Speaking Municipally

Edmonton city councillors debated changes to the zoning bylaw to regulate lodging houses … if they can figure out what they are. Plus, the city has started cracking down on illegal downtown surface parking lots, and we get excited for the Fringe Festival.

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (00:31) - Rain in June
  • (05:09) - Ad: Taste of Edmonton
  • (05:44) - Canada Day
  • (06:55) - Lodging houses
  • (17:19) - New towing lot
  • (19:30) - Downtown parking lots
  • (26:33) - Fringe Festival
  • (31:21) - Scheduling notes
  • (33:10) - Close

Here are the relevant links for this episode:

Rain in June
Canada Day
Lodging houses
New towing lot
Downtown parking lots
Fringe Festival
This episode is brought to you by Taste of Edmonton. This year, the popular 11-day festival runs July 16 to 26, offering a delicious sample of Edmonton's finest restaurants, arts, and culture. Presale tickets are available online now until July 14th, or at select retail locations until July 15th. By purchasing ahead, you'll save $10 per sheet of 40 tickets. Learn more

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Creators and Guests

Host
Mack Male
Co-Founder and CEO of Taproot Publishing Inc.
Host
Stephanie Swensrude
Stephanie is a curator and reporter at Taproot Edmonton. She attended NAIT's radio and television program and has worked at CBC, CFJC in Kamloops, and 630 CHED.

What is Speaking Municipally?

Taproot Edmonton presents a weekly discussion on key stories in municipal politics. We pay attention to City Council so you don't have to! Join us as we delve into conversations about the context surrounding decisions made at City Hall.

Mack:
Schrödinger's lodging house. This week, councillors debated changes to the zoning bylaw to regulate lodging houses, if they can figure out what they are.

Stephanie:
Plus, the city started cracking down on illegal downtown surface parking lots.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, Episode 363. We are officially into July now, Stephanie, which means we can look back on the month of June as officially the rainiest June ever in Edmonton.

Stephanie:
Yeah. After a few weeks, I just, like, genuinely lost hope. You know, I was like, "I don't think the sun is coming back ever again," but it's very beautiful out today. It almost feels like I don't really I got used to the rain, and I'm like, "Eh, it's hot. Eh." I don't know. I'll never be satisfied.

Mack:
Just can't please you. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I mean, I was watching the World Cup games, and all the ones from Vancouver, it was beautiful and sunny.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And here it was rainy and gray, and it's like, this feels like it's flipped from what reality should be like normally.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
But yeah, we got a lot of rain. Although in some ways, not that much rain. All right, I thought it'd be fun to just look at some of the numbers here 'cause I think that's kind of interesting. So we had 262 millimeters of rain in June, which everyone is saying shattered the previous record from June 1914, which was 217 millimeters. So quite a bit more rain in the month of June. And you might be hearing that, "262 sounds like a lot. Is that the rainiest month ever, not just June?" And it's not quite, but it's close. Apparently the rainiest month ever was about 283 millimeters of rain back in July 1901. So, you know, we're close to that, but not quite there. One of my favorite blogs, Stephanie, is Edmonton Weather Nerdery.

Stephanie:
Oh, love it.

Mack:
He just posts about the weather all the time, and all these stats, it's, like, really gets to my nerdiness, right? The visualizations and all that great stuff. So I pulled out a few things. June and July average around 15 days of rain. This year in June, we had 20 rainy days.

Stephanie:
Oh, my God.

Mack:
So not actually that many more than average, which is interesting. But in a full year, we get about 430 millimeters of rain, and June had about 2/3 of that. So depending on how you look at it was a pretty wet month. It certainly felt like it.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I guess ignoring the stats, like you said, it just felt like the sun was never gonna come back, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah, and I mean, like, define a rainy day. Is a rainy day, like, an hour or two of rain at 9:00 PM, or is it an entire day where you can't go outside or else you'll get soaked to the bone? Like, I think those are…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Both the same, so that's where that difference kind of comes in.

