With less than a year to go until the 2021 municipal elections, candidates are stepping up to run for Edmonton City Council.
The big unanswered question about the October 18, 2021 election is whether incumbent Mayor Don Iveson will seek re-election for a third-term. Iveson was first elected in 2013 and won re-election with 73.6 per cent of the vote in 2017. When I asked about his plans for the election on a recent episode of the Daveberta Podcast, Iveson said he wasn’t yet ready to announce his intentions for 2021.
Former Economic Development Edmonton vice-president Cheryl Watson is the first candidate to throw her hat into the mayor contest. Rumoured to be planning or considering a run for mayor are current councillors Andrew Knack and Mike Nickel, as well as former city councillor Kim Krushell.
Also rumoured to be considering a run is former Member of Parliament Amarjeet Sohi, who previously served on city council from 2007 to 2015.
Newly redrawn Ward boundaries will also come with new Indigenous names, a first for a large Canadian city. The new boundaries and new names will be initially confusing for many Edmontonians, but I am hopeful that the City of Edmonton will engage the public in an education campaign explaining the meaning of the new names and the role they play in reconciliation.
By my count, the candidates who have already announced their plans to run are:
- Glynnis Lieb is running in Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi. Lieb is the Executive Director of iSMSS in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta.
- Keren Tang and Shamair Turner have announced their plans to run in the new Karhiio ward. Tang was a candidate in Ward 11 in the 2017 election, where she placed second and earned 26.7 per cent of the vote. Turner is a first time candidate and former Vice President and Account Executive at Aon Risk Solutions.
- Cori Longo and Caroline Matthews are running in the Metis ward. Longo is a former postal worker and Registered Nurse who has worked as the Alberta regional representative for the Canadian Labour Congress. Matthews is the former Director of Recruitment for the University of Alberta’s MBA program and appears to have been endorsed by Edmonton-Greisbach Conservative MP Kerry Diotte, who is pictured campaigning with her in photos on social media.
- Community organizer Adrian Bruff is running in the O-day’min ward, which encompasses most of the central core neighbourhoods of the city.
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Michael Janz (source: EPSB) Kirsten Goa has announced her plans to run in the papastew ward. Goa placed second in Ward 8 in the 2017 election, earning 23 per cent of the vote. Also rumoured to be considering running in this new ward is Edmonton Public School Trustee Michael Janz. Janz was first elected to the school board in 2010 and was re-elected in a landslide in 2017.
- Cody Bondarchuk announced his plans to run in the new tastawiyiniwak (ᑕᐢᑕᐃᐧᔨᓂᐊᐧᐠ) ward. Known locally as the “Robin Hood of Chicken Nuggets,” Bondarchuk works as a constituency assistant for Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview New Democratic Party MLA Deron Bilous.
I am once again tracking candidates who have announced their plans to run for Mayor, City Council and School Board in Edmonton. If I am missing anyone on the list, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com or post a comment and let me know. Thanks!
Walters not seeking re-election
Ward 10 Councillor Michael Walters is so far the only incumbent to officially announce he will not seek re-election in next year’s vote. A well-known community organizer involved with groups like the Greater Edmonton Alliance, Walters was first elected to council in 2013 and was re-elected in 2017. He previously ran for the Alberta Party in Edmonton-Rutherford in 2012 and for the NDP nomination in Edmonton-Norwood ahead of the 2001 election.
4 replies on “T-Minus 11 months: Candidates stepping up to run for Edmonton City Council”
Some of the new names are a bit a long and not easy for English speakers to get used to, but hopefully we will get the hang of it and I agree there is an important educational aspect here. It can be an important connection to a part of our culture and history too which has been often overlooked. I think having words as names also might be better in the long term than the generic and occasionally shifting ward numbers which don’t mean much to most people.
One of the disappointments of the last election was the limited number of women elected. Years ago we had a much more balanced council, so hopefully we can get back to that, or even do better. There already seem to be some good candidates like Kirsten Goa and Keren Teng and several other promising ones too, so hopefully this is a start.
Are the indigenous names finalized? I reached out to Caroline Matthew’s after receiving her pamphlet and noticing it refers to ward 6 exclusively. her campaign replied that the ward name is officially ward 6 and the indigenous names won’t be voted on until Dec 31. I found that odd given most everyone else is using these names already.
This should be an interesting municipal election. I wonder if the voter turnout will be stronger than it has been in previous municipal elections. We shall wait and see what transpires.
I think turnout will be higher, especially if vaccinations have taken place by then.
Included in the municipal election will be a couple of Jason Kenney’s pet projects, two meaningless items on the ballot. One will be the senate election, which rightly never seems to generate any interest.
The other item will be on federal equalization. Given that its outcome is as meaningless as the senate election, I can see how it may wind up being an unofficial vote of confidence in Jason Kenney’s leadership.