The Pulse: May 9, 2025

Patrons of the Downtown Farmers' Market could enjoy an alcoholic beverage on 104 Street NW this summer if council approves a new downtown entertainment district at a meeting on May 20.

City administration has proposed the entertainment district on 104 Street between Jasper Avenue and 104 Avenue. Creating it would allow people to purchase alcohol from bars and restaurants and then consume those beverages in disposable containers along the street, which would be closed to vehicles.

Jenny Baker, the city's manager of downtown economy, told Taproot that, if approved, the city would activate the district on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm, while the outdoor farmers' market is operating.

The street "offers a lot of great opportunity," Baker said. "You've got a high concentration of bars and restaurants, businesses, cafes, but also it's already got that pedestrian street feeling, and it's home to the Downtown Edmonton Farmers' Market that returned last year. We just thought, 'What a great opportunity' — we're already adding vibrancy to that street with this amazing market, and the entertainment district just brings additional economic impact to the businesses."

Council's urban planning committee is set to vote on the district proposal on May 13. If the committee approves the changes, Baker said council will give a final vote, likely on May 20, with 104 Street activated as an entertainment district as soon as May 24.

City administration has also proposed to expand the existing entertainment district downtown, on Rice Howard Way, to include Sorrentino's, Woodwork, and the yet-to-open Bar Trove. The Edmonton Downtown Business Association is in charge of programming the districts and has announced three of the dates that the Rice Howard Way version will operate in 2025: June 7, July 19, and Aug. 17. Those dates align with Pride Month, the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival, and the Edmonton Marathon after party, respectively. The organization is working on two additional events in September, and if other events come up, it will add those, too.

In 2024, the Rice Howard Way district was activated and programmed every Saturday throughout the summer, but the EDBA is being more intentional in 2025, Quinn Phillips, marketing and communications manager with the organization, told Taproot. "This year, it's just more about cultivating really good experiences and also partnering with different organizations across the city to help bring this thing to life and make it really meaningful each time we do it," she said.

While the city will only activate the entertainment districts during the farmers' market on 104 Street and on certain Saturdays on Rice Howard Way, any organization can apply to close the respective streets to vehicle traffic and hold a party there at any time. Phillips said some businesses are interested in having an Edmonton Oilers playoff watch party in the street in one of the districts.

