EDMONTON - Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith’s campaign was hurt by her baffling attempt to pit the rest of the province against Edmonton, says Mayor Stephen Mandel.
A victory by Smith, who wanted to reopen talks on the City Centre Airport’s future and postpone construction of the Royal Alberta Museum until there’s a provincial surplus, would have “devastated” the city, Mandel said Tuesday.
But the party didn’t win a single local riding and will sit in opposition instead.
“What would be the logic of going against a city which in our region has 26 seats? I don’t understand the political logic,” Mandel told the Journal’s editorial board.
“I have no understanding why someone would take an issue knowing the citizens of the city are very, very strong supporters of it. … I couldn’t understand it for someone who’s supposed to be so politically smart.”
Edmonton Conservative MPs Rona Ambrose and Laurie Hawn privately vowed to fight for completion of the new museum, which will receive $120 million in federal funding if work starts by November, Mandel said.
He was particularly upset Smith didn’t condemn the comments of Edmonton Wildrose candidate Allan Hunsperger, who wrote in a blog post last year that gay people are going to hell.
“You can’t govern me and have a homophobic attitude or an anti-anything attitude. … The question I ask is why she didn’t react to it,” Mandel said.
“Either 1, she agrees, or 2, there were people behind her who wouldn’t let her. … That was a pivotal point in the campaign. That was the TSN turning point.”
Mandel made the comments after his annual state-of-the-city speech to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, where he told about 1,500 people Premier Alison Redford’s win was all about new ideas, particularly for urban centres.
“From our perspective, this election demonstrated how clearly Alberta’s growing urban reality is a major change that has fully dawned on the provincial stage,” he said.
“This election presented near-unanimous agreement that it is time for a new deal for Alberta’s two big cities.”
Edmonton has shaken off a “good enough” mentality that stalled work such as overhauling Churchill Square, and needs to push ahead with LRT expansion, a new Walterdale Bridge and redeveloping the City Centre Airport lands, he said.
The mayor also wants greater focus on marketing Edmonton as a place to live and do business, saying the city ran from previous efforts such as the Edmonton Stories website as soon as the cost became a “political football.”
“We have to compete against the world. We have lost things we should have had a chance to compete for.”
He wants to see more regional economic diversification, such as boosting Fort Saskatchewan’s petrochemical industry, to offset a potential drop in oil exports to an increasingly energy self-sufficient American market.
But on one controversial scheme — the new arena — Mandel admitted more should have been done to explain how it’s expected to revitalize downtown.
The $450-million project is envisioned as the centrepiece of an entertainment district featuring restaurants, stores, office towers, apartment buildings and a new casino.
“We haven’t done enough to communicate how the deal aligns with what citizens have told us they want to see,” he said.
“We apologize for that. We should have done a better job. There’s a great deal of confusion out there.”
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