Heather Spearman says her four years on council — and encouragement from residents — make her the right candidate to lead Airdrie as mayor.
“Most of the people who have come up to me since my announcement, or who were asking me to announce, were people who said, ‘You are the change. You are the new face. Now you’ve got one term under your belt. You were not part of the issues; we believe in you. We think you can take this council in a new direction’," she said in an interview on Sept. 15 with DiscoverAirdrie.
Spearman was elected to Airdrie city council in 2021. She has lived in Airdrie since 2007.
According to her city biography, she has a background in business development and solution strategies, describes herself as a woman in tech, and has been involved in community-based activities related to arts and culture, diversity and inclusion.
She serves on the Airdrie Housing Limited board of directors, the Airdrie Public Library board, the Community Infrastructure and Strategic Growth committee, and as an alternate on the Community Safety and Social Services committee.
“But I am here with a different vision. I am here with a fresh set of eyes, and now I've got four years under my belt that makes me extremely qualified. I've been very efficient in my four years. I've done a lot in four years, and arguably more than people in multiple areas across the province, potentially get done in twice the time. And most importantly, I listen to residents.”
Family and partisanship
“It’s no secret that I come from a family of politicians. My dad was the mayor of Lethbridge for eight years, and he ran as a liberal in April,” she said.
She acknowledged that there have been echoes of criticism over partisan labels.
“A lot of people go, ‘Oh, Heather, she’s a liberal. We shouldn’t vote for her. We don’t like liberals in Airdrie.’ No, I’m not. The reality is, nobody tells me what to do or think, and particularly, I do not subscribe to party ideology.”
Spearman said her loyalty is to residents, not ideology.
“At the end of the day, I don’t want to have to serve a particular party when I become mayor. My job is to serve the citizens of Airdrie. And as Ralph Klein once said, good policy is good policy, and I don’t care what side of the spectrum it comes from. If there’s a good idea and it’s going to work for Airdrie, that’s what we need to focus on.”
Under Alberta’s Local Authorities Election Act, local political parties and slates are permitted only in Calgary and Edmonton. The province confirmed that in a May 2025 summary: “The LPPSR also specifies that LPPs and slates are only allowed in the cities of Edmonton and Calgary.”
She added that changes to provincial rules still allow indirect influence.
“The way that they’ve changed it is that parties, they can sponsor. They can have their donors contribute to their sponsorships,” she said.
Health care and advocacy
Health care is a provincial responsibility, but Spearman said municipal advocacy is still critical.
“When it comes to advocacy, sometimes it’s short-term things, and sometimes it’s long-term things,” she said. “When we’re talking about long term … what I would be able to do as mayor is be able to take the data that our staff colleagues at the city of Airdrie have gathered and we use that data to create stories, to create solutions, to really tell the narrative of what’s going on in Airdrie … and that truly has been the most effective approach in my time on council, is to watch, where our growth is, what our challenges are, put it against data sets, and use that to tell the narrative to the folks in other levels of government.”
She said putting growth and infrastructure data in front of other levels of government has led to recent funding commitments.
On March 5, 2024, the Government of Canada announced a $24.8 million Housing Accelerator Fund award for Airdrie. On July 30, 2025, the province committed $50 million for a new seven-kilometre wastewater pipeline connecting to Calgary’s system, with the City of Airdrie managing design and construction.
She linked recent wins to that approach.
“That’s why we got almost $25 million in federal funding for housing. That’s why we secured $50 million for a wastewater pipeline. That’s why we got housing funding. That’s why there’s a bit of health care funding. It’s because of those partnerships. It’s because we’re dealing with data and facts. It’s not just emotion … and that’s a huge part of advocacy,” she said.
Spearman also pointed to 2022, when Alberta Health Services announced temporary overnight closures at Airdrie Urgent Care due to physician shortages.
At the time, AHS said: “The Urgent Care Centre (UCC) at the Airdrie Community Health Centre will be temporarily closed overnight on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. the following mornings for approximately eight weeks due to gaps in physician coverage.”
A month later, the agency announced the site had returned to 24/7 service after new physicians were recruited. “Four new physicians have been recruited and will start work at the Airdrie Urgent Care Centre in the coming weeks … These new physician recruits will provide ongoing support and allow us to return to 24/7 urgent care services in Airdrie,” AHS said in an Aug. 18, 2022, statement.
“I happened to be in a regional meeting. I voiced my concerns in that regional meeting, and within the hour, we had all sorts of different media outlets at that meeting, where I was front and center advocating for Airdrie because of these closures, and we were demanding a meeting with Minister Copping at the time, who was the healthcare minister. And guess what, that meeting happened. And guess what, those closures were reversed. So being brave in politics is critical, and I don’t mince words.”
