Calgary mayoral candidate encourages voters to ‘make your voice heard’

Sarah Elder on Alberta Primetime Oct 17, 2025

Calgary mayoral candidate Sarah Elder joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss her stance on public safety and rezoning, as well as why she decided to make a late entry into the mayoral race.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: We’ve heard concerns over voter engagement and Calgarians not showing a lot of interest in this election.

How worrisome is that for you as a candidate?

Sarah Elder: It’s a huge concern that people aren’t engaged in the election, either in advanced voting or in what will happen on election day Monday. I can’t emphasize this enough: it really matters that Calgarians show up.

Actually, that all Albertans show up to the polls on Monday and have their say at the ballot box. We’re at a really critical inflection point in terms of direction at the municipal level, in Calgary and across the province. So if you have feelings about the direction of our city, about our province, this is when you need to make your voice heard. You need to put yourself in that ballot box on Monday.

MH: You were a somewhat late entry into this election race.

What motivated making this run for the mayor’s chair?

SE: I had been involved in another campaign and unfortunately made the really difficult decision to leave. Then when faced with the decision of thinking about who I would be voting for on October 20th, I didn’t necessarily see the ideas and the platforms being put forward that I felt excited and compelled about.

I decided to put my name into the race for the first time ever as a candidate, and really run on the ideas and the perspective that I have of what can be done to build a really resilient Calgary for kids, for families, for the economy, for communities and leadership at city hall.

MH: On that front, many of the mayoral candidates are promising to repeal blanket rezoning?

SE: This is definitely a hot topic at the doors, something that I’ve been hearing from Calgarians as well. My approach to blanket rezoning is that we do need to take another look at it, and so the way I’m sharing my perspective on it with Calgarians is that it should be a patchwork quilt and not a blanket.

We absolutely do need more housing, but it needs to be in the right places. If you’re in Calgary, you’re probably familiar with the Westbrook CTrain station. You know that area specifically, or places like that, are calling out for density. It’s been undeveloped land, exactly adjacent to a CTrain station, beside a public library, beside a shopping mall, beside a main roadway in Calgary. It’s just been left to fester. Bringing communities along, bringing neighbours along, engaging people in what their communities look like is really, really important.

Unfortunately, the approach taken by the current council and mayor is one that really alienated a lot of Calgarians, and so we need to take a look at it and do it do better.

MH: There’s been a lot of focus as well this election on public safety.

What’s your message on that same doorstep to alleviate voter concerns on that issue?

SE: The approach I want Calgarians to understand I’m taking in this election is that safety is absolutely important and something that we need to address, but the “how” is really critical. If you go to my website and look under “Resilient Kids and Families,” you’ll see that my approach from the start is really different. I want to address issues through a lens of, is it safe for kids? Because I think if we take a step back and look at it through the lens of the youngest and the smallest people in our communities, it could actually radically transform the way we address things like safety – like other things that I’m putting forward in my platform, like the return of a city wide Block Watch program.

The way that I’ve seen our cities and communities go is actually away from caring for one another. My approach is fundamentally centered on caring more about each other. It shouldn’t have to be that I only care about my kids. I care about my neighbour’s kids. I care about kids and communities across the city. I want us to take a step back, take a deep breath, and say, you know what, I actually do care a lot about my neighbors and about how fast people drive on streets in communities.

If we start there we can also tackle those big issues like policing and the 20 per cent of the Calgary Police force that are currently on leave. As well as doing things that are really critical to improving safety from zero to 99 in Calgary.

MH: We’ve asked other candidates about navigating relations between Calgary city council and the provincial government.

What’s different about the approach you would take to dealing with Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet?

SE: Anyone who had the opportunity to hear me speak on Alberta Primetime, you will be familiar with my approach and that I both praise and offer criticism in a very equitable way. It’s not about who’s making the pitch as a person. It’s about the party and how it actually impacts people.

My relationship would be, no matter who is in power, whether it’s provincially or federally, I have relationships with people in every single party. I will absolutely work with no matter who is in power to deliver results for Calgarians. It’s not dependent on one relationship with one team, and that relationship would disappear if voters happen to make a decision putting them on the other side of the legislature or the House of Commons. I will work with absolutely any government, any politician from any party.