Edmonton Votes 2025: Election front-runners trade barbs, talk housing at Chinatown forum
Edmonton voters take part in The Chinatown Safety Council and REACH Edmonton's municipal election mixer at the Chinatown Transformation Collaborative Society, 10601 97 St., in Edmonton Saturday Oct. 4, 2025.
Top candidates for the mayor’s chair turned up the heat on one another during a public forum this weekend in Edmonton.
Candidates spoke Saturday at a municipal election mixer organized by the Chinatown Safety Council and REACH Edmonton at the Chinatown Transformation Collaborative Society. Speaking as part of a panel were Ward O-day’min council candidates Anand Pye and Anne Stephenson, as well as mayoral candidates Vanessa Denman, Andrew Knack, Rahim Jaffer, Michael Walters, Malik Chukwadi and Tim Cartmell of the Better Edmonton party. Ward Karhiio candidate Jason Bale and Edmonton Public Schools Ward D trustee candidate Nickela Anderson were also present but did not participate in the panel.
Each candidate was allowed a three-minute introduction to express their ideas and pitch themselves to the crowd of 35 who packed into the building. The panel was then subjected to two “lightning rounds” where they were randomly handed questions written down by the audience.
An Oct. 3 Abacus Data poll of 700 voters found Cartmell is in the lead with 22 per cent of eligible voters decided. Knack is a close second with 17 per cent of the vote. A Leger poll of 419 voters released the same day has Knack and Cartmell in a dead heat 14 per cent of the decided vote.
Mayoral candidate Michael Walters takes part in The Chinatown Safety Council and REACH Edmonton’s municipal election mixer at the Chinatown Transformation Collaborative Society, 10601 97 St., in Edmonton Saturday Oct. 4, 2025.© David Bloom
Promising “real change within 100 days,” Cartmell said he wanted to establish a municipal development corporation to consolidate properties in the Quarters and sell them to developers to revitalize the Chinatown area and provide social housing.
He echoed several other candidates in saying the city needed to show more respect to the community.
“On Harbin Gate, city administration refused to collaborate with members of this community,” he added, suggesting the gate would have been finished already otherwise. He also took a jab at fellow former councillor Knack. “Some of my opponents have been part of the same council decisions that have left us with higher taxes, slower growth and streets that don’t feel as safe as they once did. Some want to pretend the last eight years didn’t happen or that they weren’t in the room, but they were.”
Knack responded in kind, throwing a barb at Cartmell for missing a key infill vote in July.
“My vision is about solving the real problems Edmontonians face every day when they get up for work. I’m going to protect and improve the services that families rely on. I’m going to steadily get our budget under control with no surprises, and I’m going to show up at council — not just on the days that suit me,” said Knack. “We know the community has experienced tragedy. When it comes to actually dealing with homelessness and safety, we can’t wait.”
Social housing would also be a key part of his plan to alleviate homelessness, he added.
Jaffer, whom Abacus has at seven per cent of decided voters, said he wanted to establish a “recovery village” based on the athletes’ village he visited during the 2008 Beijing Olympics while he was a MP for the Conservative Party. The idea would be to have necessities provided for patients so they could focus on recovery.
He said he didn’t think moving shelters to other parts of the city was a long-term solution, as having to cross larger distances put vulnerable people at risk of exploitation. Instead, we wanted to follow a similar model to how the city tackled excessive drinking on Whyte Avenue in the last decade.
Touting his time working at the Bissel Centre, Walters — who is currently holding six per cent of the decided vote according to Abacus — said he wanted to get more creative with the city’s relationship with Edmonton Public Schools and open school spaces for more uses. He suggested free admission at recreation centres for youth during after-school hours to give kids a place to go, particularly in lower-income parts of the city where they have less opportunities to play. He said he wanted to see fruit and vegetable stands return to the area.
Calling Chinatown “Edmonton’s most-treasured neighbourhood,” Denman said she wanted to see more foot patrols and outreach workers in the area and pledged to listen to the community about its needs.
Noting he had an office in the area and saw the issues facing the community daily, Chukwadi said he was impressed with the calibre of discussion during the panel and said he felt the city was in good hands.
“I believe that everyone here will do what they say they will do,” he said. “I believe once this Oct. 20 is over, we’ll get the right person in office.”
Mayoral and Ward O-day’min City Councillor candidates take part in The Chinatown Safety Council and REACH Edmonton’s municipal election mixer at the Chinatown Transformation Collaborative Society, 10601 97 St., in Edmonton Saturday Oct. 4, 2025.© David Bloom
Council candidates give their thoughts
Incumbent O-day’min councillor Stephenson said she wanted to make the public washrooms in the area open 24/7 to reduce the frequency of human waste appearing on the streets and establish day shelters around the city so unhoused people have somewhere to go during the day.
She also said the city needs to work with the province to make detox and addictions recovery a higher priority for the health-care system.
Noting people in the area felt constrained as responsibilities had been “downloaded to them,” opposing candidate Anand Pye said the city should look at other jurisdictions with similar challenges for ideas on how to resolve them.
He suggested the city model its Chinatown revitalization with limitations on some businesses that are overly represented in the area, such as pharmacies, but putting hard limits on them similar to the limitation of bars on Whyte Avenue.
Phair Questions
Former city councillor Michael Phair was also present at the forum. He said he was impressed with what he heard in the panel but noted some ideas brought up had been tried before.
“I think the notion of trying to move social services is very difficult to do and I don’t think it achieves very much. The problem isn’t with the agencies themselves,” he said. “There are issues like this in the west end already and around in Strathcona and other parts of the city, too.
“We don’t want to pretend there isn’t things that don’t need to done in those areas as well. They’re dealing with the same issues as we have here.”
He cautioned voters should be aware of the limits of what city council can do or not do, noting an audience suggestion to require nearby social agencies to sign a binding Good Neighbour agreement with the community was simply not enforceable.
Phair, who has publicly endorsed Knack for mayor, added he liked Walters’ idea of better partnership with the public school system.
“The relationship with schools and use of those spaces is something that should be looked at,” he said. “Schools are a public service and so is the city. I think there’s something there that could be helpful.
He also said he liked Walters’ notions of setting up a public cleaning group similar to on Boyle street and stepping up waste management in the area.
