EDMONTON – Mayor Don Iveson is joining forces with other mayors to make city issues ballot box issues.
Edmonton’s mayor, along with several other Canadian mayors, including those of Vancouver, Toronto, Regina, capped off their city-focused federal election campaign Tuesday. During simultaneous media events across the country, the big city mayors called on the over 21 million Canadians who live in their cities to keep municipalities in mind when they cast their ballots.
“I think there are 16 mayors out of the group who are doing events or statements this morning on these issues,” said Iveson. “We’re part of a larger community that is trying to provide some policy leadership…not to specifically endorse a particular party, but in order to ensure that these issues are part of a national conversation at a critical time.”
Iveson said strong cities are the foundation of a strong economy.
“Our issues are Canadian issues and so we challenged federal parties to partner with us in three key areas: transit, infrastructure and housing.”
He said there has been historic progress from all parties in many areas impacting cities.
“All federal parties now get that investing in public transit and infrastructure is part and parcel of building a stronger economy,” said Iveson. However, he said their commitments on public housing have been much less clear.
“Ideally, we’d have a national solution for this that involves the provinces as well as the cities.”
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has created a website, citiescan.ca, that analyses the platforms of parties and candidates when it comes to key city issues.
“We’ve analysed their platforms for the strong and the less strong,” said Iveson. “That information is all up there. For any Edmontonian who’s really interested, we refer you to a tool kit there…It’s a fairly rigorous analysis of the propositions from the parties and then some candidates have taken the pledge. That information is there for people to help inform their decisions.”
Iveson said he is not endorsing any particular party.
“It’s not my role to tell anyone who to vote for…but I’m going to suggest what to vote for. Vote for cities…But, above all else, make sure you vote.”
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