News   Apr 03, 2020
From the Editor: A Message to Our Readers
 7.3K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
Topping Off March 2020: What's Hot on SkyriseEdmonton
 7.5K     0 
News   Apr 02, 2020
News Roundup for April 2, 2020
 2.6K     0 

Municipal Politics

CaptainBL said:
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...say-proponents

Not sure if this is the right thread for this but I will post it anyway. Article about the Calgary-Banff railway proposal and the boosting interest it is getting from the city, the province and the fed. Great for Calgary but I wish there were rainmakers or leaders in Edmonton with enough vision to boost a grand idea of this caliber. And I don't mean exactly like Calgary gets rail, Edmonton should get rail, but having the vision for such a grand idea is something that just seems to get pushed and marketed so much more in Calgary than Edmonton. And it of course it helps that the provincial government is involved in everything and anything Calgary recently (company relocation announcements, airline routes, downtown investments, meetings with Trudeau in Calgary, and more), but its just a shame that grand ideas like this don't seem to happen in Edmonton to a similar or more extent. Especially since we already have Via to Jasper, and how many people even know that? Rarely have I seen Via Edmonton-Jasper marketed as a tourist draw.

Has there been anyone slated in this upcoming election so far that has communicated a true vision of where they see Edmonton and want to take Edmonton into the future?
Click to expand...
Relevant? Yes, it does bring up some municipal issues related to Edmonton.

First of all, lest we forget, we already have rail service to Jasper and have had for years. However, the VIA rail station is not well located, so it provides little boost to our economy and is inconvenient for both local travelers and tourists.

Lesson one - if you want to encourage more rail use, make it more convenient. Lesson two - if you want a more positive image and promote more tourism, make it more convenient.

I have yet to find any local politician or city councilor in Edmonton who pays more that lip service to tourism development or really "gets" it. This is one reason our image still sucks. Could at least one current mayoral candidate prove me wrong? That is my challenge to all of them!

Fortunately, Calgary still has us to learn from our mistakes and try to do things better.
 
kcantor said:
kenney is worse for edmonton than klein. klein only really cared for calgary and edmonton never mattered much to him but all of alberta did and we were part of that. kenney seems to have a spiteful vendetta against anything and everything edmonton and doesn’t even attempt to hide it. in his mind we’re alberta’s version of justin trudeau - to be defeated at all costs. :(
Click to expand...

It is sort of different, Klein was a former Calgary mayor who lived most of his life there and so was very emotionally attached to promote his home city. Of course, the city Kenney spent most of his career in was Otttawa, so no such attachment to Calgary.

However Kenney realizes, Edmonton does not support him and likely never will, whereas he believes he still has chance still in Calgary (although I am not that sure that will work out for him).
 
And to that point above, Notley will also be focusing much of her attention on Calgary because they may possibly feel Edmonton is in the bag and they can't win without YYC - unless they can claim more of rural Alberta, which doesn't seem likely.
 
David A said:
However Kenney realizes, Edmonton does not support him and likely never will, whereas he believes he still has chance still in Calgary (although I am not that sure that will work out for him).
Click to expand...
Agreed. Kenney knows he has rural Alberta wrapped around his finger, and since Edmonton does not support him, he's going to try and build Calgary as much as possible within the next two years since it is his only hope (hence probably partly why he wanted to get the Stampede going so badly). He is ensuring that Calgary gets their green line and will invest heavily there, in hopes people will forget the "Covid" years of his term where him and his cabinet were involved in scandals (the whole debacle with his caucus members travelling during one of the worst peaks in the pandemic) and made these awful cuts to health care workers, screwing our education curriculum, being mostly silent on ethical issues such as the increased Islamophobia, Asian hate crimes, confederate flags flying on farms, and the residential schools. He is wasting tax money on pointless "war rooms" which make him look like he is "standing up" to Ottawa, but in reality he has zero leverage and can't convince the Feds to do anything. Not to mention banking everything on a Trump victory and losing money on the cancelled Keystone. Kenney tries to cater to both sides of the conservative spectrum (those who are further right, socially conservative, and anti-mask/pro-freedom, sometimes even racist, and those who are more centrist and fiscally conservative but socially progressive) and is not only screwing himself, but the Federal Conservative Party has this same issue within their own party. He is acting as a populist to gain votes when in reality, he himself is ironically just another corrupt elite who is only concerned with garnering votes and his own self-interests. I'm afraid that if Kenney invests in Calgary for the next two years, people there will start to forget about his first two years because I feel like people generally tend to think about a politician's recent actions during an election rather than the whole term or the earlier years. It's like a "what have they done for me lately" mindset. I could be wrong, and I sure hope I am because if Kenney somehow gets in again, Edmonton could be finished. If we elect Sohi, he can potentially help us gather support and funding from the Feds (assuming they are still here for two more years). But who knows which government we will have after 2023.
 
I worry this could degenerate into a woe is me type of discussion. Yes, politicians will generally focus more on where the votes are up for grabs, but the world is more complex that that.