She said advocacy also has limits when promised funding is not acted on.
Alberta’s 2025 provincial budget did not allocate new capital funding for healthcare infrastructure in Airdrie. The government is carrying over $3 million in planning funds first set aside in Budget 2024 for the North Calgary/Airdrie Regional Health Centre. Budget 2025 also includes $2 million under “Other Proposed Health Capital Initiatives Planning” for the One Health Airdrie facility, but no capital funding has been committed for the construction of either project.
“For me, it’s all about results. So yeah, that funding has been allocated. $3 million towards planning has been allocated. That was a couple of years ago. I haven’t seen anything, and I don’t believe any of my council colleagues are privy to any updates on that … If it’s not being put to use, are we really achieving anything?” she said.
Growth and taxes
Spearman also addressed growth, planning and Airdrie’s tax structure. Airdrie’s population reached 90,044 as of April 1, 2025 — up 4,239 year-over-year — according to the municipal census presented to council in July. City administration projects the population will exceed 97,000 in 2026 and 103,000 in 2027.
Residents often raise concerns that growth is happening too quickly. Those concerns were amplified earlier this month when Airdrie city council unanimously approved the East Nose Creek Community Area Structure Plan (CASP) for the city’s east side. The CASP could add nearly 6,000 homes and more than 16,000 residents over the next three decades. The plan cleared all three readings on Sept. 2, passing unanimously with Mayor Peter Brown and Coun. Darrell Belyk absent.
The CASP covers seven quarter sections of land (±447 hectares) in Airdrie’s 2012 annexation area, bounded by Yankee Valley Boulevard to the south, Range Road 291 to the west, and the city’s boundary with Rocky View County to the east.
“People say, ‘Well, why do we have to keep growing? We should just stop it,’” Spearman said. “We can’t. The province has given us this land, and we are mandated under the MGA [Municipal Government Act] to develop that land. We can’t just say, ‘No, thanks. We’re good.’ That’s not an option.”
Under Alberta’s Municipal Government Act, councils may adopt area structure plans by bylaw to govern the sequence, land uses, density and major transportation corridors for new communities (s.633).
The plan identifies predominantly residential neighbourhoods with commercial and employment areas, a green corridor along an East Nose Creek tributary, and direct links to Highway 2 via Yankee Valley Boulevard and Veterans Boulevard.
“I’m not saying that I’m pro-development, rah, rah, rah, but I’m pro-balance. We need to keep people employed. We need to continue creating job opportunities. And yeah, I will oppose it if there’s a legal reason, absolutely; if there is a safety reason, absolutely; or an ecological reason, yep, absolutely. But we have some really, really incredible industry experts at the city who work in those fields and can tell us when there’s an issue, and we need to listen to them when they do,” she said.
She framed growth as requiring deliberate planning.
“It’s not just about putting houses everywhere and seeing what happens,” she said. “It’s about making sure that we’re doing it with intention. That’s what I mean when I say, strategy, not explosion.”
She pointed to the city’s tax base.
“We have 87 per cent residential, 13 per cent commercial and industrial. And when you compare that to, say, the City of Calgary, 22 per cent of their tax base is industry alone … their tax base is a lot more balanced,” she said.
According to the City of Airdrie’s 2025 tax materials: “The City of Airdrie is maintaining the 2.1:1 ratio that has been in place for a number of years… Calgary is currently at 3.5:1.”
“We can’t keep carrying this city on the backs of homeowners alone. We need businesses, we need industry, we need that tax base to balance it out,” she said.
“Meanwhile, on August 28, there was a new announcement … We need to take that. We need to run with it,” she said.
On Aug. 28, 2025, Airdrie and seven neighbouring municipalities launched Invest Greater Calgary, a three-year pilot hosted by Calgary Economic Development to attract investment and create jobs. Participants are Airdrie, Calgary, Chestermere, Cochrane, Foothills County, High River, Okotoks and Rocky View County. The pilot focuses on regional research and analysis, marketing and promotion, investor support and program development, with a secretariat housed at CED.
She framed the pilot as the city’s chance to attract more business.
“That corridor is our opportunity,” she said. “We’re right beside the airport, we’re on the rail line, and we’ve got Highway 2 right there. That’s how we bring in the jobs, that’s how we bring in the businesses, and that’s how we fix the imbalance.”
City services
Airdrie’s overall quality-of-life rating dropped to 68 per cent in 2025, down from 73 per cent in 2023, according to Y Station’s biennial resident satisfaction survey.