• Edmonton city council rejected a rezoning application that would have allowed developers to relocate Fulton Creek and remove thousands of mature trees to expand the footprint of Fulton Creek Business Park in southeast Edmonton. The motion failed with a 6-6 tie vote, with Coun. Jo-Anne Wright citing concerns about environmental sustainability and lack of consultation with Papaschase First Nation. Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and Coun. Tim Cartmell both supported the motion, saying they were satisfied with the developer's proposed mitigation efforts.
• The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which represents 23,500 members, said it will hold strike votes for members of eight AUPE locals, who haven't seen significant wage increases for decades. The union said it wants a 24% increase over four years, while the province has offered 11.5%. On April 30, the province applied to lock out AUPE members, which vice-president Sandra Azocar said shows the Alberta government's "ongoing disrespect" to public workers.
• Cool weather on May 8 helped crews battle a series of wildfires in Alberta that have caused shifting evacuation orders and alerts since May 3. Evacuation orders for the Village of Boyle and some parts of Athabasca County were lifted the morning of May 8, allowing more than 800 residents to return home. Evacuation orders remain for parts of Sturgeon County that are threatened by a fire in the Redwater Provincial Recreation Area. Residents of Thorhild County, about 90 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, were allowed to go home, but the area remained under alert as of May 8.
• Officials say a grass fire that shut down part of Anthony Henday Drive on May 6 was caused by human activity in an area with trees near 186 Street and 104 Avenue. As of May 8, crews were still working to extinguish the fire.
• Valley Line Southeast LRT service was suspended between Mill Creek and Davies stations for about an hour on the morning of May 8 due to a multi-vehicle collision that blocked the tracks at 76 Avenue. The crash did not involve an LRT train.
• WestJet said it will pause nine Canada-U.S. routes due to low demand for travel between the two countries. The company's Edmonton-Chicago route and Calgary-Fort Lauderdale route will be paused during June. Its Edmonton-Atlanta route will be unavailable in July and August.
• The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce held its annual State of Our City event, which aimed to be a "frank, solutions-focused conversation" about Edmonton's future. The event included a panel discussion on growth, innovation, and municipal priorities with chamber CEO Doug Griffiths, city manager Eddie Robar, Traci Bednard of Explore Edmonton, Tim Shipton of OEG, and Kalen Anderson of BILD Edmonton Metro.
• Former Edmonton Police Service officer Oli Olason, accused of using excessive force during a March 2021 arrest, testified in his trial that he believes he acted reasonably and proportionately. The trial continues May 9.
• Catholics in Edmonton celebrated the election of Robert Prevost, who chose the name Pope Leo XIV, as leader of the Catholic Church. Calgary-based bishop William McGrattan said he found Prevost, the first American pope, to be a "very sensitive" person. Prevost has spent some time vacationing in Canada, including the Rockies, McGrattan said.
• University of Alberta president Bill Flanagan wrote an op-ed arguing that post-secondary institutions can help navigate Alberta's economic challenges, noting domestic enrolment at the U of A has risen 10.5% since 2020, and applications from high school students have increased 22% in five years. Flanagan called for more engineering students, collaboration with the Alberta government, and "predictable, sustainable, and targeted" visa policies.
• MacEwan University journalism student Raynesh Ram published a piece in The Tyee about Alberta Energy Regulator board chair David Yager, who is also a "special adviser" to Premier Danielle Smith and former CEO of a company that rents equipment for reclaiming abandoned wells. The AER is supposed to be an independent agency regulating energy and mineral development in Alberta, but critics have long accused it of being co-opted by the industry, Ram reported.
• The Alberta NDP, health advocates, and several unions say the UCP government's sweeping Bill 55, tabled May 1, would enable private, for-profit companies to operate public hospitals. Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said opponents are mischaracterizing the bill. The province says the bill supports its work to refocus the health care system.
• The Otipemisiwak Métis Government, which is the government of the Métis Nation within Alberta, issued a release celebrating significant milestones toward Métis rights and self-government. The government has formally established more than half of the districts in its 2022 constitution, and it recently signed an agreement with the Canadian government recognizing the Métis Nation within Alberta and its five territories as a "rights-bearing Métis collectivity," the release says.
• As of May 8, there were more than 300 measles cases reported in Alberta, 100 more than last week, with most cases in children and teenagers. Health experts are urging families and guardians to have children vaccinated against the virus. The province has announced an immunization campaign, but Alberta has low measles vaccination rates overall.
• The Edmonton Elks held rookie camp this week, with 60 rookies competing to join the team. The club said it has "tough decisions" to make before the deadline to make cuts at midnight on May 10. The team's regular season starts with a June 7 game against the B.C. Lions.

Artificial Agency, a company building advanced artificial intelligence tools for video game development, was named the Most Edmonton Startup of the Year at the YEG Startup Community Awards on May 8.

The company raised US$16 million last year to aid its development of a behaviour engine that will allow developers to harness generative AI for game mechanics. Artificial Agency CEO, Brian Tanner, said in the funding announcement that the tool will give "developers the tools to transform ... characters as well as other decision-making systems into individualized AI agents with perceptions, actions, personalities, and goals."

The awards were handed out at the Art Gallery of Alberta on May 8. The rest of the winners are below.

Other 2025 YEG Startup Community Awards Winners

• Rising Star of the Year: Bigyan Karki, the CEO and co-founder of The Drive AI, a multi-tool digital workspace with storage, chat, and collaboration features. The Drive AI recently added functionality to search within video using AI.
• Community Champion of the Year: MNP, an accountancy. Angelo Talamayan, the company's provincial leader for technology, media, and telecommunications, was also nominated for Connector of the Year.
• Community Initiative of the Year: Fit for Tech Edmonton, a hybrid between networking and working out for the startup community. It is usually held on the last Sunday of the month at Black Tusk Athletics.
• New Startup of the Year: FireSafe AI, which uses AI to detect and prevent wildfires. While new, the company has already been a finalist in Summit XI by Startup TNT.
• Disruptor of the Year: Northernmost, which makes medical devices to preserve and transport organs. It secured $2.7 in seed funding in April to help it develop a device to transport donated kidneys.
• Connector of the Year: Jillian McLaren, the managing director of the Community Safety and Wellness Accelerator. The CSW held a demo day on May 5, when it hosted the announcement of the Super Session Pitch Competition, which is powered by Alberta Innovates.
• Best Supporting Actor of the Year: Syed Abbas Mehdi, the research and development operations associate for Future Fields, which won Most Edmonton Startup of the Year in 2024. Mehdi wears many other hats, too, including as the co-founder of the YEG Startup Community Awards.
• MVP: Richard Roy, an associate with DiscoveryLab. For the first time, attendees of the awards got to vote on this category.

