From securing a second term as mayor, to opening kilometres of new bike lanes, to seeing the region come together under the Metro Edmonton banner, it’s been a busy 2017 in Edmonton.
Just before the Christmas recess at city hall, Mayor Don Iveson sat down with Global News to reflect on some of the issues that made up the year that was, along with offering insight on some of the challenges city hall will face in 2018.
For example, one big debate next spring will be how the soon-to-be-legalized cannabis industry will be regulated locally.
“I think we’ve learned that over-regulation may not always be the best solution,” Iveson suggested while adding, “one of the other things that we’re mindful of is you do want to probably make sure that the dispensary is, say, not next to a daycare.”
READ MORE: Policing legal pot in Edmonton will cost upwards of $7M, chief says
Over the course of half an hour, the mayor responded to questions on numerous issues.
Vinesh Pratap (VP): What do you think was the major accomplishment or the thing you’re most proud of for 2017?
Don Iveson (DI): Watching our region come together as Edmonton Metro Region for the first time in as long as I can remember. It’s been generations of infighting and mistrust… and that’s held us back.
When we’re united as a strong metropolitan region our voice is way stronger; both to markets of investors, to markets of export, if we can get organized together and to governments when it comes to our infrastructure priorities.
Edmonton’s economic future
DI: My top priority for this term is uniting all of the parts of our innovation ecosystem to be able to support the growth of more companies here, create more jobs here so that Edmonton can have prosperity into the future and so that we can actually be of relevance to the world and problem solving. I think we’re that good.
VP: Are you trying to transition the city’s economy from oil and gas based and the service industry into something else?
DI: Not at all, actually. I mean, this is one of the challenges when talking diversifying. It implies you’re going to abandon what you’ve been good at for a long time and chase shiny new objects.
We’re still going to be a manufacturing centre. We’re still going to be producing maybe more plastics and less fuel from hydro-carbons. But the world is still going to need those materials. I’d love to see some great tech companies built out of our world leader capacity in artificial intelligence and health.
Watch below: Iveson weighs in on Edmonton’s economy in 2018
Over or under or steady on the street?
VP: Do you think there will be changes to the (west LRT) plan or do you think the price tag might put a brake on that?
DI: Some of the challenges we’ve had with LRT came from the fact that we were building it in fits and spurts with inconsistent guarantees of money from senior orders of government.
READ MORE: More questions about Edmonton’s Metro Line LRT following big reveal
We now have the resources to build better LRT. It doesn’t mean we can build a skytrain or build a subway all the way because you’d run out of money a lot faster. But strategically, in where it makes sense, I think this council heard loud and clear from our public that we want to disentangle the LRT from traffic at more key intersections.
VP: Why is there a push to have it built all the way to the suburbs; why not build it in stages if costs become an issue?
DI: Those are options. There are some advantages to spinning up and building it all at once. If you build it a couple of kilometres at a time and you have to ramp up and down and have new contracts and so on and so forth, and you’re at the whim of what’s happening in the economy, now is probably a good time to put that out to tender and we’ll probably get a better price by bundling it all together.
“I want to underline that I think this council is very open for investment.”
2018 will be another busy time under the glass pyramids. Regular city hall committee and council meetings resume on Jan. 15.
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