Edmonton Mayoral candidate Mike Nickel
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Summary
Ward 11 Councillor Mike Nickel has thrown his hat into the ring to become the next mayor of Edmonton, Alberta's capital city. In this episode, we talk about the challenges of being a city councillor, what it's like to run for mayor, and why he thinks a city council should exist.
Transcript
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Yeah, I'm sitting tonight with, well, or at least speaking with Ward 11 councillor from
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Edmonton, Mike Nickel. The last time I spoke with Mike, he was in the soup fighting with
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some members of city council and such who were trying to censor some of his social media views
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online. These kinds of battles are pretty familiar to us in Calgary too, with city councils and
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mayors. But now we're into the 2021 election year. Your mayor is not running for re-election,
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so you're going to get a new one one way or another. And Mike has thrown his hat into the
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ring. So thanks for joining me, Mike. No problem. Happy to be here. It's funny you should talk about
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the code of conduct because this was all about some memes I put out just on my own platforms,
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my own stuff I pay for. Some listeners might recall, some viewers might recall. And so they
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sent a motion. It didn't pass. And I didn't get sanctioned. Unlike your poor ward councillor down
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there. God, poor Mr. Farkas. I just shake my head. I don't think I've ever been escorted out of city
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chambers. I don't think I can top that one. And anyways, we had a review of our social policy and
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council just trashed it zero to 13. They said, no, we're not going to bother. Social media policy.
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Yeah. They dipped their toes a little too far there. But I mean, it's a good subject to start
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with because in a sense, and not that way in particular, but as people like to often remind,
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I mean, a mayor represents a lot, but they are only one vote on council. But a very important role of
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mayor, of course, is a leadership role. And it's keeping a unified, you know, to a degree unified and
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functional council. And I know in Calgary, we've had a hornet's nest for 10 years. They spend more
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time fighting with each other and, you know, splitting on petty issues than getting things
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done. It really frustrates us as constituents. And I imagine you do some of the same things at
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Edmonton. So as a mayor, what could you bring in to address those kinds of issues?
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Well, I'll be honest with you. We have the exact opposite problem. We have a block on council
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that votes with the mayor, and in my opinion, rubber stamps, whatever the administration puts
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forward. I don't see very, I don't see the critical thinking, the policy competition that's
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really deserving of what a city council should be. The great thing about municipal politics is,
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is that you don't have to be a new Democrat or UCP or you can just be yourself. And for example,
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half my ward, ward 11 is covered by Rachel Notley, you know, leader of the opposition,
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and they vote for me, because I tend to be very pragmatic, and I tend to rock the boat a bit.
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And maybe that's what they like. Maybe they like the fact that I challenge our administration. And
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that gets me in trouble quite often with my colleagues on council as they moan that,
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oh my goodness, you can't say this, you can't do that. I've just gotten to the point now where a lot
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of people have asked me to run for mayor. And I just stopped talking to council for the last,
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for the next part of this election cycle. And I think we just got to take it to the streets.
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Six of the six of them aren't coming back. And so we're gonna have pretty much a brand new council.
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Yeah, well, it's something you mentioned there. So there is a philosophical issue. And again,
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we do have that in Calgary as well, with the roles of administration versus the elected officials,
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like we would have in Calgary, they would spend day after day fighting over individual applications
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for basement suites. Yet at the same, they've changed that finally. But when it came to anything
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from city administration, councillors would be chided by the mayor for daring to question the
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representatives from city administration coming in, it seems it was backwards. At least I would
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envision a city council role should be high level. And and administration should be dealing with
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these more micromanaging aspects. But they've made it almost blasphemous to question administration.
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And I'm guessing you have some similar challenges there.
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Absolutely. And if you're not of a particular, what do we call downtown core urbanist agenda,
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you're you're the you're a bad person. For example, if you live in the suburbs, drive a truck,
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have a nice lawn, you know, those kinds of things that I am, right, I'm quite proud of those things.
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And I don't think we should have to apologize for them. Instead, we're talking about gondolas,
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bike lanes, and and funiculars here. So it's really coming down now to just you just can't take what
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the administration says every day, because government doesn't drive the solutions we do.
