Sep. 21, 2010 - Issue #779 : Bear Nation

« Back to War of the Wards 2010

Raucous politics

To put it mildly, last night's mayoral debate did not fill me with scads of hope. Of the seven candidates for mayor, three could be charitably described as woefully incompetent, two are mildly promising politicians who are a ways out of their depth, one is a corporate demagogue who would have been behind the times 10 years ago, and the other one is seeking reelection.

The forum itself was unusually raucous for a major municipal event—at one point, mentions of David Suzuki and global warming were booed. Any mention of the airport drew extensive crowd noise, usually jeers from the very vocal group of petition-signees—I'd have a hard time describing them as "many," as the Journal did—followed by cheers from a gathering of Mandel supporters. The anger over the petition getting struck down feels very palpable, although I'm not sure if it's a big enough bloc to actually make much of a difference: there were multiple references to "90,000 signatures," but I imagine considerably less than that were actually ardent supporters, and among almost everyone else the mood seems to be apathetic or hostile towards their cause. (Although small numbers can speak volumes in municipal elections.) It needs to be said that the cries of the rejection somehow being an affront to democracy is a heaping load of bullshit—these are well-established provincial guidelines designed precisely to protect our democratic rights, and a group that conducted its business as shadily as Envision Edmonton has no business complaining about the city sticking to rules—that nevertheless nearly every candidate was willing to swallow and spit back at Mandel. I agree with Fightin' Daryl Bondar, though, in that there are far, far more important issues to be discussing. Still, Mandel's vulnerability on the issue in the eyes of his competition will keep it in the air, I'm sure.

Predictably, there was a lot of heat given to Mandel—the EPCOR deal also became a running theme—although I think that has something to do with the fact that nearly all his challengers have some serious deficiency, i.e. can't count on standing on their own platforms or experience. On that note, I thought I'd finish with a run-down of my impressions of the candidates, in order of least to most likely to get my vote. This won't be pretty.

Bob Ligertwood
Ligertwood began his remarks with a very good point about the decreasing number of forums—there are just two mayoral forums this year, compared to a dozen in 1992—and that was essentially the last sensible thing he said. The rest of his talk was a series of rants against a disconnected series of evils—facebook is the downfall of civilization, police should be monitoring children's use of the internet in libraries, the Oil City Roadhouse is a blight on downtown—that felt like being harangued by a bitter uncle on his fifth glass of Christmas sherry. His angry old man routine got some laughs from some of the older crowd, but he does not actually seem to have a platform, and was apparently happier when downtown was post-apocalyptically empty after 5pm. At one point it came out that his 10-year-old granddaughter broke an internet grounding by signing up for facebook at the library, which as far as I can tell is his sole reason for running. I know it's great how everyone gets a voice in democracy and all, but when we only have two forums to hear from mayoral candidates, we shouldn't be wasting time on angry cranks.

Andrew Lineker
Lineker at least has some ideas about actual city governance, though they are of the quality that he might have been better off sticking to Ligertwood-style belligerent ranting. The perfect example of how little he seems to understand about the city can be summed up in his stance on the LRT: according to him, it is basically just a useless waste that only serves to clog up the roads for cars. His solution to this—and I literally could not make this up—is to scrap the proposed lines and build an LRT line around the Anthony Henday, to stay out of the way of cars. I know there were a few traffic issues when the latest expansion opened, but that one statement reveals a profound ignorance of the purposes of both public transit and ring roads, which is a hell of an impressive feat. That lack of depth is pretty indicative of most of his ideas.

Dave Dowling
The perpetual candidate wasn't much more coherent than Ligertwood, though he hit on the importance of democracy, the need to protect the environment—it was his comments on Suzuki and global warming that got booed—and that we need to do "stuff" about poverty. I appreciate the agitation for the left among a generally pretty conservative slate, but of course I wouldn't actually want him within three blocks of a decision that would affect me in any way.

Daryl Bonar
Bonar seemed like the best-coached of the challengers, and I'd put a rough estimate on his use of boxing metaphors at 15. He had a handful of thought-through, reasonable points—he brought up widening our focus beyond downtown when it comes to redevelopment of Edmonton's existing neighbourhoods, for instance, and as mentioned I liked that he did at least pay lip service to moving beyond the airport issue—though just as many moments that revealed his lack of understanding on some key issues, and his general platform is a little too conservative for my tastes. Still, with some more seasoning, he could make a reasonable run as a Tony Caterina-style councillor next election. He's punching above his weight class here (hyuck).

David Dorward
Honestly, that he is this high up is far more reflective of the lack of quality of other candidates. I think Dorward would at least be competent, in the sense that we probably wouldn't leave the city a shelled-out, flaming husk within a year. But if I was ranking based on platform, he'd be down there with Lineker. His ties to Envision Edmonton and the ECCA is the obvious deficiency, but what really struck me was how Conservative—as in, the national party—he was acting: his points were mostly demagoguery on taxes and crime and the airport, designed to rile up the angry, ignorant base. He made a lot of claims about financial management—he made a big show about going through the budget "line by line" to find more money, because presumably now the City just guesstimates and tries not to spill scotch on the final report—but his lack of actual understanding of city budgets was pointed out quite plainly by Mandel, who shot down his misguided proposal for paying for a senior's property tax break by pointing out the difference between capital and operating budgets. (And Dorward's a chartered accountant.) I saw a lot more pandering to people who don't think through issues than any actual reasonable or forward-thinking ideas. I suspect he's the strongest challenger to Mandel, but even for the mayor's problems, Dorward would be a significant step back.

Dan Dromarsky
Besides his too-pandering platform point about clearing roads and fixing potholes—we have much bigger issues—I was genuinely quite impressed by Dromarsky. His first major point was about the need to bring out more voters, which is obvious, but he seemed to be the only one genuinely interested in it, and he was also the only one to talk about using more open technology as a tool for political engagement. Most of his platform is eminently pragmatic: for instance, he made a point about how, though he didn't necessarily agree with the Expo bid, at this point we're too far in, and the best we could do is move forward responsibly. He also seems to support some other major initiatives—LRT expansion, for instance—but talked about the need to be more fiscally responsible with them, which seems like a good line to take for a man who can't really praise the mayor's vision. His major drawback is a noticeable lack of experience: Mandel punctured a point Dromarsky was trying to make about planning the Henday with a dry remark about how it was under provincial jurisdiction. If he studies up and makes a run at councillor in three years' time, though, I'd give him a long look.

Stephen Mandel
I have serious reservations about Mandel, especially his propensity for big legacy projects of questionable value to the city, but at this point he is the only candidate who seems both capable and generally ahead on the issues. The comparison between opening remarks was the biggest thing for me: he talked about sprawl and changing the city, where all the other candidates were worried about cars. Obviously no one else could really reference the planning documents implemented under his watch without losing face, but he was the only who talked about tangible ways to move forward, period. I thought he was eminently reasonable with the bitter faction of folks angry about the ECCA and EPCOR—I disagree with him on the latter, but he addressed the criticisms head on. Obviously as the incumbent he has a serious knowledge edge, but he also revealed some serious and obvious flaws in the other candidates' plans in a pretty sedate manner. And I have to admit that I really don't understand the criticism, leveled against him repeatedly, that Council has somehow been excessively opaque or ignorant of the voting public. He is absolutely not perfect, but he is far and away the best candidate in this field by just about any measure.