Alberta’s Municipal Elections 2025

It’s a new day for local government in Alberta. The vast majority of municipalities held their elections yesterday, and councils are now reinvigorated with full membership for the next four years. Coming out of the vote, and some of the changes leading up to the 2025 election, there are some conclusions that we can start to draw.

Legislative Changes

There were several major differences in legislation that had an impact on this round of elections.

Political parties were permitted in both Edmonton and Calgary for the first time. In my opinion, that had a negative impact. I suspect the voters may not have been onside with that either, given that party candidates in both Edmonton and Calgary did not win the mayor’s seat in either city.

The change also injected a lot more money into campaigns, particularly those run by the parties. In the end, though, I don’t think the presence of parties had the impact that some people – me included – were concerned about.

We also heard concerns, particularly in the larger centres, of long lines at the polls as changes to the Elections Act now required people to register at the poll if they had not already done so in advance, and to sign a voter intent form regardless of whether the voter was on the voters' list or not. This slowed down the voting process significantly and contributed to the longer lines, and may have contributed to lower voter turnout.

Overall

I participated in Chris Brown’s Cross-Border Interviews election live stream last night, and both Chris and I called this election the ‘meh’ election. In most of the province, there were no focused ballot box questions, so no real motivation to get out and vote for someone who might ordinarily not vote.

That showed up in the voter turnout of under 30% in many places. While likely not a historic low, it is likely close. A low turnout increased volatility, with passionate people voting alongside those few people who regularly exercise their franchise. Small total numbers of votes meant the difference between a win and a loss was very narrow, and it showed.

I would couple the ‘meh’ election theme with a related theme of upsets. Many high-profile council members and mayors were defeated, including the president of the urban municipalities association, a vice president of the rural municipalities association, and a Federation of Canadian Municipalities board member.

A relatively new movement of mayors running for council spots also occurred this time around, with at least three current mayors choosing instead to step back and take on council roles. Among those three, only one was actually elected back to council. The mayor of Fort Saskatchewan was elected to city council.

The Big Cities

Alberta’s two biggest cities both have new mayors. Both mayors-elect (pending the certification of results) are former city councillors, so they do have relevant experience. Neither of them ran under any party banners, so they are not beholden to a group of council members and a party apparatus.

In Edmonton, the incumbent mayor had chosen not to run, so the spot was open; howeve,r in Calgary, the incumbent mayor did run and was defeated.

Around the Province

The volatility caused by factors mentioned here and probably other factors locally showed up even in relatively ‘safe’ council seats. Looking at vote results, many incumbent mayors took a hit on their vote share, with mayors in larger centres being challenged by relative newcomers who took a significant bite out of the vote share. This could be seen as chastising the incumbents and maybe waking them up as they focus on the years ahead.

What it Means

My take is an obvious one – governing is hard. For every person who got elected, three or four others did not. All those people, or at least those who ran with good intent, deserve our thanks for injecting energy into our electoral process and into our communities. We focus on government here, but I realize that ‘whole’ communities comprise far more people, groups, organizations, and passions than just government. I am thankful for how different people contribute in different ways.

I would challenge every successful candidate to focus on long-term governance. There are tough decisions to be made in every corner of the province. I encourage councils to face those head-on and make decisions that might not always be popular, but which will make their communities sustainable for generations to come. Have courage, stick to governance, and stay out of the mud.

Behind the Scenes

Before I finish, I’d be remiss in not recognizing that significant effort went into organizing and running hundreds of elections across Alberta. These public servants deserve kudos for what they did.

Thanks to officials who have been working on this election for the last year, adapting to significant changes brought about by the provincial government and trying to make the process run as smoothly as possible.

Thanks also to the workers at the polls, many of whom had long days, and some of whom likely had to bear the brunt of people angry with long lineups and rules that had changed from the last municipal election.

Lessons for Next Time

I do hope the province takes a hard look at how it contributed to – and in many cases caused - the problems that occurred during this election process, some of which I’ve mentioned here.

I heard the government house leader blaming municipalities, saying they had a year to prepare for the changes. While true, the extra time, effort, and millions of dollars that had to be spent unnecessarily stretched the resources and capacity of municipalities without any commensurate assistance from the province.