There are things we can do to improve or ameliorate our situation within the current provincial political environment and who is in power provincially and their feelings is not the end all and be all of everything.

I do think that Sohi's experience and Federal connections could be helpful, but I think Edmonton also needs to get beyond the mentality of focusing on the provincial government so much. Yes, we are the capital, but there is also a very large private sector here too. If we don't have a provincial government that is very supportive, maybe we need to focus more on growth from that instead.
 
^

"Today, the U of A is shrinking. Over the last two and a half years, the UCP has cut its base operating grant by roughly 25 per cent or $170 million, leading to a massive restructuring campaign, 800 staff positions eliminated through layoffs and attrition, higher tuition and cancelled classes.

"The number of professors now available to teach in the faculty of arts has fallen roughly to what it was in 1995, after the Klein cuts, according to tracking by U of A political science professor Laurie Adkin. And as for staff morale, well, the board of governors threatened to force staff to retroactively repay wages during contract negotiations."

https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion...erta-make-for-a-rapidly-shrinking-institution

unfortunately, it's pretty hard for the city to ameliorate this kind of willful destruction...
 
You are right about the U of A. However, that is not because a UCP vendetta against Edmonton, sadly the U of A has its own place on Kenney's list of enemies.

Although it is an Edmonton issue, I am not sure what any municipal election candidate could do about that.
 
David A said:
You are right about the U of A. However, that is not because a UCP vendetta against Edmonton, sadly the U of A has its own place on Kenney's list of enemies.

Although it is an Edmonton issue, I am not sure what any municipal election candidate could do about that.
Click to expand...
A candidate with better relationships in Ottawa can very well push for more federal funding to offset at least part of Kenney's butchering.
 
David A said:
First of all, lest we forget, we already have rail service to Jasper and have had for years. However, the VIA rail station is not well located, so it provides little boost to our economy and is inconvenient for both local travelers and tourists.

Lesson one - if you want to encourage more rail use, make it more convenient. Lesson two - if you want a more positive image and promote more tourism, make it more convenient.
Click to expand...
Speaking of convenience, the Canada Line you're referring to is meant to be more of a destination in itself, rather than a means of getting to a destination. Since Via doesn't own the right-of-way, their trains face a lot of delays while waiting for freight trains to pass by. I wouldn't directly compare what Calgary and Banff might get to what we have here, since the former will presumably have its own right-of-way and thus be much more of a commuter route compared to the Canada Line.
 
I think my general point was that they (Calgary) are improving on what we have, so yes, certainly not completely comparable. Very good point about the dedicated line - that is something additional that needs to be noted.

However, it is not like we have no train service, we were actually ahead of them on this for 20 years. My most important point is we need to improve on what we have

I can only hope that Calgary getting something right is a needed kick in the pants for Edmonton to get its act together on tourism. So again, I bring it back to those running for office - do you get it?
 
ChazYEG said:
A candidate with better relationships in Ottawa can very well push for more federal funding to offset at least part of Kenney's butchering.
Click to expand...
It would genuinely be an interesting scenario where Edmonton gets a mayor (maybe Sohi) that is essentially a direct link to the Feds. It could definitely be easier for us to get a larger share of the Federal Government Public Service jobs, etc and federal funding to essentially make Edmonton a wholly Liberal/NDP voting city (which it already does, vote splitting just means CPC just gets pluralities in Edmonton, rather than majorities) in the next decade or so, breaking apart the "Conservative Alberta" perception.

I'm excited to see what they do throw at Edmonton when that scenario happens.
 
Kosy123 said:
It would genuinely be an interesting scenario where Edmonton gets a mayor (maybe Sohi) that is essentially a direct link to the Feds. It could definitely be easier for us to get a larger share of the Federal Government Public Service jobs, etc and federal funding to essentially make Edmonton a wholly Liberal/NDP voting city (which it already does, vote splitting just means CPC just gets pluralities in Edmonton, rather than majorities) in the next decade or so, breaking apart the "Conservative Alberta" perception.

I'm excited to see what they do throw at Edmonton when that scenario happens.
Click to expand...
I would LOVE to see this happen. Get Edmonton away from the CPC and, hopefully, Alberta from the UCP.
 
I think the most direct link to the Feds would be a Federal MP. A mayor with good connections would help and could be a quite bonus, but without the first it wouldn't count for so much.

I get that we are looking for someone to save us, but I think we have to save ourselves by relying more on our own skill and ingenuity and less on outside political benefactors.
 
David A said:
I think the most direct link to the Feds would be a Federal MP. A mayor with good connections would help and could be a quite bonus, but without the first it wouldn't count for so much.

I get that we are looking for someone to save us, but I think we have to save ourselves by relying more on our own skill and ingenuity and less on outside political benefactors.
Click to expand...
It's not a matter of looking for a savior. Politics play, and will always play, a major role in the destiny of any society and its respective levels or government and organization.
I agree that we need a Liberal MP with enough pull with the feds, though.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top