Monday is municipal election day in Alberta: My thoughts on the candidates in my town

ST. ALBERT, Alberta – Next Monday is Alberta’s quadrennial municipal election day. Leading up to that occasion, there’s been plenty of jiggery-pokery by our United Conservative Party provincial government, which went to the trouble of legalizing municipal political parties in the province’s two largest cities (and only in Calgary and Edmonton) in hopes of seeing urban councillors elected who are more simpatico with their far-right and separatist agendas. They may just succeed, thanks to low turnouts typical of in municipal votes, and the naïve decision by progressive councillors not to band together and form their own parties to compete with the generously funded UCP-friendly parties that immediately sprang up. We shall see soon enough. 

Similarly, the UCP’s radical fringe has set out on a stealth campaign to dominate school boards with social conservative candidates obsessed with praying away the gay, banning books from school libraries, cancelling progressive advocates, fighting with the teachers’ union, and rewriting colonial history. The stealthy part is that they don’t want to let on who they are, presumably for obvious reasons. It’s all but impossible to tell who your secret so-con school board candidates are. In many communities that’s going to result in some ugly scenes when voters realize who they’ve elected. 

Alas, if local media won’t do the job, it’s very hard for voters to tell what most municipal candidates stand for. The typical municipal candidate will tell you on their website or the leaflet they stuff in your mailbox or hang on your doorknob that they want to govern with transparency, accountability and integrity. Most don’t mention their political affiliations, their histories, or any of their beliefs that really matter. Some promise to cut taxes and maintain or even improve city services. (Sorry, no can do.) It’s mostly meaningless derp.

While the principal mission of this blog is to observe, analyze and comment on Alberta politics from a progressive perspective, I hope readers will forgive me if I take a look today at the 24 candidates for mayor and councillor in the commnuty in which I live, St. Albert, a suburban bedroom city of about 70,000 northwest of Edmonton. 

St. Albert has a seven-member council, with the mayor chosen in a separate vote and the six members chosen from the candidates who accumulate the most votes. Full disclosure: I ran for council in 2007 and 2013, and lost both times, though with respectable numbers. (In retrospect, I dodged a bullet.) 

Two of the biggest issues that faced the last St. Albert council were a plan to cut $1.5 million out of the public library’s budget over three years, which council only dropped after a fierce reaction from the community, and a decision to call their jobs full time and give themselves a 32-per-cent, $30,000 raise. In my opinion, council didn’t come out smelling like a rose on either issue. 

I don’t know many of the candidates now running for mayor and council, and I have the strong feeling quite a few are doing so simply because they need a job. For what it’s worth, for my St. Albert neighbours, here are my personal thoughts about each candidate and my recommendation on whether or not they deserve your vote. 

Candidates for Mayor

Wes Brodhead – YES

Mr. Brodhead has been a city councillor since 2010, and has a reasonable record on council. He’s demonstrated understanding of the need for compromise, and has been on both the union and management side in his previous career with Edmonton Transit. He knows how to chair a meeting. He is unlikely ever to embarrass St. Albert by saying stupid stuff, and can work with city administrators. He’s not a bundle of energy – although that’s not necessarily a bad thing in a mayor. Like every other member of council, he got sucked into the huge public library cuts the city administration wanted* but backed off when voters responded with an effective hands-off-our-library campaign. I hope that was a lesson that sticks with him. I’ll probably vote for him. 

Rick Dory – NO

No council experience. Website is full of platitudes. Based on what he says on that website, he sounds to me like a UCP supporter. He has connections to construction industry. He’s been actively involved in Rockin’ August – so when he talks about transportation planning, I expect he means more roads and little else. 

Jared Eglinski – NO 

No council experience. Mr. Eglinski is a utopian gardener who would like to turn our parks into “food forests.” He sounds like a nice guy, but he seems a little too dreamy for my taste. It might be amusing to have as mayor but it’s unlikely he’d be able to accomplish very much. Sorry, but no. 

Bakhshish Singh Kang – NO 

Like all the others except Mr. Brodhead, BK Kang, as he is known, has no council experience. However, he does have a history of bloviating in letters to the editor of the St. Albert Gazette about how essentially all city services except the most obvious basics should be shut down. He doesn’t seem to have a website, so there’s nothing to check there. As mayor, I doubt he would be able to deliver on the cuts he wants, and his policies, if consistent with past statements, would be unpopular with most residents and often divisive. So, no. 

