"I hope you don’t mind if I use the word Indian," he says during our long, meandering conversation about his run for the Ward 4 city council seat. "Aboriginal" is the word I’ve been using, but as he points out, as long as he’s referring to himself, he can use any term he likes.

Cardinal is certainly conscious of his image as a native activist. He received the National Aboriginal Award for Public Service, worked on the Edmonton Aboriginal Urban Affairs Accord and was previously the director of Native Student Services at the University of Alberta. But he also takes pains to express his willingness to go to the mat for anyone’s human rights. He’s running for all of Ward 4, and he says he doesn’t want the campaign to be all about his previous work within Edmonton’s native community. His ideas about community involvement and consensus-building, not to mention a focus on "basic services," speak to a wider city audience.

Here’s what the communication and education consultant had to say about development in Ward 4, environmentally sustainable buildings and working with the police.

SEE Magazine: If you are elected, how would you work with the police, specifically on aboriginal issues, like the police moving around homeless people?

Lewis Cardinal: My concern was the human rights of the people involved. Yes, it came out as an aboriginal issue because five out of the nine people were aboriginal. Regardless, it’s a human rights issue. I felt that their basic human rights and civil rights were stepped on.... I’m not afraid to stand up to the powers that be if I feel that someone’s human rights are being violated. I will stand up with them regardless of who they are. I might not even like their character. If their rights are violated, someone else’s will be also. What I called for was an investigation on whether or not their human rights were violated. I wasn’t crazy about the process and their going to the RCMP. I just don’t think that’s open. It should have been an outside body. We’ll see what the outcome is going to be.... There are still issues that need to be worked out. There has to be cultural competency training for city police, not for how to deal with the aboriginal community, but also with all the other cultures in the city.

SEE: Do you have any qualms about becoming the person on council that people look to on aboriginal issues?

LC: No. When it comes to the aboriginal thing, no. If you have this big Indian sitting on council, people are going to say: ‘Hey, let’s go to him and find out.’ And they should because my community recognizes me as a leader. My community asked me to move forward with this, knowing that part of my role will be education, continuing the work I’ve already started.

SEE: In looking at your platform, you are saying many of the same things as other candidates across the city. "Making smarter choices," for example, that’s pretty broad.

LC: The policy of smart choices that’s coming out, that hasn’t been approved yet, calls for a five per cent affordable housing clause, and I’m saying we could easily double that.... With the five per cent, it seems like we could put that in and then wash our hands of the homelessness problem. Meanwhile, we have an economic refugee program right in our downtown. The practicality of that rests with our planners and designers on how we can achieve that.

SEE: You’ve talked about Edmonton becoming a LEEDs [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] city. Council did pass a motion requiring municipal buildings be certified under LEEDs. Are you talking about requiring private developers to adhere to these principals?

LC: Absolutely, adhere to LEEDs. I think that’s something that the city should adopt as a goal, of the whole city becoming LEEDs certified.

SEE: How would you vote on the Strathearn and 142 developments?

LC: There needs to be more discussion before it came to a vote and that’s what would determine my vote. I like it for some of the design it has, but the community has a lot of concerns.