Mack:
Absolutely. Yeah, it feels very different. Okay, we're at about 380 millimeters then of rain for the year so far, and I also love that on the Weather Nerdery post for June, he kind of puts this into perspective. He says, "That might feel impressive, but at the end of June, Halifax and St. John's both had over 700 millimeters of rain, more than double the amount of rain that we've had." Now, I know that's just typical of where they are, and…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And they're on the coast and all of that, but still, it's sort of reassuring to know that as wet as it was, it could be worse.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Well, also, like, I totally agree. I genuinely love the Edmonton Weather Nerdery blog and also his, like, social media accounts, Reddit and everything. And I say this with so much love, but it's so funny how every time there's a big weather event, like it's really cold or we get a bunch of snow, I'll go on and check, and he's like, "It actually is not that bad. Like, it could-"…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
"… be worse. It's been worse before, and it will be worse again. You're dumb if you think it's otherwise." No, I'm just joking, like, again, I really love it, but every time I go and I get humbled, because I think that we have with weather, we have such blinders on, and we think that whatever we're experiencing in that moment is the most intense thing that's ever happened, and then we forget about it until the next year.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah, and he's got the data, right? He brings receipts, as they say, right?

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Yeah. Well, it's fun to talk about the rain just 'cause it's a thing that everyone'has been talking about lately, but also there were some actual implications locally. I think on the whole, our infrastructure seemed to handle all of the water relatively well, but there were a bunch of trail closures. The city closed all the low-lying trails and river access along the river. And then the one that surprised me was that the east sidewalk of the High Level Bridge was closed until further notice, and I think it surprised me 'cause it's like, the High Level Bridge is way up in the sky.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Why do we have to close the bridge? But I guess it's because of all that rainfall, there was a section of the slope that eroded, and so, you know, the guardrail of the walking path is not safe.

Stephanie:
You know, my conspiracy theory is that the city just issued this to justify their decision to tear down the bridge. No, I'm just joking.

Mack:
We got, we got decades for that still, but…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Gotta lay that groundwork early, right?

Stephanie:
Exactly, or lay that eroded slope work.

Mack:
Yeah. Well, hopefully we're through the rainiest part of this, and July is a much warmer, sunnier month, which I know all the festivals would love, and on that note, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Taste of Edmonton. This year, the popular 11-day festival runs July 16th to 26th, offering a delicious sample of Edmonton's finest restaurants, arts, and culture. The menus and performance lineup have been announced, so you can start planning your visits. Pre-sale tickets are available online now until July 14th, or at select retail locations until July 15th. By purchasing ahead, you'll save $10 per sheet of 40 tickets. Learn more and get your tickets today at TasteOfEdm.ca.

Mack:
Looking forward to that downtown tasty festival. We're recording this on Thursday, July 2nd. Yesterday was of course Canada Day. Last episode, we invited you to share some thoughts with us about what this year's Canada Day means to you, and we got a lot of response from readers and from listeners and viewers. So thank you so much for sending that in.

Stephanie:
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was great. It was great to read everything, and we got a really wide variety of responses. We actually ended up doing two different stories, both this one, on Canada Day and one the day before. And, yeah, just lots of different, takes on Canada Day, and it was, it was really interesting. We spoke to Jared Wesley, who runs the Common Ground Project out of the University of Alberta, and he spoke to us a bit about, you know, how Albertans can hold separatist and federalist views at the same time. He says, "We see some Canadian symbols at separatist rallies, for crying out loud. They wear blue T-shirts but it's the Toronto Blue Jays T-shirt with a maple leaf on it." It's complicated.

Mack:
It's complicated, yeah. I really appreciated that story. It made me think a little bit differently about yesterday. You know, if you're a separatist, are you allowed to celebrate Canada Day? And, of course you are. And the perspective that Jared shared I thought was really interesting.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so thanks again for everyone who sent them in. It was awesome to read them all.

