Speaking Municipally

This week, potential changes to the zoning bylaw that would reduce the maximum height in the RS zone disappointed everyone. Plus, we talk about the Edmonton Region Defence Alliance and the city's efforts to cash in on increased defence spending.

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:15) - Ad: U of A Reads
(02:54) - RS Zone height reduction
(12:25) - Belgravia Heights
(21:47) - Ad: Park Power
(22:28) - Edmonton Region Defence Alliance
(35:55) - Election campaign finances
(38:19) - Close

Here are the relevant links for this episode:

RS zone height reduction

Belgravia Heights

Edmonton Region Defence Alliance

Election campaign finances

This episode is brought to you by U of A Reads from the University of Alberta. From poetry to protest, memory to motivation — U of A alumni authors unpack the forces behind their writing in candid, thought-provoking conversations. Learn more at uab.ca/reads

This episode is also brought to you by Park Power, your friendly, local utilities provider (and title sponsor of Taproot's Regional Roundup). Park Power offers electricity, natural gas, and internet to homes, businesses, and farms throughout Alberta. It also has a Solar Club that you might want to check out. If you live in Alberta and have a solar PV system, Park Power can offer you some of the best solar power buy-back rates in the province. Get rewarded for your contribution to Alberta's renewable energy. Learn more

Speaking Municipally is produced by Taproot Edmonton. We deliver reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region.

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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:
Everyone disliked that. This week, city council debated potential changes to the zoning bylaw that disappointed everyone.

Stephanie:
Plus, we talk about Edmonton trying to cash in on increased defense spending.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, Episode 351. Supposed to be spring right now, I think, Stephanie, but the snow keeps coming.

Stephanie:
I'm so sick of it. I saw that Reddit post a few weeks ago that was like, "Hey, new Edmontonian here, when does the snow stop?" And it's like, it doesn't.

Mack:
It doesn't.

Stephanie:
It doesn't.

Mack:
It can snow all year long, yeah.

Stephanie:
Seriously, yeah.

Mack:
But it looks like you might be getting ready for spring?

Stephanie:
I am, I did a little I did something. You can't really the lighting. Oh, there we go, oh my goodness.

Mack:
There we go.

Stephanie:
It's a nice little spring look, our YouTube and visual watchers will, see my new green hair.

Mack:
I like it.

Stephanie:
Thank you. I needed a little somethin', somethin' fresh and fun for spring, and hopefully it'll, like, manifest it to be nice out, you know?

Mack:
That's right, that's right. You're bringing spring to us. I love it.

Stephanie:
Yes. Yep.

Mack:
All right, before we get into this week's, topics, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
Looking for your next great read and the story behind it? Check out U of A Reads from the University of Alberta. Take a listen.

Katy Yachimec-Farries:
If you love books, creative writing, and thoughtful conversation, you're in the right place. I'm Katie Comick-Ferris and this is U of A Reads: Stories Behind the Stories. In this monthly podcast, I sit down with the authors who shape our University of Alberta community, celebrated alumni, inspiring faculty, and emerging voices to explore the spark behind their ideas, the challenges that shaped their writing, and the stories that didn't make it onto the page. Whether you're a devoted reader, a curious learner, or someone who simply loves a good story, this is your front row seat into the minds behind the books that connect us. Find U of A Reads on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever your favorite podcasts live, and join us as we explore the twists, turns, and creative leaps that bring great stories to life.

Stephanie:
Intrigued? There's plenty more to discover. Search for U of A Reads wherever you get your podcasts, or visit uab.ca/reads. That's uab.ca/reads.

Mack:
Thank you, Stephanie. This week, councillors were scheduled to vote on amendments to the Small-Scale Residential zone. As you said, I think, the other day, how many times have you written this sentence now?

Stephanie:
Numerous times.

