He’s the man who invited the money-changers back inside the temple.

And when they didn’t hurry back fast enough, he dragged them in by the hair. He’s not Slick Willie, he’s Diamond Billy – champion of the entrepreneurial class, the merchant’s main man.

With election day more than a dozen weeks off, Edmonton’s primary economic indicators continue to high-step down Jasper Avenue, known in select circles as Easy Street.

The town’s back on its feet, and Mayor Bill Smith is sitting high in the catbird seat.

Al Popil, for Business Edge
Mayor Bill Smith has watched Edmonton evolve from a city which had lost its confidence to a booming economic metropolis.

In private moments, his detractors admit it. His opponents suspect it. But Diamond Billy knows it – though he’s too shrewd to shriek the news from the top of the Enbridge Tower.

Despite the fact that three-term Edmonton mayors are as rare as chinooks in Hinton, Smith seems set to deflect a jinx that stretches back to the 1950s. As every Edmonton pre-schooler seems to know, the capital’s GDP is expected to climb by more than four per cent this year, the hottest in the country.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Edmonton also tops Canadian cities in economic diversity, driven by thriving manufacturing, business services and advanced technology sectors.

Unemployment is down. Productivity is up.

Yep, after years of moping, muttering and self-flagellation, the townsfolk are walking tall again.

And by a combination of aggressive salesmanship and fortuitous timing, Diamond Billy is reaping the windfall.

He’s only too happy to take credit for much of this, by the way.

“In 1995, when I was elected, this was a city that had lost its confidence,” he said.

“We have tremendous resources. We just had to re-discover who we are – and that’s the role I played.

“I looked at Edmonton, and said: ‘This is a diamond. I’m just going to polish it a bit.’ ”

During a 45-minute chinwag at city hall, Smith was feeling a mite smug.

Among other things, he reminisced about being the scourge of the anti-commerce villains within a civic administration that Smith says made Edmonton a ‘must-miss’ on the travel itinerary of out-of-town investors.

“I can remember clearly, sitting in Vancouver with 10 top developers, myself alone at the board table. All of them told me what they hated about Edmonton,” said Smith.

“They told me: ‘That city’s not open for business.’ But I asked them to take another look, and, in the end, seven of the 10 invested here.”

Smith and city council hired Bruce Thom, a cost-cutting maven out of Thunder Bay, to take over as city manager. They cut 400 jobs, and about $25 million in annual costs.

Of course, external events conspired to allow Diamond Billy to swallow his cake, and have it too.

Energy prices took a springboard leap, and billions have been spent on oilsands development, directly benefiting Edmonton-based service and supply companies.

In 1998, the $1-billion Ekati mine, owned by BHP Diamonds Inc., set up shop, with similar spinoffs for the city.

That, too, Smith confides, was all part of the master design.

“In ’95, people thought I was crazy when I talked about diamonds. But I called on BHP, and Edmonton companies ended up getting 75 per cent of their business,” he said.

Lend Smith an ear, and he’ll spin an election-year rhapsody which touches on everything from bargain property prices, to his pal (the premier), to the Edmonton Waste Management Centre’s future as a veritable Sorbonne of training, research, and centralized composting.

Campaign rhetoric aside, Smith’s bailiwick really is cooking with gas, on various fronts.

One of the more impressive initiatives is the Edmonton region’s Competitiveness Strategy.

Once you get past the baffling Newspeak (flagships, clusters, skills pipelines ad nauseum) you perceive a workable attack which connects more than 1,200 stakeholders, representing seven commercial ‘clusters’ (i.e. oil/gas, engineering and technical services, agriculture and forestry etc.), and points them down a collaborative trail to shared productivity.

“Now it’s time for the private sector to invest in this strategy – they must now step up and fund this thing,” Smith said.

Calgary’s business-friendly attitude did NOT serve as a model for the capital’s economic rebirth, he said.

But the ages-old feud is dead, and the two cities face glorious tomorrows, as they skip arm-in-arm down the rose-strewn lane to El Dorado.

“This is about sharing with Calgary – our two city managers are now working together,” smiled the mayor.

“It’s not about one-upmanship with me – it’s about how can we work together.

“Marketing Alberta to the world is the way to go.”

Diamond Billy has seen the future. For the moment, at least, it all belongs to him.