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And that seems to be the divide. And I think on our mutual city councils, there's some people that
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think bigger governments the answer. And some people like me believe smaller governments the answer,
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but with rigorous metrics. Great. Well, and you're assuming that you win this race, you're gonna
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be coming into some very challenging times. What a bizarre time to be alive. Everybody's dealing
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with more scared of winning than losing. I guess that's what every politician should feel.
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And I'll be quite honest. But you know, I I've been in business a long time and faced many challenges.
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I see nothing but opportunity for us. But this is the time for that complete mechanical
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and philosophical overhaul of our of our cities. I think Edmonton and Calgary should be hunting
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together. I think Edmonton and Calgary should be better on the value for tax agenda. So we can go to
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the province and say, you know what, stop pointing fingers at the province who's ever in power,
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we're going to take care of our own problems. And you just need to get out of our way.
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And I think that that is something we need to change and stop putting our hands out to the
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other orders of government and start dealing with our own problem.
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Well, it's a near and dear to my heart that the way you're speaking, you know, it applies to the
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energy sector where I do some work and things. I mean, we're not asking for government to buy
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pipelines and manage our oil field. We just want you out of the way. I promise you, we could do this
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Well, here's our challenge, Kerry, is that we seem to be fighting a culture that has taken over our
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municipal councils, where it's big government, big ants, big government answers, tax and spend.
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And what I think people are starting to discover is that they can't deliver the value. But matter
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of fact, I argue quite often, government's terrible at solving complex problems. They're good at writing
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checks. They're great at writing checks, especially when it's your money. But they're terrible at solving
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complex problems. And that's where you have to push power and authority down to either industry or the
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community leader, or who's ever on the files, because they know the answers. And then but you got to have
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discipline and rigor, you cannot, we're so tight now in our budgets, we cannot afford frivolous things. And this is
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where this is very going to be very difficult. You know, I'm not afraid to say no. And some people love me for it. Some
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people hate me for it. But it's got to be done. But you know, we get back in quickly to your question of
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leadership, you have to lead with good ideas. And then you got to put it to council to mechanically vote
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on whether they like it or not. Just recently, I put out a policy paper calling for an independent
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project management office, off of Office City Council. So basically, what I'm calling for is a
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creation of a chapter nine company that just delivers large capital, would have its own board,
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it would have its own governance structure. And we would separate the administration that designs
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and builds the budget. And these guys would actually actually deliver it because we've had
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tremendous problems building anything on time on schedule, particularly if it's over 100 million
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dollars. You can check it out on my website, Mike Nickel.ca, it's called the IPMO. But what you really
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get out of this, Corey, is that in the long run, what happens is not only do you save money, we think
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we can save 10 to 20% on our large capital. But you get what I call policy competition. If the
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administration comes up with a budget that's unrealistic, they can send it back. If they come
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up with specs that are unrealistic, they can send it back. If they come up with a ridiculous schedule,
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they need to send it back. Enough of these boondolls. I don't know what you have some capital
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and project going south. But I can tell you what our LRT lines up here, they're not going so good.
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No, we've been similar up here, they did the West LRT, I think it came in at double the budget. And
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the green line that we keep talking about, they keep saying it's not, it hasn't blown the budget,
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but what we have done is cut the size in half, and we're still going to spend $5 billion. Well,
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And here's our challenge, right? You're not an LRT line builder guy, right? And neither am I.
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So we got to, we got to create something out there that we can create some friction,
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some policy friction between the established administration, the people who actually have to
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deliver it. And then council can have two points of view. Right now, we just have administration's
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point of view. And like you said, they just tend to rubber stamp that how dare you question the
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administration? Well, you should. But you need information to do that, good information to do
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that. So who knows, they may agree. But sometimes I think they will not.
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Yeah, well, I mean, you don't necessarily want an adversarial relationship with administration. I mean,
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the goal is to work together and do something. But as you said, the rubber stamp, I mean, we know
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administration can put out, in fact, often puts out some stinkers. I mean, that's, that's the nature of
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bureaucrats. And maybe if they had some questioning, they could come up with some better things. So you've
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come from a business perspective all the way through your, your political career. And I mean,
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I think we agree that, I mean, small business, large business, but business in general is going
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to be integral for the economic recovery from, from this, this pandemic mess, we're all in and
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plus, you know, energy resource collapse and many things. So what as a mayor and city council do you
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feel needs to be done and can be done to help facilitate businesses to recover and, you know,
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really get the economic engine going again? Well, the first thing is, is that instead of handing out
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grants to particular sectors or whatever, I strongly believe in tax relief for all, right?
