Wednesday’s historic city council meeting began in a uniquely Edmonton fashion – one that said a lot, symbolically, about this city at a cultural crossroads.
The meeting coincided with the Hindu and Sikh festival of Diwali – and the morning began with a Diwali invocation, from Veena Khatri of the Hindu Society of Alberta, who prayed for calm and unity and light in the darkness. It was a beautiful prayer, especially for late October, when the days are getting shorter and our dark winter nights are creeping in.
But the solemn beauty was in weird contrast to the councilors themselves – who were decked out in their Canadian Finals Rodeo/River City Round-up bright red cowboy shirts and bandanas. (Tony Caterina briefly sported in bandana around his head, gangsta style.) In front of every councilor was a straw cowboy hat. A very small straw cowboy hat. Kim Krushell put the hat on her petite head. It looked pretty good. When Ben Henderson followed suit, his colleague Bryan Anderson quipped that he looked like Woody from Toy Story. (He did.) Mayor Stephen Mandel giggled like a school kid – to the bemused delight of the actual school kids in the council chambers – a group from Bisset Elementary, taking part in City Hall School.
It was a surreal moment – tribute both to our community’s deep agricultural roots and our contemporary cosmopolitan multiculturalism – a microcosm, if you like, of this whole arena debate. What kind of city do we want to be? Is our sense of ourselves as a community so wrapped up with our pride in our hockey team, that we’re willing to make a bad deal, out of the fear that the team might leave, and leave us as bereft as the cast-off playthings left behind in Toy Story?
Unity? Calm? They were in somewhat short supply on Wednesday, as councilors sniped at each other in the arena debate. Linda Sloan, who opposed the deal, accused her colleagues of betraying their democratic responsibilities. Karen Leibovici shot back, effectively accusing Sloan of refusing to listen or understand city administrators. Tony Caterina, long a vehement opponent of the arena deal, shocked everyone by coming up with last minute package of amendments to the agreement presented two weeks ago – amendments that improved the deal enough to win his support, but not the support of his colleagues Sloan, Kerry Diotte or Don Iveson. (You can read Iveson’s measured, yet passionate analysis of the flawed deal on this blog – just back it up a couple of entries.)
As the debate ended, Stephen Mandel laid things out plainly. To him, the Oilers are essential to this city’s sense of self – and he wasn’t going to do anything to risk losing them. And that, I think, is the problem. Daryl Katz knew, in the end, that the city couldn’t and wouldn’t walk away. He held the trump card – and made it plain that he wasn’t afraid to play it.
I confess, I come at this whole debate from something of a cultural disadvantage. I understand, intellectually, the mythic pull that hockey, and the Oilers, have on this city. I grew up here during the glory days of Gretzky and Messier, Kurri and Coffey. I covered Wayne and Janet’s wedding, as a rookie reporter. And as the sister and aunt of a hockey-playing brother and nephew, I’ve logged my hours rink side, watching two generations of little boys play.
But I don’t love hockey they way they do. The way my colleague David Staples does. If I woke up tomorrow and the Oilers weren’t here, I could understand, intellectually, the economic and social loss to the city. But I wouldn’t mourn, not the way a true hockey lover would. This isn’t just an issue of gender – lots of women I know are mad about hockey, lots of girls I know play the game, and passionately. But although I can sympathize with that passion, I can’t empathize. I can’t feel it.
As my friend Mr. Staples would say, I don’t have skin in this game.
Do I think this is still a deeply flawed deal for Edmonton taxpayers? I do. I’m especially concerned about that missing $100 million that was supposed to come from the province – and I’ll write about that tomorrow in my column. But tonight, after two frantic days of covering this debate, I’m feeling a certain calm and clarity myself.
Tuesday’s public hearing made one thing very clear. Many, many, Edmontonians are passionately in love with their city, and passionately committed to improving their downtown. They have different ideas about how to do it – but I was inspired and invigorated by the passion they all expressed. Arena or no arena, we need to find more ways to make that downtown fever infectious, to build a city with a beating heart, not just for sports fans, but for every citizen. We need to honour our roots, look to our future, and find that unity as a community.