Mack:
I'm reading, of course, from On The Agenda, which is our look at all the things that are coming up at City Council. They were talking about these proposed amendments, and I understand it had to do with height, right? Tell us what the discussion was all about.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so council heard from residents about these proposed changes to the zoning bylaws, specifically the RS zone, or the Small-Scale Residential zone. That's the one that basically applies to most mature neighborhoods within the Anthony Henday, and it gets a lot of consternation from folks in the mature neighborhoods, because it allows up to around three stories, or like, two stories with a pretty hefty basement suite, like. So, that kind of brings it up closer to three stories, and, you know, increased site coverage, and it's, how a lot of infill is being built in these mature neighborhoods, 'cause they don't have to go to rezoning, 'cause you can build up to, "I want, 12 units in these, in this zone." So, administration recommends reducing the maximum height in this zone from 10.5 meters, all the way down to 9.5 meters. So, pretty much everyone said these changes will not make a material difference to infill projects. The speakers in favor of the bylaw, so, many of those are generally against infill, right? So, you've got some of the irregular organizers there from the residential i-infill working group, et cetera, et cetera. So, they were speaking in favor of the bylaw, but they still said it's not short enough, and they also just brought up several other issues that they still have with infill and with the RS zone. And then, those speaking against the bylaw, so those people that are generally more in favor of infill, you know, included, some developers and some folks from the Infill Development in Edmonton Association, otherwise known as IDEA. They also said these changes, all it's gonna do is just to force basement suites further underground with smaller windows, and the developers there obviously didn't support it, because they don't want more restrictions on their builds.

Mack:
And it would make it less appealing if those basement suites have these tiny little windows. Like, I remember those from way back in the day, not the kinds of things we're supposed to be building now.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
This is interesting. Sounds like what you've described is administration has brought forward amendments that nobody wants, like almost they didn't go and ask anyone about this first before they brought it forward. Did they say why they felt the need to bring these amendments forward?

Stephanie:
They said that it would help address concerns around massing, and massing is kind of a weird term that basically means building too big, and it kind of builds on other changes that they've made to the RS zone, like design requirements, and then changing the number of entrances that can face the neighboring building. And it just kind of builds on that. But again, it just, it's not that big of a difference. It's, you look at It's so funny, you look at the pictures in the slideshow, and it's like, "What you could build before and what you could build with the proposed changes." And I'm like, it's like a spot the difference image. It looks exactly the same. You would think that not even administration wants this, because a few months ago, when these changes were first being contemplated, the City of Edmonton put out a, engagement page outlining all of these changes that are now being debated, like this month.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
And on this page, they laid out options to reduce the height in the RS zone, and it said, "We do not recommend any of these changes." And now they have changed that position. This is, this is not the first time they've done this. Back last summer, when the unit maximum in the RS zone was being debated, admin at first said they didn't support moving from eight to six, and then they changed that recommendation. So, Mack, I haven't been following council for as long as you have, and is it normal for administration to switch up their positions like this? And I'm not asking this to be snarky or as I'm…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Like, this is a real, non-rhetorical question.

Mack:
Well, I don't know if it's normal necessarily. I think it can be healthy to change your mind about stuff, right? So when new information comes in or we, the context changes, or we've had more time to evaluate something, we shouldn't hold fast to previous positions just because. We should be willing to change them. In this case, I'm not sure that's what they're doing. It just feels like you can't please everyone, certainly not when it comes to infill. So, let's stick to the plan. Let's be guided by what we've decided is important for Edmonton's future and the values that we've decided upon, those changes in the past, and just go forward with that instead of trying to tweak all these little things to make people happy who just ultimately aren't gonna be made happy by a tweak here and a tweak there. So, it is a bit strange to me that they, that they have changed their position on the heights, especially when there are other ways you could address the massing. A one-meter height difference doesn't feel like the most effective way to do that, clearly.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Another thing is that their presentation said, out of what's been built in the RS zone so far, 80% are already less than 9.5 meters. So, one part of that is like, well, if we make this change, it won't affect that many because they're generally under 9.5 anyways. But then the other side is like, okay, what's the point of making the change then if most of them are 9.5 and they're still making people mad?

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
You know?

Mack:
And we're not in an election year, and it feels like a lot of those previous changes might have been driven by people are upset about infill. We just need to show that we are being responsive. We're making some iterative changes. If we do that, people will be less upset. But, like, who cares now? I'm definitely on the side of, what's the point of making this change? And it sounds like council was as well.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I don't know if I would go that far. They, you know, they're at the public hearing so they have to stay open to all possibilities as they are…

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
Like, mandated by legislation. And the thing about that is that they didn't, they got to this at like 4:30 PM so they're not gonna be able to make, they didn't make the decision this week. That decision has been postponed to later this month. But I'm really not sure, I'm, I don't know what my prediction for the outcome of this vote would be, 'cause kind of like what I said, it won't really make a difference either way.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Right?

