Andrew Knack — "Solo Spotlight" Ep 67 mayoral interview (2025)

Auto-caption transcript via yt-dlp --write-auto-sub. Timestamps from YouTube auto-captions.

Grew up right-wing (21:45–22:33): - "when I'm chatting with somebody who's on the right side of the spectrum, because I grew up on the very right side of the spectrum, you know, I haven't hidden this. I was very very right-wing in my life growing up and I might not be as much anymore, but I understand that way of thinking."

Tailoring the homelessness argument to the audience (22:18–23:34) — the tell on pragmatism-over-principle: - On someone who thinks homelessness is a choice: "while I don't believe that's true and I think the medical evidence has proved it, I don't start the conversation by saying, 'Well, no, you're wrong. It's not a choice.' I start the conversation by saying ... 'let's talk about the financials of this ... did you know that if we actually house somebody instead of leaving them on the street, it actually saves us money?'" - "if I'm engaging somebody on the right about housing and homelessness, I might often talk more about the financial. If I'm engaging somebody on the left, I might talk more about the medical evidence ... we're tailoring that message a bit to the audience."

Dignity language (19:54–20:08): - "Give them dignity. Give them empathy because ... for a number of reasons, they've reached that point in their life."

On rent caps / jurisdiction (21:07): - "I'm not the guy that deals with rent caps. I'm the guy that could advocate for it and advocate like the provincial government to apply rent caps."

Anti-party independence (26:16–27:02): - "We also saw the introduction of local political parties which I've been very adamantly opposed to ... that system I think is far too toxic right now. It's far too divisive." - "no matter where you're — whether you're on the right, left, center, or like most people, probably a little bit of everywhere — that you would have a choice this election of somebody that wasn't going to be a part of that system."

Affordability / property taxes (33:22 onward): - Reiterates that a 0% property tax means "you're actually not" keeping up; frames property tax as the "controllable" lever on affordability; notes Edmonton as "the most affordable major city in Canada."

Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUdR7cVJNYs Retrieved: 2026-07-04