 | Saturday, October 09, 2021
By Scott Dippel
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. | | Polls and the race | | |  | Calgarians will head to the polls Oct. 18. (CBC) | | | Elections are a great time for polls; a chance to parse the numbers on candidates and issues.
This week two municipal election polls came out. One from Leger for the firefighters association, and the other done by Janet Brown Opinion Research for CBC Calgary.
Both polls found Jyoti Gondek had the highest support amongst decided voters in the mayoral race, with Jeromy Farkas close behind.
Brown's poll, which was conducted Sept 22-30, shows there are still plenty of voters who haven't made a decision on the mayor's race.
"A poll is just a snapshot in time, and 33 per cent of voters still remain undecided. And things are still in flux, so it's too early to predict who the next mayor is going to be," she said.
Brown's poll found that the majority of candidates in the mayor's race are in single digits when it comes to decided voter support.
While the 2010 municipal race showed a candidate can come out of nowhere and win the mayor's chair, Brown said there are factors which make a repeat highly unlikely this year. She said politics at the federal and provincial levels were relatively stable in 2010, and that's not the case in 2021.
"Calgarians had only one election to vote in that year," said Brown.
"In 2010, it (the mayor's race) was the top news story through the summer and the fall."
Combine that with the fact that Naheed Nenshi was able to meet many thousands of voters during the summer of 2010, and that created a buzz of excitement with his campaign ideas.
In this race, people are campaigning for public office during a pandemic.
Brown said the pandemic has really hampered traditional outreach for the lesser known candidates in this election, and that this is reflected in the recent poll results. | | |  |
The five top-polling Calgary mayoral candidates laid out their policy positions at Arts Commons.
(Scott Dippel) | Piling on | This week, two mayoral forums, held 48 hours apart, gave the top five candidates a chance to lay out their policy positions for voters to contrast and compare.
And there was also a healthy dose of debate amongst candidates.
On Monday during the Arts Commons debate Jeff Davison took on Jeromy Farkas’ budget plan.
"Last year, Mr Farkas' plan was to cut 15 per cent. This year, it's a freeze. It tends to flip-flop, like a lot of his decisions," said Davison.
Later in the debate Farkas outlined that, as mayor, he would not support selling off city parks and would not cut the police budget — controversies that had come up previously in council.
Gondek responded sharply.
"Councillor Farkas. We are not selling city parks,” said Gondek. “We are not defunding the police. We are not increasing our taxing ability. These are lies. You need to stop telling them."
Once the applause for Gondek died down, Farkas said: “All I'm going to say is these candidates on the stage, they can run but they can't hide from their record. It's a matter of fact that council voted to begin reallocating the police budget. It's a matter of fact that at least two ball diamonds and greenspace in Richmond Green regional park are going to be sold for development and so again, you're entitled to your own feelings but not your own facts.”
Of course, other council members would point out that Richmond Green will actually be a bigger park after the sale as a nearby city works yard is being decommissioned and added to the park.
Flash forward to Wednesday's forum with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
The elbows were still up.
Gondek was taking flak from Farkas who said, "Councillor Gondek will sit here and say she is for business but her entire record has been against business."
Jeff Davison went after Gondek's position on standing up to the UCP government to represent Calgarians' interests.
"We'll either fight with the province for the next four years or we're going to end up with a lot of no's. I think it's critical we have someone who can work across party lines to get things done,” said Davison.
Only a couple of forums are left before election day. | | |  | (Scott Dippel) | Who you gonna call? | Naheed Nenshi is packing up the office after 11 years as mayor as he prepares to hand over the chain of office to his successor. That will happen on October 25, one week after the election.
This week in an interview with CBC News, Nenshi revealed that he will swap personal phone numbers with Calgary's new mayor.
His plan is to keep that number in his contacts so he can assist with any transition issues and questions about the 2022 budget which will be debated in late November.
But Nenshi said he'll only keep that number until the end of the year.
"Then I'm going to lose their phone number. They will have mine if they ever need me but I'm not going to insert myself into their world."
This sounds a lot like the two mayors previous to Nenshi. Both Dave Bronconnier and Al Duerr kindly declined my requests to talk about events at city hall after they left office. (Nenshi briefly met with former mayor Al Duerr during events on Truth and Reconciliation Day on Sept 30, pictured above.)
Understandable. New mayors may not really welcome a predecessor chiming in. Well, at least not publicly.
Privately?
Nenshi revealed that he has "leaned on" both Bronconnier and Duerr for a lot of advice over his time in office.
And let's face it. It's an exclusive club.
Between them, Nenshi, Bronconnier and Duerr have a combined 32 years of mayoral experience under their belts.
Any successor would probably be wise to access that kind of resource from time to time. | | Third party endorsements | There seems to be widespread unhappiness among candidates with the third party advertisers in this election.
The UCP government changed the Local Authorities Elections Act to spell out the new rules for third party advertisers in the municipal elections.
But across the spectrum, candidates are making calls for changes.
This week's endorsement of Jyoti Gondek by Calgary's Future caused a stir on two fronts. First, Gondek said she hadn’t sought the endorsement, and didn't fill out the group's survey of candidates. That raises questions about why the group would endorse her.
Second, Jeromy Farkas accused Gondek of being beholden to unions, which have contributed $1.7 million to Calgary’s Future. Details on the donations can be found here.
Gondek's TPA endorsement is hardly unique.
Farkas has been endorsed by Lead Calgary.
And Jeff Davison has been endorsed by Calgary Tomorrow.
Unlike Calgary’s Future, voters can't yet find out yet how much money those two TPAs have, or who donated money, as they have not yet filed any public disclosures.
It should be noted that it is legal for the TPAs to use the money they raise to support or oppose their choice of candidates. But they cannot give the cash to candidates. | | | 4 more municipal stories you shouldn't miss | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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