Edmonton’s mayoral debate had ‘no clear winner’: analyst

From left to right: Andrew Knack, Rahim Jaffer, Michael Walters, Omar Mohammad and Tim Cartmell on the stage after their televised mayoral debate. (Galen McDougall/CTV News Edmonton)

As Edmonton’s municipal election nears, one political expert said the front-running candidates’ debate on Friday night had “no clear winner.”

“It was a very spirited debate, so in that regard, I thought it was interesting,” John Brennan told CTV News Edmonton in a post-debate interview on Saturday.

Five men vying for the position of Edmonton’s mayor attended the debate hosted by the city’s Chamber of Commerce.

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Although there are a dozen candidates, only the front-runners were invited to the JW Marriott Hotel’s event based on a recent poll of who Edmontonians were supporting in this leg of the race.

Andrew Knack, Tim Cartmell, Michael Walters, Rahim Jaffer and Omar Mohammad all made the cut.

Brennan said the three men with the most name recognition – Knack, Cartmell and Walters – each had a tougher time posing themselves as change candidates due to their experience in city council.

“I thought [Knack] had a good performance last night, he’s a very smooth communicator, but he was really on the receiving end of a lot of the attacks,” Brennan said. “He was very much the spokesperson for the status quo.”

A difficult position to take, Brennan added, because while Edmonton did see 200,000 new residents in the last year, the more targeted attacks in the debate stemmed from increasing unhappiness around tax hikes and social disorder.

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Despite their background in city council, Brennan said the three leading men did their part to express the need for change.

In the post-debate scrum, Cartmell said one vote isn’t enough to change everything – something Brennan said was a point to Knack, Walters and Cartmell in their experiences of how difficult it can be to sway the course.

Mohammad and Jaffer, he noted, were the veritable outsider candidates, as the former is in dentistry by trade and the latter was in federal politics rather than municipal.

The televised debate, he said, was potentially an introduction to both men for many Edmontonians, and a chance both took to be aggressive in their stances.

“Mohammad, excellent communicator, he was really exuberant and entertaining in the debate. Jaffer, very smooth, gave a very strong performance,” Brennan said.

The issues at hand

Each candidate, Brennan said, had similar takes on the burgeoning issues on Edmontonians’ minds, albeit different approaches.

“I think the good news for Edmontonians who have been struggling with increases in property taxes these last few years is that I think the message has gotten through to all the candidates that Edmontonians are fed up with the constant taxes,” Brennan added.

“There’s no way the tax is going to go lower, but I think it is fair to demand for the new council to produce budgets that don’t increase taxes more than the rate of inflation.”

Each candidate also addressed the more geographically salient points of construction, infill and bike lanes.

“I think Cartmell had the strongest points on [construction] when he pointed out the fact he’s an engineer,” Brennan said.

Cartmell also advocated for a return to Edmonton’s community policing model as a response to perceived increases in crime.

“Certainly, besides taxes, the whole issue of crime, public safety and social disorder, especially in the downtown, is a big issue,” Brennan said.

He added that supporters of Walters, Knack and Cartmell could have tuned into the debate at any point and been happy with the performance of their candidate.

Mohammad and Jaffer also took the opportunity to call leading candidates out on council decisions regarding bike lanes and the infill debate.

“I think the two who probably gained the most were the two challengers … they are really challenging the status quo, and that is something that is in tune with how the majority of Edmontonians feel,” Brennan added of Mohammad and Jaffer.

Thoughts on civility and inclusion

Brennan said if he could change one thing about the debate, it would be to add candidate Tony Caterina as a sixth attendee.

Caterina secured two per cent of the poll where the other candidates who did not appear on stage received less than one.

“At some point, the Chamber of Commerce had to cut it off,” he said of the decision to only include five in the televised debate.

He also said the event itself, although hitting its peak in contention during the free debate portion, was overall cordial.

Jaffer, for example, took some lighthearted jabs at Cartmell missing the infill vote in July. Cartmell would later go on to thank Mohammad for reading his online policies ahead of the debate.

“In this day and age where we have such virulence in our political discourse … it’s good to have a bit of levity,” Brennan said. “It was good that there was a little bit of humour in the debate last night.”

With a background in federal politics, Brennan hopes to see another poll in the coming weeks to gauge the response to Friday night’s debate.

Asking questions about each candidate after the debate has settled, he said, would tell us whether the dial has moved in an impactful way.

Edmontonians head to the polls on Oct. 20. Some political experts say this month is the time to research candidates as campaigns ramp up in the coming weeks.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson