Thank you to the readers of Vue Weekly for voting daveberta.ca as one of the city’s Best Local Affairs Blogs in the annual Best of Edmonton list for 2018.
I’m thrilled this website was tied for first place with Mack Male’s excellent mastermaq.ca blog, which has long been a solid standard source of information in Edmonton’s online media community. And congratulations to the wonderful Linda Hoang for placing as the first runner-up in this category. I encourage readers of this blog to check out both of these sites.
The annual Best of Edmonton list also includes categories for local politicians, including some who are running for re-election in next year’s provincial elections.
Premier Rachel Notley was voted Best Politician and Best MLA, with Mayor Don Iveson as the first runner-up in the Best Politician category. Edmonton-Centre MLA David Shepherd and Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA Marlin Schmidt were runner-ups in the Best MLA category.
Don Iveson with his wife, Sarah Chan, and their children on the night of his re-election in 2017.
Photo: Don Iveson celebrates his re-election victory with his family (photo: Twitter)
As expected, Don Iveson was re-elected Mayor of Edmonton in a huge landslide with 141,182 votes – 72 percent of the total votes cast in that race – increasing his total vote count from the 2013 election. Placing a very, very distant second was perennial candidate and pro-smoker advocate Don Koziak, who earned 6.7 percent.
Jon Dziadyk
Of the City Council races, the most notable ended up being the surprise defeat of incumbent councillor Dave Loken in Ward 3, who was unseated by Jon Dziadyk by 464 votes. Karen Principe placed a strong third-place in this race. Loken, who was running for his third-term on council, becomes the first incumbent councillor to lose re-election since Don Iveson defeated Mike Nickel in 2007.
In neighbouring Ward 7, Kris Andreychuk ran an incredible first-time campaign placing 165 votes behind three-term councillor Tony Caterina. Caterina saw his share of the vote drop from 42 percent in 2013 to 33 percent in this year’s election.
Three new councillors were elected in Wards without incumbents. In Ward 4, Aaron Paquette finished first in a twelve-person race with 23 percent of the vote. Sarah Hamilton earned 35 percent of the vote in a nine-person race in Ward 5 to succeed retiring one-term councillor Michael Oshry. And in Ward 9, Tim Cartmell was elected with 41 percent of the vote over four challengers.
Sarah Hamilton
Running what appeared to be a stealth re-election campaign in Ward 8, three-term Councillor Ben Henderson was re-elected with 36 percent of the vote. This is a 38 percent drop in support from 2013, when he was re-elected with 74 percent of the vote. Challengers Kirsten Goa placed second with 22 percent, James Kosowan with 19 percent and Eli Schrader with 11 percent.
In the Public School Board races, Michael Janz was re-elected in a landslide in Ward F. With 15,671 votes and 71.4 percent of the total vote, Janz earned the most votes of any trustee and council candidate and the highest percentage of any candidate in this election except Don Iveson.
In Ward C, Shelagh Dunn earned 45 percent of the vote, unseating incumbent Orville Chubb, who earned 18 percent of the vote. In Ward D, former CBC broadcaster Trisha Estabrooks was elected with 44 percent.
In Ward G, Bridget Stirling appeared to be in a tough race for re-election, but she defeated conservative activist Tyler Duce by a 33 percent margin. Duce’s campaign had broadcast a robocall endorsement from former Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA David Dorward in the final weekend of the campaign.
Former CBC reporter Trisha Estabrooks announced tonight at The Bellevue that she will run for Edmonton Public School Board in Ward D. A long-time local CBC reporter, Estabrooks is now a freelance journalist and co-host of The Broadcast, a podcast about women and politics. She is being endorsed by Ray Martin, who has served as trustee for the area since 2013 and is not seeking re-election. Local advocate and Alberta Avenue resident Adam Millie is also running in Ward D.
The current chairperson of the Edmonton Public School Board, Michelle Draper, is running for re-election in Ward B.
Bridget Stirling is running for re-election in Ward G. Stirlng was first elected in a 2015 by-election to replace former trustee Sarah Hoffman, who had been elected as the MLA for Edmonton-Glenora and now serves as Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.
Local photography business owner Mary-ann Fleming is running for election in Ward I.
Edmonton Catholic School District
Outspoken trustee Patricia Grell is running for re-election in Ward 71.
The current chairperson of the Edmonton Catholic School District, Laura Thibert, is running for re-election in Ward 77.
Trustee Debbie Engel is running for re-election in Ward 74. Engel was first elected to the Catholic board in 1998.
Trustee Larry Kowalczyk is not seeking re-election in Ward 72.
Edmonton City Council
Liz John West is the latest candidate to enter the race in City Council’s Ward 7. Also recently announced in Ward 7 is Andrzej Gudanowski.
Michael Oshry has dropped out of the city council race in Ward 5. Oshry was first elected in 2013 and briefly considered a run for the Progressive Conservative Party leadership in 2016.
If you know any other candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for Mayor, Council, or School Board and are not on this list, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I will add them. Thank you!
We started this podcast because we believe that 100 years after some women won the right to vote in Alberta, there are challenges to figure out, successes to celebrate, inequalities that need to be exposed, and stories to discover. We hope to learn as much as you through our work on this show.
I’m thrilled this website was tied for first place with Mack Male’s excellent mastermaq.ca blog, which has long been a solid standard source of information in Edmonton’s online media community. And congratulations to the wonderful Linda Hoang for placing as the first runner-up in this category. I encourage readers of this blog to check out both of these sites.