The mean satisfaction index was 2.99 out of five, compared to 3.20 two years earlier.
The random telephone survey, conducted by Y Station Communications and Research between April 1 and April 18, 2025, sampled 400 residents. An additional 806 residents took part in an open web survey, though those responses are not considered statistically valid.
Services rated highest by residents included fire protection, RCMP, utilities, parks, pathways and open spaces, outdoor recreation facilities, and garbage, recycling and organics collection.
Winter and summer road maintenance, along with Genesis Place, ranked among the lowest-satisfaction services. Survey data showed winter maintenance improved compared to 2023, but it remained one of the lowest-rated services overall. Coun. Tina Petrow noted the contradiction, and Y Station principal Tracy With said snow and ice still had “a long way to go to catch up to something like Airdrie Fire.”
Against that backdrop, Spearman said:
“If you were to do a snow and ice satisfaction survey in January versus June, you're going to see different results. So, I totally appreciate that.”
“We saw a dip, and actually, it was right after we got that survey back. I took to social media, and every day I posted about one of the topics on there that was a stressor for the community,” she said.
Airdrie Transit was among the services that saw year-over-year declines in satisfaction, alongside Genesis Place and the arenas. Traffic congestion was cited by 13 per cent of residents as a reason for declining quality of life.
“Transit is an area that I'm incredibly passionate about… I brought forward a notice of motion … It came back … it's going to cost $10,000 … and unfortunately, I was voted down six to one,” she said.
“We have a new transit master plan coming in Q1, and it is meant to adjust for the next five to 10 years of what Airdrie could look like,” she said.
“We have traffic issues in Airdrie. They are growing … they are growing … they are growing.”
“We have people commuting into Calgary all the time. We need to start exploring more ways to get people around. We've got people begging to get to the hospital, we've got people begging to get to the airport, people begging to get to work, and people begging to get to post-secondary. And we need to start listening,” she said.
“We need to start giving options to people that live in Airdrie who want to have choices outside of taking a car and paying $500 for post-secondary parking or hospital parking and downtown parking for those that are commuting to work,” she said.
“I didn’t buy my first car until I was 22 years old because I used public transit in the cities I was living in, it made my quality of life as a young adult, very, very high.
“And because affordability is so brutal right now, students have to live at home. They can't afford to be living in other cities. We've got multi generational housing going on. We've got lots of seniors who can't drive, or other people that can't drive, and we've got to start giving them some options.”
“So, I'm not looking to create a crazy, socialized transit plan, but we've got to start growing up. We've got to match our size,” she said.
“We are going to be the third-largest city in Alberta. And if you look at our comparables, they all have really excellent transit plans in place. Our current transit team is excellent, and they are working very hard on new ideas, and we need to start supporting them in that.”
She added another example from her council record regarding black bins.
On Nov. 5, 2024, the council voted 4–3 in favour of introducing an automated black cart garbage collection program, with rollout scheduled citywide in 2026. The program will provide each household with a standardized 120-litre cart, replacing manual pickup.
“I am a huge advocate… absolutely, I voted in favour of black bins. Mayor Brown voted against it. And initially it didn’t pass until councillor Petrow changed her mind."
“But I think that was the most dramatic moment in council where we were truly divided. To answer your question about what I would do differently as a mayor, I'm going to be honest with you, there was nothing he could have done differently to change the outcome of that himself, because as mayor, your number one job is to chair the meeting, and as council, our number one job is to represent the people that vote for us. If half of the council thinks, ‘hey, we need this,’ and half of the council says, ‘No, we don't.’ We're just representing what we believe to be the facts and the truth, and what residents are wishing for. If I were a mayor and I was trying to control that outcome, I'm not doing my job, and I need to check myself. So, I give him kudos for handling it the way he did. He did it in a very democratic way, and as mayor, that would also be my intention.”
Recreation fees
After a debate at the March 4, 2025, meeting, the council voted unanimously to endorse amendments to the User Fees and Charges Policy and to maintain Genesis Place’s all-access pass model. Much of the debate focused on Genesis Place user fees.
Councillors revisited research first requested at the Sept. 17, 2024, strategy session regarding Genesis Place user fees. Administration said the single-admission model was designed to keep costs down, encourage multi-amenity use and avoid the financial losses other Alberta facilities faced when they tried split passes. Staff reported that 87 per cent of pass holders use the fitness centre, 77 per cent use the pool and 34 per cent take part in dryland or leisure activities, with about 20 per cent of operating costs already subsidized by taxpayers. Based on financial modelling, staff projected a 9–13 per cent revenue drop if pool-only or fitness-only passes were introduced, increasing the required tax subsidy.
