Participant Ameena Taher and City Councilor Keren Tang in Edmonton on April 4.JASON FRANSON/The Globe and Mail
Tree planting and welcome baskets for refugees. Pop-up coffee shops and chess in the park. Hundreds of kilometres of bike paths tracked for Google streetview and painting a Pride walkway.
These are just a handful of the 23 projects that since last spring received grants through a participatory budgeting process in Edmonton, where everyday citizens decided how to spend public funds. The grassroots initiative saw $50,000 go toward small projects with big impacts, said city councillor Keren Tang, who championed what is believed to be the first iteration of this citizen-led practice in Alberta.
This democratic process was first created nearly 35 years ago in Porto Alegre, Brazil, after the socialist Workers’ Party took office. It was designed as an anti-poverty measure to give power back to the people to debate and determine municipal spending priorities.
Its success served as a springboard for thousands of other governments around the world to implement some version of their own public-driven spending strategy – in small and large ways.
In Quebec City, $30-million has been earmarked for projects that revolve around the themes of youth, equity and safety, to be selected by the public later this year. Possible ideas include the development of sports facilities, inclusive playgrounds and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. Smaller-scale initiatives have sprouted in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia.
In Edmonton, Ms. Tang, who was elected to her first term in October, 2021, ran on a platform to explore participatory budgeting. After looking at the city’s financial documents, she saw councillors typically had between $20,000 and $50,000 left over in yearly discretionary ward funds.
She said this money usually ends up back in the general coffers but that it can be used for office furniture and official business outings.
“Rather than spending the money on yourself, you can just give the money back to the community and make sure it doesn’t get absorbed into this big corporation but a bench, a chair, a tree or something in the ward,” Ms. Tang said over curry at Tiffin India’s Fresh Kitchen. The fast-food-style restaurant was part of the grant-funded community dining week.
Ms. Taher pictured with an anti-racisim zine she made.JASON FRANSON/The Globe and Mail
“We start to heavily rely on institutions to take care of us and then forget that we, ourselves, have agency and power to make changes in our community.”
In partnership with fellow councillor Andrew Knack, Ms. Tang hosted information sessions and workshops last spring and summer. Funding from both wards was enough to cover all project submissions (therefore a vote was not required), plus the cost of a project co-ordinator.
Applicants were awarded grants up to $2,000 each for projects that reflected themes of community resilience, social connection and ecological transition. The goal was to foster collaboration between residents, community organizations and institutions while boosting civic engagement.
High-school student Ameena Taher, 15, was among the recipients. Wanting to raise awareness after a rash of public attacks targeting mostly Muslim women in Edmonton, she decided to produce a small-circulation mini magazine, known as a zine, that challenged stereotypes of Muslim women and girls.
The fluorescent-coloured zine, named End Hate, includes art from Muslim youth in the community who drew Muslim women playing hockey and guitar, riding waves on a surfboard, riding in a hot-air balloon above the clouds, and standing on a moon in front of a bright star.
“Muslim women are brave. And strong. Creative. Dreamers. Kind,” it reads.
“People who are marginalized, attacked and victimized sometimes feel alone. So I think this is kind of showing you’re not alone. There’s other people who care,” Ameena said.
Copies of the zine are being distributed in multiple locations in Edmonton and were printed by Calgary-based Yolkless Press, which she said she chose because it was a more environmentally friendly option and run by racialized people.
Ameena is now researching other community grants to continue her work.
Another grant recipient, Mary-Noah Ndateramye, hosted a mindfulness workshop for children and youth to improve their mental health and build emotional resiliency. A teacher of 20 years, she saw how stress and anxiety were manifesting in kids during the pandemic.
The workshop was so successful that she is now planning to open a child-care centre that specializes in mindfulness.
“The application was pretty straightforward, very simple, which surprised me,” she said of the grant process. “Hopefully, they keep doing it. If there are more citizens getting involved, then there is more participation in politics, more wanting to vote and more wanting to be part of the community.”
Ms. Tang pushed a motion through city council in February to explore how participatory budgeting can be expanded in Edmonton. A report is expected at the end of the year.
She hopes the project leads to a fundamental policy shift that gives agency to the community, instead of big business or large organizations, at a time when public trust in institutions is eroding.
With a report from The Canadian Press.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story mistakenly mentioned an accessible text hotline received funding. The story has been corrected.