About Edmonton Municipal Party (EMP)

Empowering candidates who have GRIT in Edmonton. Get involved. Join our movement.

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Sponsorship opportunities for each candidate taking a run at councillor for EMP

Sponsorship opportunities for mayoral candidate

Predict the future

Tired of infill and density ruining your neighhourhood? Exorbitant spending on public transit, particularly, LRT, tearing up Edmonton and complicating your commute or impacting your business? Continual tax increases for programs that you pay for but don’t want or use? Glib politicians making vague proclamations? The aim of EMP is to put forward candidates with grit in Edmonton. Elect Edmonton's mayor and councillors in Ward 1, Ward 6 and Ward 8.

emp policies

• Reversal of blanket zoning for infill and density

• Curtailment of future LRT expansion and concomitant property tax escalation for small businesses and home owners

• Reduction of property taxes by 10% for home owners and small businesses in 2026 and freeze on property taxes for the subsequent three years

emp initiatives

• Budget for fire service increased by 50%

• Budget for police service increased by 50%

• Budgets for other core services remain unchanged or get boosted

Be the future

Join EMP as a candidate or sponsor a candidate to shape Edmonton's future through local governance and community engagement

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Edmonton Municipal Party?

EMP is a political group for the 2025 Edmonton municipal election.

How to become a candidate?

Interested individuals can apply to be candidates for mayor or councillors via our website.

What are EMP's policies?

Our policies include reversing blanket zoning for infill, curtailing LRT expansion, and reducing or freezing property taxes.

Who can sponsor candidates?

Any individual who is interested in supporting our candidates and eligible to vote is welcome to become a sponsor. The mayor can be sponsored by any eligible voter in Edmonton but a candidate running to be a councillor can only be sponsored by an eligible voter in the same ward. For example, if John Doe is running as a candidate to be a councillor in Ward 1, only eligible voters living in Ward 1 can sponsor John Doe who incidentally can run in Ward 1 even if John Doe resides in another ward.

When will candidates for EMP be announced?

On September 22th, 2025.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a cost to represent EMP as a candidate to run for mayor or councillor?

There is no cost whatsoever for any assistance provided by EMP. The nomination fee of $500 for mayor is covered by EMP as is the nomination fee of $100 for each councillor running in Ward 1, Ward 6 and Ward 8.

One of the priorities for EMP is to cut taxes by 10% for property owners. Won’t programs and services suffer?

Core programs are maintained or have their funding increased. Only superfluous programs are impacted, and the overall budget for the city includes a 10% contingency to shore up these programs if necessary. When taxpayers want to restore any impacted programs and raise taxes, they’ll be restored.

Isn’t EMP worried about losing out on the best candidate with the random draw described in the information page to select the mayor and councillors if multiple candidates respond for a ward seat or the mayor’s seat?

Municipal politics is fun and games for pay. If EMP could nominate potato sacks for the mayor and councillors, the potato sacks would stand a good chance of winning. Two of the current councillors skipped out on the vote for infill, too busy to call in the vote, and went on vacation. Now one of them is running for councillor again and the other one is running for mayor. The current mayor was charged with terrorism in India and fled to Canada. The goal of EMP is put forward exceptional candidates who are different from the candidates elected in the past and from the candidates who've announced their intentions to replace them and continue with infill and LRT and more increases in property taxes. Policies matter rather than the actual candidates. So, that’s the reason for the random draw to select the mayor and councillors. As long as candidates are on board with the policies of EMP, we’ll pay the nomination fee and connect them with like minded sponsors.

Edmonton is in the midst of a housing affordability “crisis”. Isn’t infill required to add homes and make Edmonton more affordable?

Infill isn’t about building affordable homes. Infill is about the conversion of homes owned by people into short or long term rental units owned by landlords and is making homes for families to buy more scarce and more expensive to buy. Supportive housing and below market rental units are being subsidized by home owners and businesses paying property taxes to grow the population of Edmonton and the pool of renters for landlords who don’t even live in Canada in some cases. When the infill isn’t for rental units, it elevates the cost of home ownership by tearing down a good $400K home in Forest Heights in Ward 6, for example, to build two skinny homes selling at $800K each and depletes the number of affordable homes on the market for families to own.

Traffic is getting worse and worse. Don’t we need LRT to reduce road congestion?

Traffic on the roads is mainly from commercial vehicles which LRT can't remove. Unlike transit buses which can be added or parked to suit demand and manage operating costs, LRT has massive fixed capital and financing costs (interest payments) whether LRT is being used at capacity or barely used at all and has resulted in Edmonton’s massive debt starving the police and fire budgets and raising property taxes in Edmonton for home owners and businesses. The LRT and buses feeding LRT serve maybe 5% of the population in Edmonton but cost Edmontonians either nearly the same or more than police and fire (serving everyone) combined. Some LRT from downtown Edmonton to U of A or NAIT has steady demand and might be justified but LRT everywhere else doesn’t and results in unnecessary and avoidable conflict in Edmonton looking at 30 years of construction and turmoil for transit orientated development which is a euphemism used to describe infill for unwanted supportive housing in neighbourhoods and LRT raising property taxes.

Frequently Asked Questions

The wards are not being referred to by their indigenous names. Are you not being disrespectful?

The ward numbers used instead are neutral and non-partisan. They don't proselytize the wards and are easy to pronounce and remember.

Won’t the acceptance of the reduced salary stipulated by EMP for candidates discourage people from running for EMP, particularly for mayor who must accept the same salary as a councillor?

Elected candidates running for EMP have the option of working from home (WFH) much of the time to cut expenses and improve their quality of life in order to make up for the reduced salary; WFH encourages talented people such as stay at home moms who left the workforce to raise kids, for instance, to run as an EMP candidate for mayor or councillor. The mayor’s role is no more demanding as far as time required than the role of the councillor in Ward 1, Ward 6 or Ward 8 and the salary of $75K proposed for the mayor or councillor is generous to attract capable candidates, based on the average salary of $50K earned by many people doing far more difficult and demanding work than what's required to be a councillor or mayor in Edmonton.

I’m in a ward different from Ward 1, Ward 6 or Ward 8 and would like to run in my ward to represent EMP as a councillor. Can I do so?

EMP is only running candidates for councillor in Ward 1, Ward 6 and Ward 8 where infill and LRT are having widespread and disruptive impacts. You are encouraged to join EMP to run as a candidate for councillor in Ward 1, Ward 6 or Ward 8, instead, and don’t have to live in these wards to represent EMP as a councillor. Alternatively, you can join EMP to run as the candidate for mayor. The candidate for mayor can be from any ward.

I’d like to sponsor a candidate who is outside my ward. Can I?

You can sponsor the mayor and live in any ward but must live in the same ward as the ward of the candidate running to be a councillor. If you live in Ward 1, you can only sponsor the candidate running to be the councillor in Ward 1, for instance, and so on.