Mack:
Okay, onto this week's, primary news topic, which is lodging houses. Stephanie, lodging house is one of those things that I think I know what that is But then I was reading some stuff for the episode obviously and thinking, "Maybe I wasn't as clear in my head about what a lodging house is," and it sounds like I'm not alone on that. There was also some discussion at Urban Planning Committee, so bring us up to speed.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so Urban Planning Committee was discussing proposed changes to the zoning bylaw and business license bylaw to regulate the size and location of, lodging houses. And I think that, like, the word lodging house has such a nasty, connotation to it, because I think that what people picture is SROs or single resident occupancy things in Vancouver where they're, like, really known for being terrible places to live for everyone involved. But here, it's a little different, and the big issue here is that it is really difficult to define what is and isn't a lodging house. So yeah, they had changes proposed to the zoning bylaw, and this change would limit lodging houses to single detached or semi-detached housing in most zones. So, you wouldn't be able to take, like, a big apartment building or, like, a eight-plex or a 12-plex or whatever and turn that into a lodging house. They would have to be in, like, single detached or semi-detached homes, so duplexes. And then the other change to the zoning bylaw is that it would lower the definition from four individually rented bedrooms to three individually rented bedrooms, so it just kinda lowers the threshold to when something becomes a lodging house by definition. So those are the changes to the zoning bylaw, and there was also a business license bylaw change to, effectively prohibit hourly rentals by establishing a minimum booking period of 12 hours for short-term rentals, because, I think we touched on this a little bit on the show a few months ago, but there was, like, a couple of news stories about, you know, these infills offering rentals by the hour, which, you know, maybe would lend it to some seedy activities. We'll just say that.

Mack:
Perhaps, yeah.

Stephanie:
It could.

Mack:
In this report, there was a jurisdictional scan. Administration looked across 18 different municipalities for the definition of a lodging house. In some places, it, boarding house is another common term. But to me, it was fascinating that the definitions were all so different. Like, some said three or more rooms. Some said four. Some rules, definitions have upper limits, you know, no more than six, no more than 15. Some mentioned the presence of shared facilities, like bathrooms. Some mentioned, you know, having an administration office on site, like, really quite divergent definitions, which is a I just find that fascinating given that this seems like a common thing that everyone's trying to regulate. You'd think we would've all coalesced around a definition, but apparently not. So these changes from four to three would, I think, bring it in alignment with several other municipalities across the country. I guess the question that might help is just, are you renting by the room or by the unit, right? And that is, if it's, if the answer is by the room, then you might be in lodging house territory. But I think what's so challenging about it is that it's hard to tell, right? Like, it could look the same, and it's sort of like the use or the intent, the, of what you're doing that almost defines whether or not you're in violation of the rules, so this came up in the news about a month ago. There was a bunch of residents, I think it was in Belgravia, who were at the SDAB, the Subdivision Appeal Board, talking about this, and the chair of the board actually criticized the zoning bylaw for being too vague. And so, I guess these changes that, council and Urban Planning Committee talked about this week would, address that. Although, interesting to note that council actually asked for a report about this a year ago in June 2025, maybe anticipating or reacting to earlier feedback about the zoning bylaw on whether or not it was clear enough about, lodging houses. So, I think that's kind of where we're at now. What else did you hear at committee this week about the topic then, Stephanie?