On this day in 1975, one of Edmonton's most storied TV stations was off to a rocky start.

When Edmonton surgeon and businessman Charles Allard opened his TV station, it was after nearly 15 years of effort. Allard, who already owned a local radio station, first applied to open what would have been the city's second TV station in 1960. His bid was unsuccessful, with the licence instead going to CBC.

Eventually, Allard got his TV licence, beating two other applicants largely on a promise that the new station would carry a significant amount of local programming. On Sept. 1, 1974, Edmonton's Independent Television hit the airwaves under the callsign CITV, though most just called it ITV.

It wasn't a smooth start. The station's first broadcast ran into technical problems, with some pieces running without audio or video. Those problems were quickly fixed, but criticism of the station's programming continued. The scathing 1975 newspaper review of ITV's programming pictured above took aim at the station, dismissing its content as "wall-to-wall boredom," and "a monument to the sleeping pill industry" (although the writer seemed most angry that ITV's mere existence delayed the introduction of larger American networks to the Edmonton TV scene).

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission also wasn't a huge fan of ITV in its early years. In 1978, the CRTC renewed the station's licence for only 18 months, warning that it hadn't fulfilled its local programming promises, and its future was in doubt.

But ITV hung on. The next few years saw ratings increase, along with stronger revenues and attention for its local programming. The station slowly became an anchor of Edmonton's media landscape. In addition to a popular nightly newscast, ITV put forward a strong slate of local programming, including shows hosted by Edmonton music legend Tommy Banks, a successful televised concert series, and a couple of current affairs shows hosted by the celebrated Fil Fraser, Canada's first Black broadcaster. In 1979, when the Edmonton Oilers joined the NHL, ITV was the station that fans would turn on to watch the game.

Of course, ITV is probably best known for being the home of SCTV, the much-beloved comedy show that has influenced generations of comedians.

In 1981, ITV became a superstation and was broadcast nationwide on cable TV, reaching audiences far beyond what the limits of its Edmonton transmitter. In the '90s, Allard's company sold ITV to a media company, which continued to run the station under the ITV name. Then, in 2000, the station was sold again, this time to media conglomerate Canwest. This meant the station was no longer independent, and it was folded into the company's Global TV Network. Still, while the owner and station name changed, many of the local shows and personalities remained through the transition.

Last summer, the station celebrated its 50th anniversary. The TV business has changed dramatically in the half-century since the scrappy ITV aired its first broadcast, with shrinking budgets, increased consolidation, and less local programming becoming the reality for broadcasters across Canada. However, there have been some recent moves to increase the amount of made-in-Alberta film and TV. A couple of weeks ago, for example, the province announced millions in funding for creative productions in Alberta.

This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist Rev Recluse of Vintage Edmonton.

Here are some events happening this weekend in the Edmonton area.

• May 9: Jerry Forbes Centre Career & Volunteer Fair starting at 10am at Jerry Forbes Centre
• May 9: Friendly Friday at InnoTech Alberta starting at 2:30pm at InnoTech Alberta
• May 9: A Taste of Mexico Culinary Experience starting at 6pm at C5 North East Hub
• May 9: Cafe Polyglot - French, Spanish, Portuguese... any language starting at 6pm at La Bosco Bakery and Cafe
• May 9-11: FascinAsian Film Festival
• May 9-11: Oddbird Spring Fair at Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre
• May 9-25: Volleyball Canada Youth National Championships at Edmonton EXPO Centre
• May 10: Teddy Bear Fun Fest starting at 9am at Rundle Park
• May 10: Mill Creek Cleanup starting at 12:30pm at Ritchie Community Hall
• May 10: Ben Calf Robe Annual Traditional Pow Wow starting at 1pm at Commonwealth Community Recreation Centre
• May 10-11: The Mom Market at Edmonton Brewery District
• May 11: Calgary Surge vs Edmonton Stingers starting at 4pm at Edmonton EXPO Centre

And here are some upcoming events to keep in mind:

• May 23: Chai with the Chamber - A Taste of Culture and Connection In Celebration of Asian Heritage Month at Villa By Nerval
• May 23: A Fringe Benefit at Westbury Theatre
• May 23: Pro Coro Canada Wine and Song Fundraiser at First Presbyterian Church

Visit the beta version of the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.