My Balanced and Bold Plan for Edmonton
I am presenting you with a comprehensive platform framework — one that’s informed by what I’ve heard from passionate Edmontonians, and my experience from nearly 20 years as a public servant and eight years as an entrepreneur.
Here are the four core pillars of my balanced and bold plan for Edmonton: A Vibrant and Connected City
A prosperous city is a vibrant and connected city. It’s time for Edmonton to stop being a best-kept-secret. Let’s connect residents to new jobs, new ideas, and new ways of thinking and living by becoming a city testbed for innovation. Let’s support our professional arts and culture community by enhancing our city parks with affordable and sustainable performance infrastructure. Let’s bring back our thriving downtown core by making it safe, accessible, and welcoming.
Economic Recovery and Growth
The uncertainty created by the pandemic means more Edmontonians than ever are struggling to make ends meet. It’s time to reinvigorate and recommit to growing our local economy, to think big on innovation and technology, and to explore high potential industries and sectors like rare earth metals, as well as agriculture, forestry, and aerospace technology. We need to keep our professional sports teams and aspiring athletes here, and leverage our world class facilities to attract new, major sporting events. We need to get Edmonton’s taxes under control so our city remains competitive.
Core Services and Maintenance
One of a city government’s basic duties is to deliver the essential core services you expect. We need a client-service culture in our City Administration, empowering public servants to take calculated risks and make better decisions. We need to fix our city’s chronic construction bottlenecks by improving construction coordination, and implementing strict benchmarking measures and nighttime construction so we can keep Edmonton moving. We should expedite our permitting processes by implementing deemed permitting. Let’s protect and preserve our neighbourhood renewal program — a program I helped establish when I was a Councillor — so your streets, sidewalks, and gutters get the upgrades they need when they need them.
Supports for our Most Vulnerable
Vulnerable Edmontonians are not a uniform group facing the same pressures. We need to recognize them as a collection of individuals with diverse needs and meet them where they are. It’s time to review our approach to funding to ensure we’re rewarding collaboration and delivering good outcomes to these residents. It’s time to bring back community policing, and partner with Edmonton Police Services and agencies to ensure all Edmontonians feel safe in our city.