Scott Olivieri – MAYBE

Other than Mr. Brodhead, Mr. Olivieri looks like the only serious candidate for mayor. He has no council experience, but is obviously not a dope. He has a clearly well-financed campaign – so who bankrolled him? Where is he on the political spectrum? What does he stand for? It’s hard to say from his website, which is full of MBA-style blather. However, he does have some actual policy ideas. I get hives whenever I hear somebody promising “smart spending,” though, but he does seem to have thought seriously about some of the real issues the city faces. He wants lower speed limits, which I could support. I rate him a maybe. Change my mind. 

Candidates for Council

Shelley Biermanski – NO 

Ms. Biermanski has served a term on council. She has run for the Wildrose Party. She has publicly expressed support for anti-vaxxers, whether or not she is one herself. Her default appears to me to be UCP positions on most issues. She’s been right about a few issues, though, but I still wouldn’t vote for her. 

Gilbert Cantin – NO 

Mr. Cantin has run twice before for city council and failed to get elected. Is it time to give him a chance? Naw. His platform is the usual calls for lower taxes and fewer services, traffic lights co-ordinated to allow faster driving, and anodyne platitudes about transparency and accountability. I see nothing here to vote for. 

Mark Cassidy – NO

A retired real estate salesman, Mr. Cassidy has run twice before over the years. In the past he has been outspoken on social media about his strong right-wing views. He used to be a busy, angry-sounding commentator on social media. I don’t know if he still is because I blocked him on all platforms years ago. He’s grown a beard to soften his image and it sort of works. His website has a picture of him holding a dog. The dog looks worried, though. I wouldn’t vote for this guy on a bet.

Sandy Clark – MAYBE

I don’t know Ms. Clark, but she has run before and appears to have some qualities that would make a good councillor. She ran in 2021 and came seventh, just 250 votes south of a seat on City Council. She is a paralegal and judging from the small amount of information on her website, some sort of moderate conservative. She supports all the usual pro-business activities. I’m not going to vote for her for that reason – there’s no shortage of those guys in city government – but she doesn’t strike me as someone who would embarrass the city and she understands city government. 

Crystal Gossmann – NO 

Another realtor. Another uninformative website. She’ll need to do better telling us where she stands on real issues that really matter before I’ll consider moving her name to the MAYBE column. 

Billy Harquail – MAYBE

I’ve never heard of Mr. Harquail before this campaign. He’s a tradesman who has worked in the oilpatch. He’s young. He’s got an excellent website that indicates he’s done some real thinking about several of the issues impacting St. Albert. Some of the policy suggestions he makes actually make sense. However, I was uncomfortable with the position he took on reconciliation in the Gazette. It sounded as if he’s been talking to the wrong people about that. His signs say, “Not a politician.” This is annoying. Nevertheless, I feel there’s some potential here. 

Sheena Hughes – NO 

Ms. Hughes has served several terms on council and always is elected at or near the top of the polls. It seems to me she’s said no to just about everything except that 32-per-cent raise for city councillors. She’s still famous for her Mexican holiday during the pandemic. She has a strong following in the old “St. Alberta Taxpayers” anti-everything crowd. To her credit, though, she actually reads through the tons of paper with which councillors are inundated. I’d never vote for her, but she does make a worthwhile contribution to debate on council. 

Demetrius Kuc – NO 

No website, no information on his positions. A couple of news stories make him sound like a nice young man. That’s not good enough for a YES recommendation, though. So, no. 

Neil Korotash – YES

Mr. Korotash was as excellent city councillor back when he was in his twenties, the youngest member of council. When he was elected he was 21. He stepped aside when he and his wife started a family here in St. Albert. He’s thoughtful, very bright, a schoolteacher by profession, well spoken, and a good listener. He has never struck me as a person plagued by an oversized ego. He once ran for the Alberta Party, but we all make mistakes now and again. (Joke.) When the Gazette asked him this week about that offensive raise council voted itself, he was one of the few who said he didn’t approve. Bravo! I wish he’d run for mayor. I would have voted for him if he had. I would absolutely recommend voting for him as councillor. 

Alan Luck – NO

Mr. Luck’s website says he has a background in civil and environmental engineering, although it’s not clear if he is a professional engineer. It says he likes dogs – a point in his favour. The platform described on his website is thin, projecting an image of a green sensibility but not a lot of detail. The Gazette says he’s served on the city’s environmental advisory committee and has done some community volunteering. There are very few environmentally aware voices on our our council, so I’d have been willing to give Mr. Luck a maybe if his brochure hadn’t been distributed with those of four other candidates who are way too far to the right for my taste. All five say they’re not a slate. I dunno, though. If it walks like a duck …

Ken MacKay – YES

Yeah, Mr. MacKay’s OK, although like everyone else on the last council he got sucked in to the big cuts to the library until the voters changed council’s hive mind. He’s a former Edmonton city police officer and he possesses some common sense, though. He’s never been an embarrassment, and I think he’s pretty moderate in his social views. If he’s a Conservative, he’s a progressive one. He’s congenial, speaks well, and is willing to spend time talking to constituents. I believe he does his homework. So, sure, what the heck. Yes. 

