are other projects that have done it and got buy-in.

That said, when you're trying to do a private development like this it might not be possible to have the resources to do all the consultation required. It was probably the right move for Councillor Paquette to get the City to do more consultation through Touch The Water, West Rossdale Business Plan, etc.

What is lost in this is that this was supposed to be a fun, exciting project that everyone in the City could get behind. Since winning the Edmonton Project, it doesn't seem to have gone that way. I do wonder why. It can't just be due to the hurdles of developing in Rossdale.
 
itom987 said:
The problem I have is that someone can now say their great great great grandparent died where a project that is beneficial to the city as a whole is planned to be built - killing the project.
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I personally disagree. I think that if we are to truly get past our colonial ways, and abandon practices that have been recognized as genocidal, that includes understanding that Indigenous concerns run far deeper than petty complaints about where so-and-so died. If a foreign power occupied Canada and started building on graveyards where your ancestors are buried, I'm sure you wouldn't be too pleased with that either.

And keep in mind, the voices we heard in opposition to this weren't because they didn't want any development there whatsoever. They're asking for a genuine seat at the table as equals, rather than to have a box checked off, and they want to ensure that there's nobody buried on the sites that are built on. I don't think that's asking too much.
 
One of the concerns expressed was about the fares as per Coun. Salvador and noted by Coun. Janz.
"... I am not confident that the fee structure will be fair, equitable, and affordable... While council has been provided verbal answers concerning the rates frequent riders would pay versus tourists, the reality is, those fares could change at any time over the course of the next 90 years in order to generate additional revenue."

The Portland gondola is $6 return trip and PSG was suggesting about $2 one way for locals.
Our high level street car is $7 return trip for an adult. How is that considered more fair, equitable and affordable in relation to the gondola? And is that high level Streetcar fare locked in for 90 years? I mean what if they raise the fee?

I love the streetcar so not complaining about the fee, just bringing it up because it seems a different standard is being applied to PSG from council in regards to affordability/equity?
 
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