Calgary Chamber Mayoral Debate, Oct 6 2021
So the Calgary Chamber of Commerce just livestreamed a "debate" (in reality a moderated group Q&A - nobody really challenged each other) between the Calgary mayoral candidates. (Repeat video embedded above.)
Jan Damery has one of the most detailed and sensible platforms out there, with lots of good ideas, but she suffers from lack of name recognition and is not polling highly. I hope she at least runs for city council someday.
Brad Field and Jeff Davison strike me as people you could insert into any episode of Dragons' Den without anyone noticing. Central casting conservative business dudes.
Field seems to be running on the tired and disproven "we need to run government like a business" mantra. Gotta cut those regulations and red tape, amirite?
Jyoti Gondek, the councillor from Ward 3, is projecting good leadership vibes. She's offering the most continuity on the kinds of city-building, pro-transit and place-making policies that improved the city under our popular outgoing mayor Naheed Nenshi, particularly as the completed future Green Line affects her ward. She seemed to strike a good balance of pro-progress and pro-business statements.
and now (sigh) I have to talk about Jeromy Farkas.
I went to a Catholic boys' school. I was part of the debate club. Anyone who's ever been in Debate Club knows That Guy.
The kid who just parroted conservative views because Daddy said those things, or to get a rise out of other people. The sophist who cultivated outrage to distract from what they were really doing, and nakedly worshipped power. The one with literal posters of Reagan and Thatcher in their locker, convinced they alone stood atop the gates of civilization, holding back the barbarous hordes clamouring for equal pay and single-payer healthcare, because it's a slippery slope to Stalinism and mass death.
The thing is he's not even that good at it, and somehow he's polling in 2nd place to Gondek.
He spent his time repeating bald-faced lies he stated in other debates about:
how the woke mob were 'defunding the police,' because Victoria Park doesn't have a police station - when in fact its closure two years ago was a cost-saving measure to consolidate office space
How the city is 'selling off parks' - in fact it's a rearrangement of space in ONE park that gives one corner to private developers, re-uses unused space, and redesigns existing space, so the net park space is INCREASED. (see plan, below):
Repeatedly using scare tactics like calling other candidates 'extremist' and 'radical' - I mean? This is the most centrist/conservative group of people outside of a Washington, DC suburban book club. Radical? Does that mean people who graduated college and can speak more than one language?
But I'll let citizens activist group Project Calgary tell you all about Jeromy.
good debate-clubber that he is, he went straight from school to working for the Manning Centre, a conservative-sorta-Christianist-sorta-Alberta Separatist PAC linked to Preston Manning, former leader of the Reform Party (which became the Canadian Alliance, which ate the old mainstream Progressive Conservative party, much as the Tea Party and Trumpists ate the Republican party). They were caught on tape trying to plot to make sure City Council had a slate of developer-friendly councillors who wouldn't say no to more urban spawl.
He's never held a real job outside of politics.
He accused Gondek of courting dark money when his entire professional life has been backed by dark money!
He's spent literally ALL his time on city council voting no to EVERYTHING, on principle - including things like mask mandates for public COVID safety.
He's also rabidly pro-police and pro-building up an almost militarized force "for safety," when, as Damery noted, safety comes from having more people downtown, more activity, eyes on the street vs. dead zones after 5pm.
If he wins, it might be like having Jason Kenney as our mayor, and that bodes for more gridlock, and the continuing brain drain and exodus from a city that doesn't offer anything to young people, and a province that insists on doubling down on things that don't work, and stopped working decades ago.
So, in the opinion of this blog: Vote for Gondek. She's not perfect, but she knows what she's doing and is going to help steer the city away from it's current sprawl and dead downtowns.