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That's residents, industrial and commercial property taxpayers. We have a real problem here
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in Edmonton, where we've lost a lot of industrial commercial just to lower competitors in the region.
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We have to get a handle on that because our assessment is in a lot of trouble. And then the
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residential rate payer just needs to see, you just can't keep increasing the bill. We've had 20 years
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of constant tax increases. And I've asked on council, when is, when does it stop? When is it enough?
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Right. In the good time, you've heard this argument, Corey. Oh, times are good. We have to raise taxes.
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Oh, times are bad. We have to raise taxes. Well, there's a third or cut services. That's the other
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choice, right? There's a third answer and it's called productivity gains, right? As a business guy,
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you know, we very often went to our frontline, our shops, our frontline staff and said,
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here are the numbers. What do you think we need to tool up to get it done?
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Right. And so I do think labor can drive a lot of our answers because they're not the enemy here.
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Not I don't know what they're like in Calgary, but here my my unions offered to take zeros across
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the board, several unions, as long as everyone got a zero percent tax increase. I don't know what they
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said in Calgary, but I got two big unions here said we'll take zeros. If you give everybody else a
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zero, let's share it. So that's how far we've come over here about just trying to drive that.
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And then we have to then we have to focus on creating that regulatory environment where we're
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just getting out of the way and enabling deals to be done. I very often point to a former mayor of
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yours by the name of Dave Bronconi. Some people liked him, some people didn't. But I'll tell you
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something that mayor knew how to make a deal happen. And he was good at it. And very often up here,
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I'm jealous of Bronconi's ability to get business moving. And that's what it takes.
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It takes some leadership and some people actually on council that knows how to read a cash flow
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statement, I think. Well, I wasn't a big Bronconi fan, but I had to admire, as you said,
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and he could put people together. That's kind of back to what I was talking about before. I mean,
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council would still have their spats and their moments. But when push came to shove, they could tend
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to collaborate and get some stuff done, which we really they're getting it done in Calgary now. But boy,
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it's an ugly, ugly sausage making process. Yeah. And we don't have the time. I just put out a paper
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where I say, you know, basically saying time is our most precious resource. You can't make any more of
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it. You know, I knew a large contractor here. And I'll just tell you a little story. I met him in a
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tile shop. I was in the stone business. And he was major big all across Western Canada. And
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the guy was dying of cancer. Right. And he said, Mike, and we did work for him all the time. He said,
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Mike, I give all my money back. If I could just have my health, that means more time. We're out of
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time. We're out of money. And so we cannot afford these kind of venture kind of big government ideas.
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No. So another challenge you're going to have getting more to the nuts and bolts is you're
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campaigning during a pandemic. So have you got how are you going to approach this? I mean,
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events are going to be a little more difficult to hold door knocking. Is it certainly challenging?
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Just a little on how's the campaign going or what you may be looking forward to this year?
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Well, obviously, on the mechanics side, we've been stepping up the social media presence quite a bit.
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Just after this, I'm doing my podcast called Mic Check that we've been doing for a couple of years.
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And it gets quite a quite a solid viewership. Let's just put it that way.
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And then, you know, it's minus 30 out. So we really haven't taken to doing lit drops and the
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standard sort of things. We're just going to continue to put out some good policy and drive
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it through social media till it warms up a little bit. And then we can actually do some
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lit dropping and some COVID safe door knocking. So you're in for a busy year.
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So maybe I'll just close off, you know, where can we then just repeat, you know, where we can find
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more info on your campaign and what you're up to and staying up to date. And I'm sure we'll check in
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again later. You can go to MikeNickel.ca and check check it out. And we've got the IPMO on there and
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some of our other policy statements. You should be seeing something pretty soon again, hopefully in
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about two weeks, another major policy announcement that really will speak to some of the core Edmonton
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values with regards to our environmental policy. There is a better way. And it's going to be one of
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these cases. Well, you know, provincial government, you just need to get out of the way and let us take
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care of it. And I think we can. Great. Well, thanks very much for
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talking with me. And I hope we can check in with you again as the campaign unfolds and
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looking forward to watching to see how it goes. Anytime.