Municipal Round-Up — June 4: Don't Tread On My Lawn Sign
This week, Edmonton mayoral candidate Mike Nickel kicks it off with a thing that must come up in every election. It was a heinous election crime that strikes at the heart of democracy. What am I talking about? People stealing or vandalizing lawn signs, of course.
Coun. Nickel has ignored repeated requests for clarification from Rage on which candidate he believes is responsible for the theft. He did, however, unfollow yours truly on Twitter. He didn’t respond to either emails or tweets. He also did not provide any details on the costs of the signs when asked.
The next day, after insinuating (without evidence) that one of his political opponents was responsible for what he referred to as “attacks” on campaign property, Coun. Nickel demanded that his mayoral opponents, the ones he deemed important enough to address at least (sorry, Michael Oshry), sign a pledge to behave respectfully. That certainly takes some gumption.
LRT To The Moon
On June 2, the City of Calgary announced that the Green Line project will (finally) proceed, in two phases.
According to the City of Calgary, the $5.5-billion project will now be built through a procurement process that they have revised to address concerns about the “C-train to nowhere”. The first phase will be built from Shepard to Eau Claire.
Edmonton LRT Station Mural to Come Down
Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and the city’s administration both announced that the city plans to finally take down the Gradin LRT mural, which depicts Bishop Vital-Justin Grandin and a nun taking an Indigenous baby from his or her family. Grandin lobbied the federal government to fund residential schools. In 2010, a group of Edmontonians requested the mural be removed, arguing it did not reflect the reality of residential schools. A committee was formed and they decided at the time that removing the mural would be sweeping history under the rug, so they commissioned additional panels to tell a more balanced story. Aaron Paquette was one of the artists, this was before he was a city councillor.
According to a City of Edmonton document obtained by Rage, the city has a broad group of stakeholders to consult about changing the mural The Indigenous Relations Office and Edmonton Transit Service have been working with community groups such as the Francophonie jeunesse de l’Alberta, who initially commissioned the original mural, the Société historique francophone de l'Alberta, the Edmonton Arts Council, the Edmonton Heritage Council, as well as Indigenous residential school and ’60s scoop survivors, to provide guidance on the Grandin LRT Station mural.
The Francophonie jeunesse de l’Alberta has not made any public statements about the mural.
Calgary Board of Education Changes School Name
In more renaming news, the Calgary Board of Education voted to change the name of a Calgary School from Langevin to Riverside. The school was named after Hector-Louis Langevin, who was one of the Fathers of Confederation and a Conservative cabinet minister. He served as secretary of state for Canada when Canada’s residential schools were introduced. The school was previously known as Riverside Junior High School before the CBE changed the name to Langevin Junior High, in 1936.
Equalization On The Ballot
It was not a great week for Premier Jason Kenney, who reignited the fury of Albertans stuck at home when his Marie Antoinette-style antics were captured in a dinner at the so-called “Sky Palace”:
This created as good of a chance as any to distract people by tossing some red meat to the base, in the form of a referendum on equalization payments. This was a staple in the lead-up to the last provincial election where Kenney promised Alberta “a fair deal” to Albertans. We set the stage for why this municipal election matters early on in the newsletter, and have previously discussed how referendums, which in the case of both the Senate election and equalization payments, are symbolic ways to express displeasure at Ottawa and are not legally binding.
The reaction to this news was mixed among the pundit class and twitterati.