Stephanie:
So what's so difficult with defining a lodging house is that, yeah, it can look, at the development permit stage, much like a regular apartment building with a bunch of three-bedroom units that could be rented to, you know, families with a couple kids and maybe they want each of the kids to have their own en suite bathroom. Bougie. I did not have that growing up.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Or it could be a bunch of college students, or it could be, fly in/fly out oil industry workers or medical residents. Like, there's You can't tell from the development permit stage whether or not it's gonna be a lodging house. However, that's, like, the city's only tool, they argued. So if they're gonna go in and enforce, you know, the rules around lodging houses, it has to be complaint-driven. So then they'd go in and investigate the property, and some indications that it's a lodging house is, again, the separate bathrooms adjoined to each of the bedrooms, locked, individually locked doors to each unit.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Which I guess many, - … bedroom doors have locks anyways, and then another one is, going back to the lease renting out the individual bedrooms and not the whole unit. However, property owners can come into compliance simply by removing the locks or modifying the lease, and that's what makes it so difficult.

Mack:
Yeah, and that's why these residents here we know a month ago when they were at SDAB and talking to the media about this were basically saying that they have to become police almost, because you can be in compliance up until the point where you start operating, and then you can change what you're doing, and how are you gonna know? There's no regular monitoring or enforcement of that, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So I mentioned the changes to the zoning bylaw and the changes to the business license bylaw. Coun. Anne Stevenson tried to change the motion to remove the zoning bylaw changes from the recommendation because she doesn't feel as though the change will actually result in what administration, council, and community members want to see.

Anne Stevenson:
Business licensing is really where we can get into how properties operate, and so for me it's really appropriate to look at how a property is operating in terms of how frequently people are turning over. So, I really do like the suggestion to have a limit on lodging houses in denser forms of development. Potentially. Still something to think about. Again, where I really struggle is the zoning bylaw is just not a tool for regulating people. Yeah. It shouldn't be used in that way. I don't think it's effective, and I think it has a real risk of decreasing affordable housing options for students without meaningfully addressing any of the concerns.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so again, at the end of the day, a zoning bylaw is meant to regulate, like, built form and that sort of thing. You can't really regulate the people that use the property. So, if you, if these lodging houses or lodging-house-adjacent buildings are providing a really good, affordable short-term flexible option for students, and that's a good thing, it's also going to be providing the same thing for, like I said, medical residents, fly-in-fly-out industry workers, people who need this short-term affordable thing. And if you're trying to target, like, maybe more seedy stuff that doesn't fall into those categories, you might also target, the student housing and the other demographics that, you know, we're trying to provide housing for.

Mack:
Yeah, so regulate the spaces rather than the people, because people are gonna do what people do.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And sometimes they're gonna do illegal stuff.

Stephanie:
I mean, that's my take, because, like, back when this, these stories about the hourly rentals came out, I didn't really even see the need to talk about it on the podcast because this doesn't have anything to do with, in my opinion, the zoning bylaw and fill council. Like, they aren't to blame for this because people are gonna do illegal stuff no matter what. Like, people are gonna build illegal lodging houses and operate until they, get caught. Like, I don't think this is gonna change anything. It's gonna keep honest people honest, but like…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
If someone really wants to have an illegal lodging house where they're renting, hourly rentals out for, you know, whatever your imagination might think that they're doing for an hour in that, in that individually rented bedroom, they're gonna do it anyways. They're not gonna go, "Oh, Edmonton City Council said I can't do this anymore." Like, come on.

Mack:
So then we're back to residents in the area needing to, I guess, make a complaint if…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
There's gonna be some sort of investigation, some sort of an enforcement, which is no different than where we are today. So from that point of view, you're right, that, you know, amending the bylaw…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Probably isn't gonna change the behavior so much. It is, I suppose, a way for council and the city to say, "We've heard complaints, and we've heard the feedback, and we've done the limited amount of stuff we're able to do to try to address it."

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Do you think the business license bylaw changes will have more of an impact, or similarly there, not much of a change?

Stephanie:
Yeah, I mean, again, it'll give the city, like, a rule in the rule book to point to if people are renting out by the hour, we can come in and enforce it. Again though, I mean, they've been already doing the hourly rentals probably by cash.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
You know what I mean? And there's also a report coming later this year kind of more about Airbnbs and short-term rentals and again honing in on that, and that's expected to kind of deliver more of a result. But, you know, it's a start, and that's what some of the folks that were really in favor of, some of these changes is they were saying it's a start.

