When a group of Edmonton businessmen invited him to breakfast in 1991, Bill Smith had no no idea why, let alone that they would be telling him they thought he should run for mayor. “I said, no, no, not even. What do I know about running for mayor?” Smith reflects. “So to make a long story short, they talked me into it, and I ran. I was green as grass, but I was confident in myself, and came close.” On that occasion he lost to incumbent Jan Reimer, only 1,318 votes short. Smith, who describes himself as competitive, learned valuable lessons and worked out what his message to the city would be — that it’s the “best city in the best province in the best country in the world.” That tagline would go on to win him the next election, in 1995.
That competitive nature served Smith well earlier in his life, when he played for the Edmonton Eskimos from 1956 to ’63, and was why he was named a CFL West All-Star in 1960. At the same time he played pro football, he was a founder and co-owner of Tire Town, a business that he ran following his football career before selling it to Kal Tire. It was there he made the connections that eventually led to his fateful breakfast invitation.
Smith had a couple priorities as mayor, including uplifting what he saw as a downtrodden Edmonton population and starting economic conversations with Alberta’s northern communities. He had a bigger problem first, however. When he arrived on his first day on the job no one was around. No one had told him that staff in the mayor’s office don’t transfer over from one administration to another. “Immediately, I thought, ‘What have I got into?’” he says, but then went about the work of building the team of professionals that would help him become known as “Booster Bill” for his work promoting the city as a place for events, business and international co-operation. Smith says his proudest achievement as mayor was passing the no-smoking bylaw with the support of councillor Allan Bolstad after three challenges from council at the time. He knew that passing the bylaw could hurt his chances in the next election, but it was the right thing to do.
“People were just down, they weren’t in a good mood. Everybody thought Edmonton was going nowhere,” Smith says, before describing one of his earliest plans to boost the city’s mood: championing the 2008 Alberta Olympics. “I didn’t think for a minute that we would be able to win it, but I wanted to get the people to believe, ‘Why not?’”
That why-not mentality continued throughout his three terms as mayor, and while the Alberta Olympics never came to fruition, Smith successfully lobbied for the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, the World Masters Games and the Juno Awards to take place in the city. “To me, the most important thing was getting the people to ask, ‘Why not? Yes, we can do it,’” he says. He wanted Edmontonians to feel good about themselves. Being mayor was a commitment for Smith, but he was happy to fill the role, often working six days a week. “But my wife said, ‘You can work 24 hours a day, but Sunday, we’re having dinner no matter what.’”
Smith thinks that the province needs to change how it views Edmonton and Calgary, and both cities need to change how they view themselves. First up: amending the Municipal Governance Act to create a special funding category for the two cities that would help finance major infrastructure projects that are necessary for them to become global cities, but are too complex and expensive for either city’s council and administrations to tackle on its own.
Now, at 91, Smith considers himself in a working retirement. He still serves on several boards and provides his perspective to municipal and provincial politicians. “I offer my ideas. Sometimes they take them. Sometimes they don’t,” he jokes. And what’s Booster Bill’s favourite part of the city now? “This is an old cliché,” he says, “but it’s the people here.”
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Edify
