After four terms of elected service at Edmonton City Hall, Don Iveson founded Civic Good, a public policy advisory practice working on climate resilience, housing affordability, and complex governance projects with clients ranging from startups to governments. His primary engagement is with Co-operators as Executive Advisor for Climate Investing and Community Resilience.
Don continues to live in Edmonton, though he works with organizations across Canada, including his recent appointment as Chairperson of the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation. He writes occasionally about his work and about Canadian public policy on his Civic Good Substack.
If you would like to collaborate with Don, you may contact him here.
Believing strongly in connecting passion with service, he also volunteers as Board Co-Chair of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. More recently he was appointed Co-Chair of the Task Force on Housing and Climate. Don also held a two-year appointment as a School of Cities Canadian Urban Leader at the University of Toronto, co-developing the Metropolitan Mindset initiative on regionalism with Prof. Gabriel Eidelman.
Don served as Edmonton’s 35th Mayor from 2013 to 2021 with a guiding leadership principle to make things better for the next generation. This longterm view is now embedded in: Edmonton’s pro-density City Plan that has kept the dream of homeownership alive in Edmonton; continuing work to End Homelessness in Edmonton; City Council’s Energy Transition Strategy; and Edmonton’s nation-leading work on stormwater management and climate adaptation.
As Mayor, Don’s political leadership extended to the national stage, serving as Chair of Canada’s Big City Mayors during an unprecedented rise in the prominence of cities in the national political landscape, including leading during the COVID crisis which hit municipalities especially hard. His advocacy helped to shape the National Housing Strategy and influence the Federal Government to commit to ending chronic homelessness nationwide — goals that cannot be achieved without robust partnerships with cities. He also served as an Honourary Witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and implemented the first trauma-informed all-staff Indigenous awareness and reconciliation training program at a major Canadian city.
Don worked tirelessly to build grand coalitions and bridge the urban/rural divide, both nationally on the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and locally in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region. This included a complete overhaul of Edmonton’s economic development apparatus: he helped to found Edmonton Global in partnership with other Metro mayors to better support investors and promote the region; and he oversaw consolidation of tourism and convention assets under Explore Edmonton, plus spinning up Health Cities and Innovate Edmonton to support entrepreneurs and Edmonton’s growing bio, tech and AI sectors; and co-founded the Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub.
Prior to his first election as a City Councillor in 2007, he worked in campus media and then post-secondary education policy. After completing his studies in Political Science at the University of Alberta in 2001, he served as president of Canadian University Press in Toronto. He returned home to a city that was exporting young, smart leaders, thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs faster than it could attract them. The challenge of building a sustainable, vibrant, competitive city that could attract and retain more people inspired him to seek office. Since then, one of his key performance indicators – as both a father and as Mayor – has been to build the kind of city where his son and daughter will see a future for themselves, and in turn will choose to stay and build their own lives.