Q&A: Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack wants to budget differently, put infill debate to rest in 2026

Mayor Andrew Knack had a rollercoaster 2025.

After announcing he wouldn't run for re-election as councillor, he decided to run for mayor and ultimately won that race.

In a year-end interview at city hall in mid-December, Knack said finally taking on the mayor's chair after 12 years on council "still hasn't fully sunk in."

He said he's had to hit the ground running, picking up some of the unfinished business of the previous council.

In the new year Knack hopes to budget differently, put the infill debate to bed, and build on what he says are promising signs for collaboration with the provincial and federal government.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Council just approved a 6.9 per cent property tax increase. How do you want to do things differently next time around?

I've talked about the need to restructure our budget process because the sort of pendulum approach to budgeting is not working. If you go back from 2019 to 2022, over that four-year budget cycle, we had the lowest property tax increases in more than 25 years. And then from 2023 to 2026, we had some of the highest in the last decade.

And that going back and forth, creating those large surprises, is I think what's really challenging for folks.

While Edmonton is the most affordable major city in all of Canada, we know that there are still a lot of folks who are facing affordability challenges.

And so the idea is getting out in the community. I'll be out in every single ward with the local councillor, along with our city administration to make sure we're having those honest conversations about what it costs to run a city. And then to truly understand what people are not willing to sacrifice and maybe what they are in order to create a new foundation for our budget.

Your first motion as mayor was dedicated towards creating more daytime space for homeless Edmontonians. At the time, you said this is just part of the public safety conversation. So what else can the city do on this issue?

Every single year the City of Edmonton is spending approximately $91 million a year responding to the homelessness, mental health and addictions crisis. Similar to the budget, we need to look at how we can restructure how we're spending that money.

In an ideal world, we do that with the provincial government to make sure that we're getting maximum value. So far, based off some of my meetings with the provincial ministers as well as the premier, I actually see a lot of opportunity for alignment.