Mack:
Okay, so we're talking about changes to two pretty significant bylaws in Edmonton, the zoning bylaw and the business license bylaw. Those changes cannot just be made by committee, so where are we at? What's next?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so they didn't make any recommendation at all. They decided to requisition it to city council next week, and then the changes will have to go to public hearings. So, still got a while.

Mack:
Yeah, so we'll have probably a public hearing on the zoning bylaw amendments and then perhaps business license bylaw could come back to full city council, but in either case, gonna be a bit of time before any of those changes come to pass.

Stephanie:
Yep, so get your hourly rentals in while you can, listeners.

Mack:
All right, next up, we got two parking-related topics to talk about. One I guess is more about towing, but we talked about this previously, that the city has this backlog of vehicles that need to be towed, and they haven't been able to do that because of a lack of space to tow them to. And so, we got a little bit of progress on this right now. The City of Edmonton has opened a new tow lot near 122nd Street and 124th Avenue. The facility, Stephanie, can accommodate 150 vehicles. We've got more than 360 still on the list, which is down quite a bit from where we were previously when we talked about this. So they've been giving tickets and things like that, and some people have gotten, you know, their, abandoned vehicles moved or whatever, but you know, as Coun. Erin Rutherford said this week, like, "This is a pretty leaky Band-Aid here."

Stephanie:
Yeah, and, you know, this is how many cars are on the list when the city is barely funding enforcement.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
So, imagine how many more there would be. And I guess, you know, we don't have snow on the streets anymore, hopefully. So, but, and I imagine once winter comes around and, if they're doing, if they're gonna be increasing enforcement, it'll be, the lineup will continue to grow.

Mack:
This story just makes me so angry, I have to be honest. Because we talk so much in this city about accommodating cars. And now we've got 700 of them out at the end of May. You know, now almost 400 of them that are just abandoned, that are taking up space that we now have to open facilities for and tow. It's just so aggravating that at the end of the day when we put so much effort into allowing cars to go everywhere in this city, that we've got problems like this to deal with. It's, ugh. Am I alone? This just seems so frustrating.

Stephanie:
No, it's really funny. It's funnier how much work city administration and city council has to do just for the management of cars. Like, that really is one of the biggest jobs of city council is to just manage cars.

Mack:
Yeah. Cars…

Stephanie:
Car manager.

Mack:
Cars parking, cars driving, you know, all that kinda stuff. Okay, well on the topic of parking, we, also know that now we're into July, which means the city is starting enforcement against un-permitted downtown surface parking lots.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so this, story holds a pretty fond place in my heart, if you can indulge me for a sec. Because years ago when I was still at 630 CHED, one of my first, like, stories that I set the agenda with that everyone else kind of followed was the story about this. Because I was reading that deep in the depths of a city council report, I found the statistic that only 10% of these lots So first of all, there was 275 parking lots in downtown Edmonton, which is a huge number. And, secondly, that only 10% of them were operating legally. So I was like, "That's so interesting." Wrote the story, then everyone else, like, kinda followed. Anyways, sorry, just to indulge me for a bit. It has a And I love parking, it's one of my favorite things to talk about. But anyways, as we know of then around that time, the city kind of introduced a program to get these lots that were noncompliant a couple of years to come into compliance and then the ultimate goal is to get them sold and developed into something that's not surface parking, because, well, you know, the argument against surface parking is that they're like these nasty wastelands that don't contribute to downtown vibrancy. And then the argument four is it's important to have places to park for people to come downtown.

Mack:
Not that, you know, there aren't enough places for people to park, given street parking, parkades, you know, above ground parkades, below ground parkades, there's lots of places to park your cars.

