Fiscal responsibility large focus of first 2025 Edmonton mayoral debate

In front of hundreds of Edmonton’s business leaders, the top five mayoral candidates took the debate stage for the first time on Friday evening.

Fiscal responsibility was a large theme of the 90-minute debate. Rahim Jaffer, Michael Walters, Omar Mohamed, and Tim Cartmell each promised to reverse or freeze property taxes, while Andrew Knack focused on keeping core services afloat.

“I appreciate everyone saying ‘let’s freeze property taxes.’ What are you going to cut in order to accomplish that?” Knack asked his opponents. “We have this growing city.”

Cartmell was the first to speak up.

“Let’s start with land development, Andrew. Let’s start with competing with the private sector. Let’s stop doing the things that the private sector can do for this community and let the government focus on things that people can’t do for themselves and what the private sector won’t do for this community,” he said.

“It’s also this myth that we bought into that you have to raise taxes every year for services to stay the same or shrink, that is not true,” added Walters.

“I don’t think you should be such a defeatist,” said Jaffer, addressing Knack. “I don’t think we have to cut core services and suggest any sort of irresponsible way to a budget. You talk about reducing budgets, but you’ve voted for increasing property taxes, so that doesn’t add up to me very much.”

Public safety was also a highly debated issue, with some candidates overlapping it with transit and housing.

“Chinatown, where businesses have been begging for more police presence, more ability to work with some of the provincial services in order to make the area safe,” said Jaffer. “It’s like a warzone down there.”

“What we need downtown, firstly in our relationship with the province, is day shelter space,” said Walters. “We do not have safe places for people to go during the day who need the help.”

“Safety begins with security,” added Mohamed. “We have to consider that as home insecurity goes up and food insecurity goes up, so does desperation and crime. We have to address home insecurity first with housing first solutions with wraparound services.”

Polling done by Leger put the five mayoral candidates as the top contenders, qualifying them for the debate. One man who didn’t make the cut was former councillor Tony Caterina. He attended the debate from the audience.

With the mayor’s race well underway, another debate is scheduled for the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations next Wednesday night.