The Pulse: Jan. 20, 2021

City council's urban planning committee met on Jan. 19 to discuss initiatives to support more and better infill in Edmonton, as per the Infill Roadmap 2018. It also received updates on infill compliance, and fire protection.

In 2020, seven additional actions from the infill roadmap were completed.

"The actions completed in 2020 have focused on providing more and better information to the public, exploring creative opportunities to support additional infill, and aligning our regulations to match the city’s commitment to welcoming more people and new homes into older neighbourhoods," said the report. "The remaining actions reflect the city’s ongoing commitment to excellent service and ambitions to tackle broader issues through major initiatives such as the Zoning Bylaw Renewal and City Plan implementation projects."

Sixteen of the roadmap's 25 actions are now done, leaving six to be completed by the end of 2022 and three which will need to be sustained beyond the end of the roadmap.

• City councillor Tony Caterina announced he plans to run again in this fall's municipal election — but in a different ward. The current Ward 7 councillor plans to run in Ward 5, the new ward of O-day’min.
• A project by YWCA and Parity YEG aims to highlight Edmonton's first female councillor, elected 100 years ago, plus the service of the 30 other women that followed Izena Ross. It also questions why there continues to be an gender imbalance at city hall.
• Michelle Draper, public school board trustee in Ward B, has announced she will not seek re-election.
• "Public sector unions plan to launch a legal challenge after Alberta’s finance minister quietly signed ministerial orders at the end of (2020) that they say give the government-owned investment manager more control over workers’ pensions," reports the Edmonton Journal. The orders came into effect Jan. 1, 2021.
• The city is considering giving $22.9 million in grants over four to five years "to developers of major downtown projects starting construction this year." This is expected to be discussed further at the next council meeting on Jan. 25.

From statues and monuments to the names of sports teams, the world continues to grapple with whether controversial memorials should be removed or preserved. On Jan. 20, The Centre for Race and Culture (CFRAC) is turning the focus to Edmonton with a panel discussion about the lasting impact of the city's own problematic memorials.

"This is a watershed moment for public awareness of just how problematic some of our history is," said Myriam Gerber, CFRAC's research coordinator.

Renaming and Removal: Public Memory and Public Spaces will be moderated by Sen. Paula Simons and features four speakers of diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. They will discuss places, buildings, and institutions with contentious names, and how the public presence of monuments relates to controversial historical figures.

The goal of the event is to get Edmontonians thinking about how these names and monuments affect their perception of history, and what to do about it, Gerber explained.

"Names of places, names of statues, names of buildings normalize a specific version of history," she said. "We tend to name things after people we want to celebrate, and not everyone may agree with that celebration."

Sturgeon County is getting $2.2-million from the province through the Municipal Stimulus Program for improvements at Villeneuve Airport. 

The funding will be used for a waterline essential to the airport's growth and further business development, according to a news release. Sturgeon County is also investing $7.3-million to improve broadband connectivity in a pilot project area that includes the airport.

“Through the collective efforts of regional partners who form the Villeneuve Landing Network, we are working to propel economic diversification at Villeneuve Airport and the nearby surrounding lands to increase opportunities for our future and that of the greater region," Mayor Alanna Hnatiw said in a news release.

"Our vision includes developing the lands into a general aviation, manufacturing, transportation and logistics hub that connects specialized regional products and services with global markets.”

Alberta scientists are developing a rapid screening test that will help track the genetic code of coronavirus variants across the province.

According to the province's chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta now has two confirmed cases of the variant first found in South Africa, and 12 cases of the variant from the U.K.

Graham Tipples, medical-scientific director with the provincial lab, said the team has been conducting full genome sequencing on a proportion of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Tipples said the surveillance program targets travellers, outbreaks, and severe cases.

"The big question is, is it being imported into Canada? Is it establishing itself in Canada? And, is it in fact truly associated with enhanced spread, or did that just happen to be the strain that was around in the U.K. when they found a surge in tests? So those are the kinds of questions that we need to keep an eye on things to understand a little bit better," Tipples told CBC News.

This week's word is "nikawiy" which means "my mother" in Cree. Here's how to pronounce it.

The Cree word of the week was featured by local strategic communications agency Naheyawin in 2018. Republished with permission!

Interested in learning more? The Centre for Race and Culture is offering online ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ (nêhiyaw or Plains Cree) language lessons for beginners from Feb. 8 to April 19.