Stephanie:
I'm trying to show all sides to the issue. I mean, in this, in a statement, again, Council Ann Stevenson, who's the downtown Ward O'Diamond counselor, she said it very clearly, "Providing parking downtown is important, but so is the safety and attractiveness of the area. Elements like lighting, drainage, perimeter landscaping and pathways will make these parking lots more welcoming." So, lot owners who receive their development permit by the deadline of June 30th, will have until the end of 2027 to upgrade their lots. So, you know, that's improving landscaping and drainage, adding pathways, lighting, and making surface improvements. So you can't have, like, big potholes and puddles on these. And then the temporary development permits that are granted by the deadline will be in effect for seven years for gravel lots and for 10 years for paved lots. And, these owners will also be required to obtain a business license.

Mack:
So this is an improvement. This means that we will hopefully have fewer ugly, problematic lots. I feel like this could go a lot further. We could just not allow gravel lots.

Stephanie:
Ugh.

Mack:
We could require them to all be paved. I think it'll be quite interesting to see exactly what passes as compliance when parking lot owners start making changes to things like lighting and drainage and landscaping. I think there's probably gonna be quite a bit of variation there. But attention on this and some change is welcome. I also as a downtown, longtime downtown resident and worker, have lamented these lots that are just an eyesore. I've always been of the opinion that if we're gonna have the lots, we should at least require them to look good and to feel safer than a lot of them do. I think as I get older I get more curmudgeonly, Stephanie, and I'd like to go further and just say we shouldn't have them, or like I said, require them all to be paved, or you know, some other, criteria. But of course, we do wanna get to the point where they're not parking lots at all. There's a better use for those lots. It doesn't all have to be tall towers. As we saw with O'Diamond Park, much better use of all of those old gravel parking lots than parking for cars. So there can be other positive futures for these lots aside from really tall towers.

Stephanie:
Right, well, you know, we also talked to, we being the reporters, talked to Coun. Stevenson about this, and she said that parking lot owners were given a very fair deal and the risk of enforcement, or now currently, the enforcement is already working.

Anne Stevenson:
I've certainly noticed a number of surface parking lots being put up for sale. This is a phenomenal outcome. We don't want people just sitting on these properties for forever. We want it to be sold, go into the hands of folks who might be able to make something of it in a much shorter term. And we've recently rezoned one to be a new park space as well. So, very positive beginnings to this, and more to come.

Stephanie:
Now, according to a memo written to counselors this week, there were 113 lots identified that were kind of under this program, could be brought into, compliance. In the year and a half application period, 66 applications were made. So, a little over half. And as of June 23rd, only 18 had been approved. So does that mean that we are going to be seeing, like, almost 100 parking lots being closed, which I've heard that… … there, the city is going to be putting, like, barriers in front of the entrances to these lots that are operati…

Mack:
Like those concrete,…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Concrete jersey barriers or whatever, right? Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah, that's what I've heard. I don't know if this is, like, officially from the city that's what's gonna happen. But, you know, they had a year and a half, and only about a little over half of them applied, and only 18 were approved. So I don't know. I don't know if there's gonna be, like, a big parking, you know, apocalypse in downtown. We'll have to see.

Mack:
Well, I hope they do something, right? Because you have to follow through if you wanna be taken seriously, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
If we want this program to actually have the intended outcomes of improving the experience, not just for, you know, people who live and work downtown, but also for those people who park themselves in those parking lots, then we gotta follow through and we have to do some enforcement. And I hope that we do put up barriers and issue fines and all of the other things that these, new rules allow us to do in order for that to actually happen. Because if we don't, then I guess it's kinda status quo. Those 275 lots, most of which were operating illegally without consequence, will just continue operating illegally without consequence. And then it's like, what is the point of all of this energy if we can't…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Do, follow through and do something about it?