Happy Diwali, Edmonton. In the darkness, find the light.
The meeting coincided with the Hindu and Sikh festival of Diwali – and the morning began with a Diwali invocation, from Veena Khatri of the Hindu Society of Alberta, who prayed for calm and unity and light in the darkness. It was a beautiful prayer, especially for late October, when the days are getting shorter and our dark winter nights are creeping in.
But the solemn beauty was in weird contrast to the councilors themselves – who were decked out in their Canadian Finals Rodeo/River City Round-up bright red cowboy shirts and bandanas. (Tony Caterina briefly sported in bandana around his head, gangsta style.) In front of every councilor was a straw cowboy hat. A very small straw cowboy hat. Kim Krushell put the hat on her petite head. It looked pretty good. When Ben Henderson followed suit, his colleague Bryan Anderson quipped that he looked like Woody from Toy Story. (He did.) Mayor Stephen Mandel giggled like a school kid – to the bemused delight of the actual school kids in the council chambers – a group from Bisset Elementary, taking part in City Hall School.
It was a surreal moment – tribute both to our community’s deep agricultural roots and our contemporary cosmopolitan multiculturalism – a microcosm, if you like, of this whole arena debate. What kind of city do we want to be? Is our sense of ourselves as a community so wrapped up with our pride in our hockey team, that we’re willing to make a bad deal, out of the fear that the team might leave, and leave us as bereft as the cast-off playthings left behind in Toy Story?
Unity? Calm? They were in somewhat short supply on Wednesday, as councilors sniped at each other in the arena debate. Linda Sloan, who opposed the deal, accused her colleagues of betraying their democratic responsibilities. Karen Leibovici shot back, effectively accusing Sloan of refusing to listen or understand city administrators. Tony Caterina, long a vehement opponent of the arena deal, shocked everyone by coming up with last minute package of amendments to the agreement presented two weeks ago – amendments that improved the deal enough to win his support, but not the support of his colleagues Sloan, Kerry Diotte or Don Iveson. (You can read Iveson’s measured, yet passionate analysis of the flawed deal on this blog – just back it up a couple of entries.)
As the debate ended, Stephen Mandel laid things out plainly. To him, the Oilers are essential to this city’s sense of self – and he wasn’t going to do anything to risk losing them. And that, I think, is the problem. Daryl Katz knew, in the end, that the city couldn’t and wouldn’t walk away. He held the trump card – and made it plain that he wasn’t afraid to play it.
I confess, I come at this whole debate from something of a cultural disadvantage. I understand, intellectually, the mythic pull that hockey, and the Oilers, have on this city. I grew up here during the glory days of Gretzky and Messier, Kurri and Coffey. I covered Wayne and Janet’s wedding, as a rookie reporter. And as the sister and aunt of a hockey-playing brother and nephew, I’ve logged my hours rink side, watching two generations of little boys play.
But I don’t love hockey they way they do. The way my colleague David Staples does. If I woke up tomorrow and the Oilers weren’t here, I could understand, intellectually, the economic and social loss to the city. But I wouldn’t mourn, not the way a true hockey lover would. This isn’t just an issue of gender – lots of women I know are mad about hockey, lots of girls I know play the game, and passionately. But although I can sympathize with that passion, I can’t empathize. I can’t feel it.
As my friend Mr. Staples would say, I don’t have skin in this game.
Do I think this is still a deeply flawed deal for Edmonton taxpayers? I do. I’m especially concerned about that missing $100 million that was supposed to come from the province – and I’ll write about that tomorrow in my column. But tonight, after two frantic days of covering this debate, I’m feeling a certain calm and clarity myself.
Tuesday’s public hearing made one thing very clear. Many, many, Edmontonians are passionately in love with their city, and passionately committed to improving their downtown. They have different ideas about how to do it – but I was inspired and invigorated by the passion they all expressed. Arena or no arena, we need to find more ways to make that downtown fever infectious, to build a city with a beating heart, not just for sports fans, but for every citizen. We need to honour our roots, look to our future, and find that unity as a community.
Happy Diwali, Edmonton. In the darkness, find the light.
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