Mack:
I mean, if I was on council this week, I don't know why you would defer it. I would've voted to just say, no. Nobody wants this, it's not gonna make a material difference. Let's just avoid the extra staff time and all the rest of it. Why defer this?

Stephanie:
I think they didn't get time to talk to administration 'cause it really was like, they heard all the speakers and then it was 5:05 PM…

Mack:
Okay.

Stephanie:
And then they just had to move on. So they probably need to, and I expect actually when they talk to administration, they're gonna ask, "Okay, what's the point of this?" You know what I mean? So, maybe we'll get some of those questions answered, at the end of this month when it goes back to public hearing.

Mack:
I guess they also have some other zoning changes potentially coming back at that public hearing, so I suppose maybe this is a let's just deal with it all at once, right? What are those other changes?

Stephanie:
Yeah, I totally see that. So, they're also proposing some changes to the small to medium scale residential zone, or RSM, which is similar to the RS zone but it's just up to four stories instead of about three. They didn't get to touch on that during this meeting this week, but the gist is that those rezonings will only be supported on nodes and corridors or on a large undeveloped site, or as directed by a statutory plan. And like I said, they didn't get into it, but admin posted the presentation that goes with, like, the report. And hot tip, if you ever want some extra juicy details, those are always in the presentation rather than in just the report, and it had some pretty strong language about the changes. It said, "If approved, RSM is no longer an option for infill unless supported in those areas." And it also said that this move will encourage development within the RS zone, 'cause you know, that's a common complaint is that people say, "Why are we upzoning when RS already allows for so much density?"

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
And like, "We already have so many RS builds that don't even need to go through rezoning in my neighborhood. Why do we need this RSM that allows an extra story?" And then it also said that this change would reduce disruptive rezonings that do not offer significant benefit. So, just like really strong language against the bylaw that they wrote. You know what I mean? It's like, but I get it, I get it. I get exactly what, like what you said, you have to, iterate and make changes as you go. But it's like the meme from I Think You Should Leave when he's in the hotdog suit and he's like, "We're trying to figure out who did this."

Mack:
Yes, yeah. I mean, ultimately, council needs to give the direction here and the guidance, and administration is supposed to be the experts, the ones who have all the information, they're gonna do the work, they're gonna bring it forward, they're gonna help council make an informed decision. And so, I suppose if you look at it through that lens, it doesn't matter if administration changes their view from what they presented previous to now or if they change their minds again in a future report. As long as they're providing adequate counsel to council,…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
For them to be able to make a decision that is aligned with the direction they wanna take it, then I suppose even if the process seems a bit strange, we are getting to the better outcome in the end. So…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I think that's how we charitably look at these proposed amendments that are gonna come back in a few weeks at the end of the month.

Stephanie:
What's next is that this will be touched on again at the April 27th public hearing, and we will have more to say about it then and more information on if it is approved, when these will go into effect, and how it will impact all of the buildings that are currently in the development permit stage, or even being constructed. We'll have more information.

Mack:
Okay. Well, sticking with the development theme here for a minute, I see Belgravia Heights was also at public hearing this week.

Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. So, this is the development that if you ever have to go from the Wydev area, get on the white mud and, like, the traffic is so bad along 76 Ave, you have this development to thank, because it's closed a couple of lanes there. But no, it's for Westrich Pacific's Belgravia Heights development, which is located in McKernan at the corner of 114th Street and 76 Ave, right by the, LRT station there and right on that, like, green shared path, the green spine as they, as some people refer to it as. So, when they first had this proposal it was a direct control zone and they put in mandatory commercial along that green spine and along some of the other parts of the building. And, this rezoning application, the company has asked to remove the requirement for commercial along the pathway, but keep it in the corner that's on, like, the street, and it was approved. And so the corner will have they're planning for, like, a restaurant with a little patio there, and then the other ones along the little bike path, the pathway, it's optional. So it's gonna be They're gonna build them as residential units, with the option to convert them into commercial one day.