Amanda Patrick – YES 

Ms. Patrick has never been on council before, but I’m sure she would be a good voice for progressive values, reconciliation, and inclusiveness. She is very well spoken and obviously very smart. She is of Cree Metis heritage, and that’s background that’s needed on our council. She has been active in the community for several years and grew up here. She organized the Run for Reconciliation. I intend to vote for her. 

Kevin Malinkowski – MAYBE 

Mr. Malinkowski has been a pillar of the St. Albert Poliwings group on Facebook for years, and is a witty and engaging writer. His biography is an interesting one, and he would add both colour and diversity to City Council. I’m not wowed by his platform, which I find pedestrian and not very revealing. But what the heck? Maybe, trending toward a yes.  

Heather McQuillan – MAYBE (Revised)

Judging from her website, Ms. McQuillan is a nice person who doesn’t really know why she wants to be on council. Her platform is vague. Her experience is a little more interesting. The day I opened it, her website looked as if it wasn’t finished. Like the website, my conclusion was that Ms. McQuillan is just not ready. Based on the information on her website now, I’m ready to consider her a maybe.

Kristi Rouse – NO 

Ms. Rouse is an accountant and former school trustee whose website makes it sound as if she’s running for … school trustee. Her platform, such as it is, is obviously intended to offend no one. The problem with that is that it doesn’t tell us much about what she thinks about anything. Sounds like another business type to me, though, and we have enough of those. There’s a mildly amusing typo on her website: “Protect parts and natural green spaces.” I’m all for that, but which parts?

Kery Samardzija – NO 

Ms. Samardzija also sounds like a nice person who doesn’t know why she wants to be a city councillor. There are few ideas on her disorganized website and not much that, beyond protecting birds (a worthy thought), indicates whether she would make a valuable contribution to council. What’s with that old truck doing sitting beside the railroad bridge on her website? I have no answer and, I suspect, neither does she. Sorry, but NO.

Jackie Sargent – MAYBE (Revised) 

Ms. Sargent is better qualified than some of the other candidates. She’s been a municipal employee. (But where? Her website is not clear.) In her platform she indicates an interest in inter-municipal relations, which I take it stems from her past work, so that’s unusual and possibly useful. Other than that, though, it’s the usual stuff, without much depth or any real policy. In the unlikely event she got elected, she might turn out not to be a dud, but there’s no there there, as Gertrude Stein famously said about Oakland, Calif. 

Leonard Wilkins – NO 

Mr. Wilkins is another perennial candidate who has never been successful. This will be his third run too. He wants to cut taxes. He wants more hockey rinks. He wants to put a roof over the Grosvenor outdoor pool. He wants to hire a fund-raiser to supplement taxes. (I didn’t make that up. I think that’s somewhere between novel and weird.) I’m not 100 per cent certain from his website that he understands the relationship between the city manager (now known as the Chief Administrative Officer) and City Council. If so, that’s bad. No. 

Skye Vermeulen – NO 

Ms. Vermeulen has been involved in a number of provincial and City of Edmonton regulatory boards, so she would have some knowledge of process. She’s not a separatist, she said in a recent news story, but she was appointed to a review committee by the UCP last year. When she talks on her website about “increasingly prevalent misinformation within the news and social media,” I want to know from what perspective she thinks it’s misleading. It sets off an alarm for me. She says, “I have conducted investigations at a federal level for Immigration and Citizenship Consultants engaging in allegations of unprofessional conduct against the public.” What does this even mean? She’s good on diversity. We need more answers.

*Most city administrators don’t like their city’s public library because provincial legislation gives the library separate governance through a board. While city council picks the board, councillors can’t change the members all at once. No city politician can be trusted to properly fund libraries, therefore, because the city manager always has their ear. This should be an issue in this election but has been forgotten. Remember, your library is never safe. Ask candidates where they stand on this. Vote accordingly. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: You may vote for up to six council candidates, but you don’t have to vote for six. Voting for fewer candidates will “pump” the ballot in favour of the candidates you like. This is a totally legitimate political strategy.

CLARIFICATIONS & DEVELOPMENTS: Skye Vermeulen was appointed to a review committee by the Alberta Government last year. This was incorrectly referred to as a board in an earlier version of this post. Based on comments posted after publication, I have upgraded Heather McQuillan and Jackie Sargent to MAYBE, in Ms. Sargent’s case specifically because of her pledge to support the public library in the event of attack on its budget. DJC