Members also heard regional comparisons: large multi-use facilities in the Calgary area generally sell all-access passes, and centres that trialled amenity-specific passes abandoned them due to decreased cost recovery and higher administration.
Against that backdrop, Spearman said residents were asking for clearer affordability options.
She pointed to a straw poll held during the meeting.
“Everybody voted on the actual agenda item itself. But if you actually go through the recording, you'll recall that Mayor Brown did a straw poll … And I was the one who said we've got to do this. We have to do it because I hear it all the time. I hear swim only fee, and, and I hear gym only fee. … it's a very complicated topic.”
In her Sept. 15 interview, she linked the debate to Airdrie’s cost-recovery rates.
“One of the interesting things about Genesis Place versus a lot of other municipalities is most other municipalities have a recovery rate of about 50% … and we're a lot closer to 90 per cent recovery. Now I'm not saying that we necessarily have to subsidize swim only completely, but at the end of the day, when we looked at the numbers, I believe, and I apologize if I’m wrong here, but if I’m not mistaken, it was around $800,000 that it was going to impact in terms of that cost recovery. And yes, that does sound like a ton, but we have a couple of considerations here. Number one, that's point 002, 5 per cent of our annual budget. So, in context, not a huge thing.”
She said affordability remained her focus.
“We have a lot of families here where the chasm between affordability in the families and in the households and for seniors is getting bigger and bigger, and we need to really think about that, because people are struggling to feed their kids. People are struggling to get their kids into programs that would support them, because they can't afford it.
“So, if we can make swimming a little more affordable, while every other municipality in this province is doing it, I don't know why we wouldn't look out for each other in that way. It's a small effect on a big picture, and it's going to give teenagers something to do. It's going to give kids something to do, seniors something to do. And we really need to think about that from a greater care perspective.”
She added that shifting fees within the city’s revenue model could fund a swim-only option without raising property taxes.
“When it comes to municipalities, we truly are per the MGA, per legislation, we really are limited in how we can bring in funds. I don't necessarily believe that we need to increase taxes to offset that. One thing we do identify is that the way we look at user fees is that it's all lumped into one big pot.
“There is room there to move things around here and there to offset. It doesn't necessarily mean an increase in taxes.”
Three months later, those affordability concerns were echoed in the 2025 resident satisfaction survey. Genesis Place was flagged as both a low-satisfaction service and an area where ratings declined year over year. Recreation access was mentioned by 10 per cent of respondents as a factor in declining quality of life.
Affordable housing
Spearman said her housing record demonstrates what can be achieved at the municipal level.
“I am currently the chair of Airdrie Housing Limited. I have been the chair for the last couple of years, and prior to that, I've sat on the board the entire time that I've been on council,” she said.
She pointed to the conversion of a former hotel into below-market housing units.
“…Obviously, the prior board had done a lot of the legwork to get that hotel conversion started, but it was during my time on the board that we actually thought through with planning. We designated how those rooms would be split out, who they were going to be a part of, like it was all database decisioning, and we had to drive that through to the finish line.”
She said the board also pressed for additional provincial funding to finish the project.
“…We were advocating for more funding, because we needed more money to finish that project of the hotel that Mayor Brown had started. I was very vocal about working with our staff and Mayor Brown and the Ministry of Housing at the time to get several million dollars allocated to that project to finish that hotel renovation.”
She added that in January 2025, the city purchased land for future projects.
“We actually just purchased land in January of this year for future below-market units,” she said.
In January 2025, Spearman, serving as deputy mayor, presented Airdrie Housing Limited with an $800,000 cheque from the federally supported Housing Accelerator Fund to acquire 0.67 acres of land on Big Hill Way for future development.
“Airdrie is really struggling,” she said at the time. “We have long waitlists for affordable housing, and many residents are turned away because they are overqualified. This funding is a crucial step forward.”
As she launches her mayoral campaign, Spearman pointed to her four years on council as the right preparation.
“I just want to reiterate the fact that four years is a perfect amount of time to be a councillor before becoming the mayor,” she said.
Incumbent councillor Tina Petrow is also seeking the mayor’s chair. As of Thursday, Sept. 18, three newcomers have filed: Dylan Harty, Usman Mahmood and Dave Douglass, who was the first to announce his bid.
Airdrie voters will elect one mayor and six councillors on Oct. 20, 2025. Nominations opened Jan. 2 and close at noon on Sept. 22, according to a notice signed by returning officer Charlotte Satink.
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