Stephanie:
Yeah, I saw Coun. Salvador post something online that I thought really summed it up. It's like, it's unimaginable that any other type of business, if 10% of them only were operating with a business license, there's no way that would fly. Like, if 90% of downtown restaurants were operating without a business license…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
There would be an investigation.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
But because they're a place to store the cars, it's fine.

Mack:
It's fine.

Stephanie:
Well, it's not fine anymore. We're coming for you.

Mack:
It better not be. It better not be.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, we'll have to pay attention, Stephanie, and see…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
What happens. See if there's barricades, see if something else happens.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and like if listeners, if you're, going around downtown, if you are about to drive into your favorite parking lot and then you realize that there's a, something in the way, let us know if they, if the city starts to actually enforce these things. I'm very curious.

Mack:
Very curious indeed. All right, before we go for this week, we've got a couple other quick things we'd like to touch on. One of those is not for a little while. It's in August, but it's our favorite festival of the summer, probably, maybe. Can I say that? The Fringe Festival is coming back, and they've unveiled the theme for the 2026 edition. There's always a theme, or almost always a theme for these things. What was it?

Stephanie:
And…

Mack:
Is it, is it too obvious to say it's a bit forgettable?

Stephanie:
Oh. Cheap.

Mack:
No? Too harsh? So the theme is Fringe Unforgettable. Which is supposed to celebrate enduring moments and stories from its long history. I think this is the 45th year for Fringe this year. It feels like 50 is the year that you celebrate all of the moments. 45 seems kind of random to me, Stephanie. And unforgettable doesn't feel very strong as a theme. That's my hot take. What do you think?

Stephanie:
You know, I don't know. I think it's fine. I don't think, I don't think that, I've ever witnessed a fringe scene that I go, "Wow, this is the best thing ever." It's just, it's just kind of a fun thing for the poster. And you know what's interesting though? Speaking of 45th anniversaries, two other iconic Edmonton institutions are celebrating their 45th year. The green onion cake allegedly, and Edmonton's Food Bank. They should do a collaboration. A great…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
A match made in heaven. Anyways.

Mack:
Absolutely.

Stephanie:
But yeah, so I'm obviously really excited for the Fringe. I'm a theater kid. Y'all know what it's all about. Scheduled for August 13th to 23rd, the festival will feature 209 shows across 37 venues. Yeah, and I went to the launch this, earlier this week and spoke to Executive Director Meghan Dart and said, you know, she said even though that we've grown the monthly donor base from 34 donors to 840 since launching the Sustain Fringe Campaign two years ago, the, this festival is still facing the crunch of increasing costs. And, I don't know if any of the listeners tuned into the Taproot Exchange a few weeks ago about arts funding through the Edmonton Arts Council, but, basically Renee Williams of the Edmonton Arts Council, said the same thing. Like, funding has been stagnant for a long time, and they're both urging, folks, if you like art, reach out to your councillor and say, "We want more arts funding." 'Cause apparently the Fringe is, municipal funding has been stagnant for 10 years.

Mack:
Which, you know, is a long time considering how much costs have gone up in that decade. We think of…

Stephanie:
Yeah, and also not having the COVID years for revenue, right?

Mack:
That's right.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
That's right. Yeah, we talk a lot about infrastructure in the context of the four-year budget, but of course, we fund a lot of things in this city. Arts and culture being one of them. And what's the point of all the infrastructure if we can't enjoy the best that Edmonton has to offer? And Fringe is one of those things.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So that's one clear, obvious intersection for, with City Hall and City Council, but there's another one, right?

Stephanie:
Yes, so the festival also announced that the free shuttle between the main grounds and the French Quarter will be back in 2026. So they had to take it away last year because of financial issues again, but it's back this year through a partnership with the city and the transit service.

Mack:
I feel like this is turning out to be the year of the shuttle almost. We've got the River Hawk shuttle, we've got this shuttle, we've got the Edmonton Explorer Bus, even though it's not really a shuttle.

Stephanie:
True.

Mack:
But it just feels like things come in threes, don't they?