Mack:
Okay. That, okay, that makes sense. And so it seems like this is really just a change in terms of use on the main level. I think this building's relatively far along actually, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. It is.

Mack:
Like, their website is suggesting you could move in this summer, so this is not a massive change, but it would change, I guess, the character and the interaction of the building with the surrounding areas. So, did we hear from any speakers about this?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So the community league and one resident showed up to oppose the change. The community league representative had a newborn baby in her arms while she was doing it, and all the councillors were like, "Oh. (imitates baby crying)Baby." Anyways, but these folks were saying that this is a great location for commercial and that And so Westrich had been saying, you know, "The market won't support as much commercial as is required in our original plans and we want to make sure that we don't have a oversupply of commercial and we don't wanna have empty commercial bays." But then the folks that live in the community were like, "Well, the, this market study doesn't take into effect the high number of units coming into the neighborhood." Like, there's tons of new rentals coming into both McKernan and Belgravia and they said it will be able to support it in just a few short years.

Mack:
Well, I'm looking at the picture. They have really nice renderings, as you might imagine, on the website, and I'll put it in the video for those of you who are, who are watching. And, you know, it's quite an attractive building. And it's not clear to me how you would make those units work for either commercial or residential. Like, they look pretty intentionally designed as commercial spaces, so I'm just having a hard time picturing how those could be adapted from one to the other without dramatically changing the way that this looks, right? Usually, also, on a first-level residential you have some kind of a little fence patio area which doesn't appear in the, in the renderings, right? I totally understand what the company is saying here about the market need for ground-level commercial retail. I live on 104th Street downtown, as you all know, listeners, and we have a glut of ground-level empty bays. There are so many empty bays around where I live, because that's how we built all of these towers, but the market has not been able to catch up. Well, you know, they're full of residents in these buildings, but we haven't filled up all the bays. There's a handful that have got tenants in them. The rest of them have been empty. Some of them have been empty since these buildings first went up. So, I totally understand the desire to avoid that situation. It's not great for the developer, but it's really also not great for the people who live there to have these empty bays, right? So, if they are residential, maybe that's a better use case, because at least then they'll be occupied, you know, they'll contribute a little bit to the vibrancy of that area rather than just sitting empty. Having said all that, I kind of understand what the community league folks are saying. You're right along a green spine, you're steps away from the LRT station. It seems like we should be able to support some commercial there, right? And if there's other buildings in the area that are coming online that are also gonna increase the density, like, that is the place that probably we should be putting that commercial, as close as possible to that LRT station. That makes a lot of sense to me. So, this is a hard one, Stephanie. Like, I really understand both sides of this, right? Like, where else would we put commercial? We don't wanna build a community where you have to travel quite a distance, you know, to get to some sort of a commercial bay. But on the other hand, it's not a "build it and they will come" kind of a situation. They don't…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Always come.

Stephanie:
No. I agree. I also live in the Wydev area and which is even closer than downtown, obviously, and there are a ton of empty bays here and it's a real, it's a real issue over here. And at the same time, I really think that it's kind of a missed opportunity to not require it along the path, 'cause I just think it'd be such an interesting addition to the urban fabric. I think it would be such a good opportunity, because so much of that development that you're talking about, mixed-use building with the commercial or restaurant or whatever on the main floor, goes onto, like, Whyte Avenue or 104th Street, which can be really congested with vehicles. And, like, imagine you're, like, walking along, walking your dog or pushing your stroller and you're like, "Oh, I want a coffee," and then you get to, like, go off of the path. You buy your little coffee, you sit on the nice quiet path, you get to watch the train going by. Like, it's, would be just, like, a nice, fun, cute experiment to see if it would work. Now again, who knows? They could still apparently put commercial in, but oh, I'm like, that would be such a, it's such an interesting, like, I don't think there's much in Edmonton like that at all.

Mack:
It seems unlikely to me that they would build them out as residential units and then convert them into commercial in the future, right? Like, that's a bit strange 'cause you're not gonna have, I don't think, a house right next to a coffee shop, for example. Like, it…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Feels a little bit like it's all or nothing. So, I think if this does get approved, it's essentially saying there's not gonna be any commercial here. Like, I really don't see that coming in the future. What did council decide about this?

