A slim majority of candidates for council and mayor said they would Negotiate with the province to ensure the best practical outcome if Alberta's government were to intervene in municipal matters on Taproot's candidate survey.
Thirty-five candidates selected this option. This included eight mayoral candidates: Paul Bakhmut, Tim Cartmell, Tony Caterina, Abdul Malik Chukwudi, Andy Andrzej Gudanowski, Rahim Jaffer, Omar Mohammad, and Michael Walters. Aaron Paquette, Keren Tang, and Jo-Anne Wright were the incumbent council candidates who picked the same option.
Twenty-nine candidates said they would Stand up for Edmonton's autonomy. Mayor candidates who selected this were Ronald Stewart Billingsley, Jr, Vanessa Denman, Andrew Knack, Utha Nadauk, Olney Tugwell. Council incumbents Michael Janz, Erin Rutherford, Ashley Salvador, and Anne Stevenson said the same.
Just eight candidates — none running for mayor or an incumbent for council — said they would Conduct a review to see if our shortcomings are at fault.
Taproot asked candidates a second question about council's relationship with the province in the survey. That question was about what candidates would do if pressured to fund services that are under provincial jurisdiction. Forty-eight respondents said they would Redirect public pressure to secure sufficient provincial funding. Nine candidates said they would Fund the services to ensure quality of life, and nine said they would Refuse to fund and focus resources on municipal responsibilities. Six candidates said they had no position, including mayoral hopefuls Paul Bakhmut, Vanessa Denman, and Andy Andrzej Gudanowski.
As of this writing, 22 candidates for council and mayor have not yet completed the survey.
The provincial government has exerted influence and control over municipal matters since before the current council was elected in 2021. Since that election, the province has allowed itself to appoint people to the Edmonton Police Commission. In 2024, Dale McFee, who was then the chief of the Edmonton Police Service, successfully asked the province to hold an inquiry into two city-appointed commissioners. (McFee now works for the provincial government.) Recently, Devin Dreeshen, the transportation minister, has called for Edmonton to halt building the bike lanes its council has approved.
Some say, on the flip side, that Alberta's government is not doing enough for Edmonton. The city has more than 4,700 unhoused citizens, and more than 70% of opioid deaths in the province during March and April happened here. Both stats are ultimately the province's responsibility, through its oversight of healthcare, community and social services, and social assistance. Edmonton's municipal government has routinely raised concerns that these provincial matters are driving municipal costs. Edmonton's Fire Rescue Service, for example, spent more than $9 million responding to medical emergencies in 2023.