Stephanie:
Oh, I never thought about that. Yes, I hope that we see even more somehow.

Mack:
Yeah, for sure.

Stephanie:
And then, one other cool thing is that, they've partnered with the Strathcona Community League to set up an installation of mikawaps, or tipis as they're more commonly known, just south of the Community League Hall. That's going to be connected to the, to the festival through the Buffalo Path and, they were saying this is kind of a place to, you know, slow down, gather, connect with people, and, yeah, I don't know. It's just cool to see that even after a year, or couple of years, of tough financial times is that they're still able to kind of expand and do these expanded programming and, yeah, just very excited to go get a green onion cake and walk around and have fun at the Fringe.

Mack:
I also am looking forward to Fringe. Okay. So, my comments about the theme notwithstanding, I love the Fringe Festival. I think it's so great.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Festival guides and tickets will be available starting July 29th and August 5th respectively, so you've got a little bit of time, to get ready for that. But it's gonna come before you know it. Summer goes by quick. You gotta get, you gotta get out and enjoy it.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Hopefully there's no construction on 83rd Ave. Bike lane, or else I will be speaking angrily on the podcast, Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
All right. One last thing, Stephanie, before we go. We are heading into summer, which means council will be on break. They start their summer break July 9th. I am also going on vacation for a little bit here. Taproot usually takes a summer publishing break, so we're gonna have some changes to the schedule. But we do have episodes on Speaking Municipally for you over the next couple of weeks, which I think are pretty exciting. So, we're doing a two-part series on kind of the lead-up to budget and the State of Edmonton's finances. So, the next episode, 364, we have Coun. Aaron Paquette, who did a bit of a deep dive, giving his perspective as someone who's been on council for quite a long time. And then the following week, episode 365, we have Coun. Reed Clarke, one of our new councillors, to give his, less experienced take, fresh eyes…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Fresh perspective on the city's finances. So, stay tuned for both of those over the next couple of weeks. Because we're doing those episodes, something we talked about last week, which was the Indigenous engagement discussion that took place down in Rossdale, probably not gonna get to, right, Stephanie? They're talking about that as we record.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Exactly. They're talking about broadly Indigenous engagement for all projects in the River Valley. You know, as expected, lots of people there to share their voice because that's kind of exactly what it's about. So, probably we're not gonna get to it this week, but I wanna have, like, a more in-depth really good episode about it once we get back where we can really take the time that this topic deserves. So, we will be covering it, just stay tuned.

Mack:
And in the meantime, of course, you can find the latest in The Pulse and, Taproot's regular, newsletters. We will still be paying attention to what's happening at, City Hall and other municipal topics over the next few weeks. So, if you're not already subscribed, make sure you get that to your inbox. All right, Stephanie. We are in that beautiful in-between time. We, of course, were thrilled, or at least I was, that Team Canada beat South Africa on June 28th in the first game of the knockout round. Incredible. That means we're still going.

Stephanie:
Historic.

Mack:
Historic. That means we're still going. That's what I mean by this beautiful in-between time, because they keep saying our coach, Jesse Marsh, wanted a giant, and we got one. Morocco, ranked sixth in the world. Just gonna be quite a challenging game. Also, it's in Texas. It's gonna be super hot. That is July 4th, American Independence Day. So we've got a couple of days still to enjoy this time period where it feels possible for Canada to do the unthinkable, you know?

Stephanie:
Ugh.

Mack:
And maybe they will.

Stephanie:
I always say this about soccer, because I'm not a super big soccer fan. Obviously, know way more about hockey. But, like, in a lot of games, it just comes down to one goal.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Oftentime, it's one-nothing. So, like, we just need to score one goal. That's it.

Mack:
Goals, there's not that many goals. You only need one, and sometimes…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
They come off a really random play, the game…

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
You never know.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
You never know. So, let's go Canada.

Mack:
All right. Until next week, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.