Stephanie:
They approved the rezoning and the idea was we would rather have, no commercial than empty commercial bays, if that makes sense. 'Cause they really all just agreed that, "I don't think it's gonna be a few years until we get, commercial. I think it's gonna be 10 years or 20 years." So…

Mack:
I feel like we need some better information to make these kinds of decisions in the future because we hear a lot, and we've talked about this a few times in the context of other projects, that developers are saying there just isn't demand. And we kinda look macro level at retail, for example, and it's just people aren't buying things from physical stores the same way that they used to, right? That is a challenge. It's challenging for retailers. Unless you're, you know, those really big box ones or you're in a shopping mall like West Edmonton Mall or something like that. On the other hand, if you drive around and you look at new developments around the city, there's always a daycare or out-of-school care. There's always a dentist, and increasingly, there's some kind of food business, right? Like, a coffee shop or a sandwich shop, or something like that. It feels like maybe we should be seeing not as many of those things opening, and yet every single week in the Food Roundup, we've got tons of new things opening that are food-related and you see these OSC sites and dentists all over the place. So, it does seem like we can support commercial. I don't buy the argument that it's gonna be 20 years, knowing that some of the stuff on 104th Street has been a long time now downtown…

Stephanie:
.

Mack:
And we really gotta get those bays filled up, so they approved it, as you said. I think that means we're now gonna see commercial there.

Stephanie:
Yeah, the, other than the one corner, which is going to stay as commercial, but yeah. And also, another point to, like, changing things in the future is that they would also have to kick out three households. 'Cause they said, they, to convert it to commercial, they said that they would take the three residential units and combine them together into one commercial unit. So, that's, like, another thing. It's like, "Sorry guys, we want a pottery studio here. You're done."

Mack:
Okay, well, we'll see very shortly what this looks like, 'cause the building is slated to be done this summer. I hope it looks something remotely close to what the renderings look like, because, it's such a unique space, being right next to that green space, the LRT station. And the building, I like the design of it. It's very attractive. I hope that it ultimately looks close to that when it comes to life.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I mean, in general, we shouldn't really be complaining too much about this because we finally are getting to a point where, yes, we are building a massive transit-oriented development right beside, like, right beside I'm, can you, can you imagine if, like, when you started this podcast, if you'd be complaining, "Oh, there's not enough commercial on this-" "… six-story development beside McKernan-Belgravia?" Imma, well, let's take a trip back.

Mack:
You're absolutely right. We are very happy for some transit-oriented development.

Stephanie:
Let's count our blessings.

Mack:
Okay, before we go onto our last couple of items, we have another ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Park Power, your friendly local utilities provider and title sponsor of Taproot's Regional Roundup. Park Power offers electricity, natural gas, and internet to homes, businesses, and farms throughout Alberta. It also has a solar club that you might wanna check out. If you live in Alberta and have a solar PV system, Park Power can offer you some of the best solar power buyback rates in the province. Get rewarded for your contribution to Alberta's renewable energy. Learn more at parkpower.ca. That's parkpower.ca.

Mack:
It's been kinda cloudy lately, but the sunshine's coming back. Lots of sun for those solar panels, okay. The next item we wanted to talk about didn't really come up at council this week or anything like that, but it has been in the news recently and you've been following that, Stephanie. I've been following that. Taproot's been following that through our various beats, and that is this defense alliance that the Edmonton region has put together recently. So, maybe give us the overview of what this is all about.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so this has kind of exploded in the last few months, but I feel like it's not getting that much attention from anyone other than, like, tech and really business-heavy publications. And for those of you who don't know, while I'm also, while I'm a huge municipal politics nerd, I'm also the author of some of our roundups here at Taproot. And so, we cover all of the different beats in the city, including technology, so it's startups and whatnot, business, and the regional news, which a lot of times has to do with, like, economic development of the region. So, that is also why I'm so tuned into this. So, what's been going on in the last few months is that there is a concerted effort by, folks in Edmonton to make the city the best place in the country for defense and dual-use technology. Now, what is defense and dual-use technology? It's basically inventions technology that can be used both for defense, so, you know, war and other, like, things like that, but also in civilian applications. One thing I always think about is, like, technology to get ice off of the side of planes. Obviously, that can be used in defense and it can be used for commercial flights. That's a good example of a defense and dual-use technology. It's been a, such a big deal here is, because, you know, zooming out to the global geopolitical situation, which is not something we usually talk about on this podcast, but obviously Canada has had a big focus on increased defense spending, in part to decrease our dependence on the United States, have more sovereignty over that sort of thing. So, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been really trying to push defense spending. They're doing a huge investment into defense in Canada.

