There are people who face structural barriers, the hardship of losing their jobs, and their homes. We’ve witnessed startling discrimination and racism. Families are struggling to make ends meet, with child care costs being one of the biggest burdens. We’ve seen the consequences of addictions become more severe, and more people struggling with mental health challenges show up on our streets and in our hospitals. 

These issues are connected. They are symptoms of poverty, inequality, lack of opportunity, and of support systems that have been overwhelmed by the scale of this crisis. 

Better is possible.

If I’m elected mayor, I will work with Council, City Administration and social agencies throughout Edmonton to meet and deal with these issues head-on.

Housing and Houselessness

Twelve years ago, our city set a bold vision: to end chronic houselessness. And while we’re not there, we’ve made extraordinary progress—more than 12,000 have been housed.

But the pandemic has pushed many to the breaking point, and houselessness is increasing again. We cannot fail the most vulnerable members of our community.

We need to reach our goal of ending chronic houselessness. To do this, we need to recommit to our original vision and advocate strongly to the provincial and federal governments to invest in affordable and supportive housing. Within the city’s role, I want to make use of other innovative tools at our disposal:

• Identifying buildings for affordable housing retrofits—with the commercial vacancy rate in Edmonton being high and capital dollars hard to come by, we should explore retrofitting existing buildings to create affordable suites. The city should facilitate this by creating incentives to invest and accessing funding from other orders of government.
• Improve coordination in the housing and social service sector—many agencies and organizations across the city are working to tackle the challenges of housing and homelessness, and in many cases, they work together. But, there is room for improvement. The use of common information systems, for example, can make services more seamless and efficient. As Mayor, I will use my office to bring the sector together to take advantage of these opportunities.
• Center Indigenous voices—our statistics and experiences with housing show that Indigenous peoples are disproportionately represented among the population experiencing homelessness, for a range of reasons. We cannot address the needs of Indigenous people experiencing homelessness without Indigenous voices at leadership tables, helping to guide decision making and create better, more culturally-informed approaches. Examples like Ambrose Place have shown us just how much can be accomplished when we put Indigenous ways of connecting and leading at the centre. 

A more detailed platform on homelessness and housing will be released later this week.

Harm Reduction and Mental Health

We’ve seen the impact of closing safe consumption sites and other harm reduction programs. I’m committed to advocating the provincial government, and directly with the federal government if need be, to restore addictions support.

I will also push the provincial and federal governments to increase support to social agencies. These organizations need adequate resources to support vulnerable and marginalized populations. Otherwise, we’ll see more vulnerable people slip through the cracks.

I will also work with my council colleagues to develop a new Edmonton Mental Health Action Plan. This plan would consider youth access to mental health resources. It would propose better solutions for emergency mental health interventions that rely less on the police to be the front line for mental health crises. It would look at ways to better reach underserved populations with preventative mental health care, including equity-seeking groups and vulnerable populations.

I’ll release more details on this part of my platform later this week.

Making our Communities Safe

I have been deeply engaged in community safety work for more than 20 years. And I know that building safe communities requires all of us to work together: neighbourhoods, agencies, health providers, police, places of worship, and individuals. To build supportive, caring communities. There is no shortcut.

As mayor, I would build on programs like the Crisis Diversion line and HELP pilot where police and social agencies collaborate to dispatch appropriate support workers in conjunction with or instead of police. This would free up police resources to focus on enforcement and other actions within their core mandate. 

Many communities and community members have a historic distrust of law enforcement. As a racialized community member who has worked closely with police, I believe I can foster a dialogue between police and the community to begin to overcome these barriers. 

I would also direct City Administration to report and take action within 100 days to end hate-based violence. 

I’ll release more details on this part of my platform later this week.

Families and Child Care

Edmonton should be a place where people can come to grow and start their families, but parents from all backgrounds struggle to find affordable child-care services here. 

It’s time for us to create an Edmonton Child Care Strategy that looks at how the City can support the creation of more child-care spaces, develop more programs and resources at city facilities to support better outcomes for children, and work with school boards and local non-profits to increase more affordable childcare spaces.

I’ll release more details on this part of my platform later this week.

Social Progress for all Edmontonians

I believe these policies will help us bring together and support Edmontonians who need it most.

It isn’t any one person’s “turn” to get ahead. A just city cannot work like that. It’s incumbent on each of us to work together to lift up all Edmontonians. That is what I will do as your mayor.