Mack:
And we have finally hit the previous target for NATO spending, so…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
NATO members were meant to spend, I think it was 2% of GDP. We're behind already because they raised the targets now for the next decade, and so Canada's gotta you know, catch up on that, and that's partly what this spending is about. So, we're not talking about a little bit of spending here either. We're talking about, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. Some of that money already deployed. So, in Edmonton, you mentioned this concerted effort to try to, you know, capitalize on this. I think that's been called the Edmonton Region Defence Alliance, right?

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
So this is a consortium of local organizations that are trying to do what, exactly?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so this was announced in February, just right around the federal plans to increase defense spending were released. The core conveners of this consortium are Edmonton Global, which is a regional economic development agency, plus the University of Alberta, NAIT, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association, which is, like, the petrochemical energy sector that is mostly centered around Fort Saskatchewan, but also in other, municipalities, and the Edmonton International Airport, and there are other network partners on board. The alliance says that the two post-secondaries provide innovation and workforce training. The heartland is home to vast manufacturing capabilities, and the airport is closer to the Arctic than any other major cities in Canada. So, you know, this alliance is aiming to leverage the region's strategic location, close to the north, industrial readiness, resources, talent, and the grit it is known for to protect Canadian sovereignty.

Mack:
So said another way, this group of organizations is basically coming together to market Edmonton. You know, we have a lot of the pieces that might be relevant if you were going to look for a place to go and spend a bunch of federal money on defense. So, let's make sure people know about that essentially feels like the rationale behind this consortium, right? And so, it seems to be working so far because we've been able to score some of this funding, or at least local organizations have, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so we've It seems like every other week there is, like, a new funding announcement for, more funding into these sectors. Like I said, we cover these a lot in the Business and Tech Roundup, so if this is something that's making your ears perk up, definitely go subscribe to those 'cause you'll get more information about this. Now, how does this relate to municipalities? Well, last month, on March 18th, council approved a motion from Mayor Andrew Knack that formally directs City Manager Eddie Robar to work with the alliance. It's, you know, putting it on paper that council and the city supports this, and that the city can kind of act as a coordinator.

Mack:
Which they probably could already do, but this is essentially just rubber stamp from council, "Go forth, make it happen, no need to question whether or not you're allowed to do this."

Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. It's just formalizing it. They're just There's not even extra budget. They're gonna repurpose an existing staff position, but it really is just, like, just so you know, "We support this."

Mack:
And they approved that unanimously?

Stephanie:
Yeah, it was unanimous. Coun. Thu Parmar was absent, but yeah, everyone else was on board.

Mack:
I suppose it's kinda hard to not agree with something that It feels like the train left the station by the time this motion was made, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
This is just a formalization of what already happened. Okay. What did, the mayor say about this?

Stephanie:
Yeah, when he was kinda talking about this, he said something that I really related to. I'm paraphrasing here. "The whole defence file, I didn't even think about it during the campaign. I didn't really think about it for the first two months of the term. Then the feds announced they want to spend about four times their defence budget over the next four years, and the city needs to ensure thoughtful infrastructure and use opportunities." We need to be he's saying that we need to be kind of helping attract the money here.

Mack:
Said more simply, "The feds dangled some money, and we just thought we had to go after it," basically.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Which, you know, makes sense, I guess, and is also something that we've done in the past. Municipalities have limited access to large pots of money from the federal government and the provincial government, and so when those pots of money do become available, you wanna make the most of them. This is why we've built LRT the way that we have. This is why we built the funicular when we did. Like, all of these, you know, federal pots of money make it accelerate plans to do things we might be interested in doing, but maybe not at that time if the money wasn't there, right? In this case, economic development is something that this council has said is really important to them. It feels like right now, the opportunity, the low-hanging fruit around economic development here is related to defense, and so let's go after it and let's try to win some of that business. Proponents of this obviously feel like it could be a way to improve that economic development story.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
What about critics? What are they saying about this?

Stephanie:
Well, you know, listeners, you may be hearing all this and What I thought when I was starting to hear all this at the beginning was, "Isn't defense, you know, kind of another word for war?" And, well…

Mack:
Well, it is in the United States, right? They renamed it the War Department or whatever.

Stephanie:
Exactly, yeah. So, it's kind of, I don't know, euphemistic to say defense. But it also Like, these could, these technologies could be used to kill people, and they could be used in war. And to kind of touch on that. So, I'm gonna back up a little bit here. So, Samdesk is a very dual use company that was founded here in Edmonton. They basically use these AI-powered crisis alert systems. So, you know, if there's some sort of emergency, they have all of these different data points that they kind of compile together and they're able to really quickly send out alerts to people. Founder James Neufeld acknowledges what he called ESG risks, so referring to environmental, social, and governance metrics that have influenced many decisions in the first half of this decade. He said that because Like, before the last year or two, it was an ESG risk to partner with them because they were also, you know, doing defense spending, doing these dual-use things, but now it that is not the case anymore just because of the changing geopolitical situation of the world. His company partners with the defense departments in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Norway, and yeah. I can definitely see why some would take issue with at least one of those clients, if not all of the defense departments, because, like I said, defense typically does mean war.

Mack:
Yeah, I can understand that. I find myself feeling more on the side of these clients are gonna need this capability one way or another. Why not sell it to them from Canada? So I…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I kinda like the argument that this is about both that Canada first, like let's promote Canadian companies, Canadian entrepreneurs, Canadian innovation and ingenuity, but also reduce our reliance on other places. I think that is a real tangible, beneficial goal, especially reducing our reliance on the United States itself, right? Getting these dual use organizations or technologies to market is one of the ways to do that, then I think on balance that's probably a good thing.

Stephanie:
You know, it, this conversation really reminds me of about the conversation about AI, where some people say we should ban AI in every case, like Canada should not be using AI in any case. And to borrow a phrase that I've heard before is that the horse is out of the barn and over the hill and into the next farm. Like there's no…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
We can't even contemplate that sort of thing. Like, so yeah, I guess the argument there is if we're gonna have AI, we might as well have a Canadian AI. And I guess that's a similar argument is that like if we're gonna have all this defense spending, it might as well be spent in Edmonton. Yeah, and then also speaking of AI and like a lot of these technologies that are being used in defense are AI based technologies. And, BetaKit published a really interesting op-ed that's called The Quiet Militarization of Canadian AI, we'll put the link in the show notes, that just kind of explores this idea a little bit more.

Mack:
Well, we are seeing some of that money being spent here in Edmonton. There's, back when this was first announced in February, I think six and a half million dollars from PrairiesCan was announced, and that's for two companies here in Edmonton, Zero Point Cryogenics and then LogiKan Technologies. Both of these organizations build technologies for other uses, but they can also be used for, defense. So this is those dual use ones that you were talking about. What else does this look like? What is this push for defense investment actually tangibly looking like?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so a few weeks ago I saw on LinkedIn, that representatives of the alliance were in Calgary for DefSecWest, which is a defense conference. And it has networking sessions such as the Wednesday Hour of Good Cheer reception sponsored by Lockheed Martin Canada. And that is exactly what I'm talking about is that like I can understand why people get a little, their guards up thinking about, going out and begging for all this money that has questionable associations.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Money that is available, someone's gonna take it.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Edmonton should go after it, I feel like.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And, you know, for example, the company that I mentioned, Zero Point Cryogenics, they make these dilution refrigerators which are used for quantum computing. So it's got use cases obviously for defense, but also non-defense applications. And you might look at it like, well, if we can use federal government funding to accelerate the development and success of that homegrown business, that's gonna be a positive thing overall.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and you know, I guess I should be clear maybe, I don't wanna seem like I'm fearmongering. I'm not saying that we are making like uber drone missiles in downtown Edmonton, like that's not what I'm saying.

Mack:
I think it's an important thing to consider and to be thoughtful about. We can agree that we should not have war, and it's ridiculous that countries are still going to war. But we can also just recognize the reality that there is war and there is a need for some defense spending. If we're gonna spend money on it, we might as well spend it on things that are from Canada and help our economy grow while we do that.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and I guess just to completely close the loop on this and bring it back right up to what we talked about at the beginning of this segment, is I was just surprised that there were so little questions about like the, these elected officials, the City of Edmonton council, which is known to be like quite progressive, and then just approving this without much discussion at all. That was just, I was just interested in that.

Mack:
Especially given in the same time period we had all of this discussion about the police chief's trip to Israel, which we've talked about before.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And council was quite vocal about…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Or at least some members of council were quite vocal about their opposition to that trip having taken place at all. So maybe yes, a bit of questioning this might have been in order if you're thinking about it from a values point of view. I think the challenge is probably that it's kind of abstract to a large degree. Like billions of dollars in federal funding on defense, like how does that impact our day-to-day? Very little, you know, compared to the things that happen municipally. Hopefully we'll see some of that change, that we get local companies who are benefiting from this, they're hiring people, they're growing, they're you know, spending more money here. That could be a positive thing for us all day to day. But it does at other times just feel like it's kind of big and abstract and out there and not something we can easily, you know, wrap our heads around.

Stephanie:
So if you're interested in this, like I said, the regional tech and business roundups, we will be putting all of those investment announcements and any other news we have in there. And, well, if any other big things come up, we will definitely be covering it on the podcast.

Mack:
Okay, the last thing we wanted to talk about quickly is campaign finance disclosures. Stephanie, I'm sure you were just so excited and looking forward to hearing about campaign finances in April 2026.

Stephanie:
I could barely sleep.

Mack:
Six months after the election, I'm finding it challenging personally to get super interested in this. Of course, Taproot is working on this, we're gonna update our election microsite to have the final campaign finance disclosures, we might talk about this a little bit more in the future. But we just wanted to acknowledge that the details are out and you may have seen some reporting about this, so we'll throw a few links in the show notes for you. High level, not much has changed from the interim financial disclosures that we had back at the end of September right before the election took place. Broad strokes, mayoral candidate Tim Cartmell spent the most by far, more than basically everyone else combined. And mayoral, winner Andrew Knack spent very little. There's some context here from Keith Gerein who's written a couple of columns about this over at, Postmedia. Andrew Knack spent barely 35% of the amount that Amarjeet Sohi spent back in 2021 to win his election. He spent about $675,000. Andrew Knack spent just less than $250,000. So that's one bit of context that I thought was interesting. And the other thing that he pointed out is that Tim Cartmell's advertising budget alone was higher than Andrew Knack's entire campaign. And so he, Keith Gerein did a, per vote calculation, and he found that Andrew Knack spent three dollars per vote and Tim Cartmell ended up spending more than 15 dollars per vote. So five times as much to, as we know, not win the election.

Stephanie:
You could buy three junior chickens for 15 dollars.

Mack:
Junior chickens are good, yeah.

Stephanie:
I, yeah, exactly. Maybe it would have been a better spend of money. No, I'm just kidding. That's so mean.

Mack:
But broad strokes, like I said, not much has changed here. The Better Edmonton Party and Tim Cartmell raised by far more money than everyone else, and it didn't matter in the end. They didn't win the election. If you want to dig more into that, we'll put the links in the show notes, as I said, and we will update the Taproot election site so you can go and browse the interim and the final numbers and see how those things changed. All right, that's our show this week. Thank you so much for listening. Stephanie will be back with more about city council next week. And as you mentioned, if you haven't checked out the roundups, now might be a good time to do that. We have seven of them published almost every day of the week on different topics. We mentioned a bunch of them throughout the show. People like to mix them, I find. You know, they get a business and tech, and then they get the food roundup because they want to know about the new hotspots that are opening. So, or they get, you know, the regional one because they want to know what's going on, and then they get the arts one because there's lots of great shows and things to go and check out.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Mack:
You can find all of those at taprootedmonton.ca. Until next week, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

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