Calgary’s “out of touch” politicians turn pro-pipeline rally-goers against them (Guest： William McBeath)
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Summary
After three terms in office, is the bloom finally coming off the rose of Calgary s progressive and secretive Mayor Naheed Nenshi? Tonight, my guest and I discuss that and all the latest comings and goings down at Calgary City Hall.
Transcript
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After three terms in office, is the bloom finally coming off the rose of Calgary's progressive and secretive Mayor Nahid Nenshi?
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Tonight, my guest and I discuss that and all the latest comings and goings down at Calgary City Hall.
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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Calgary held yet another massive lunchtime rally where well over 2,000 people showed up at Calgary's municipal plaza to show their support for Canada's battered and beleaguered oil and gas industry.
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The speakers at the rally included Calgary municipal politicians, which should not have been unusual, nor should it have been controversial, except for the fact that those speakers made themselves seem unusual and controversial.
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I want to show you a couple of clips from the rally.
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In these clips, you're going to see the crowd booing two municipal politicians.
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The first politician being booed is Mayor Nenshi.
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The second is Calgary City Councilor Peter Dijon.
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I've been asked by the organizers, because it's important that this message carry across the whole country,
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so I've been asked by the organizers to say a few words in French, so I will do that now.
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If you want someone to listen to you, you have to speak their language.
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Now, we can argue the merits of them being booed for their remarks all day.
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I think you know where I probably stand on this.
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I certainly don't think a pro-pipeline rally comprised of devastated and desperate Calgarians
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is the right place to lecture people on supporting Quebec's dairy industry
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But what's really telling is the response from those two politicians to being criticized by the public.
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The politicians instantly became petty and condescending.
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They couldn't handle the criticism and they revealed themselves to be completely tone-deaf
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and out of touch with the issues that really matter.
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But is it the sort of response that one might expect from Calgary's most well-paid yet secretive mayor and council?
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And that rally and the booing, well, that was really just the start of Calgary City Council's very bad week.
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Tonight, my guest and I discuss how the rally went sideways for Calgary's Purple Prince
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and City Council's latest attempts to keep a lid on one renegade city councillor
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who's trying to shine a light on what goes on behind closed doors at Calgary City Hall.
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We even talk about the failings of Calgary City Council's new safe injection site.
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Joining me tonight from Calgary via Skype is my friend William Macbeth from Save Calgary.
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So joining me now from Save Calgary is my friend and good friend of the show, William Macbeth.
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William, it is a crazy week in Calgary municipal politics already
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and we are recording this at just afternoon on Tuesday.
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It's hard to imagine how the week could get any crazier except that it seems to be hour by hour.
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So Eva, yes, you say we're recording this right now on Tuesday afternoon.
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By the time it goes out, who knows what else will have happened.
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But, I mean, I think we can talk about what's been happening in Calgary over the last while
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and the series of rallies that have been held showing, I think, the scale of the anger
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that Albertans and Calgarians are feeling about the fact that the federal government
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has refused to do anything to get pipelines built.
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And that's costing us hundreds, you know, 100,000 jobs in this province and in this city.
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Politicians expecting sympathy or empathy from Calgarians and Albertans for Quebecers
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seriously misread the political mood of that crowd.
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Yeah, that was really something that, you know, Nenshi, to his credit, he faced the crowd
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He should be the face of what's happening in Calgary.
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And really, he's been noticeably absent as far as that goes.
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But, and, you know, he did make a debatable mistake.
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He tried to communicate to the crowd in French because, I don't know, for some reason, people
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think the problem with not getting pipelines done and sold to the people of Quebec is a
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But, I mean, he faced some backlash from the crowd.
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What I have a real problem with is how he condescended to the people in the crowd afterwards instead
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And a lot of them, quite frankly, do blame opposition in Quebec.
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I mean, we saw the fact that Quebecers continue to receive the lion's share of equalization
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And those payments primarily come from Alberta.
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And while it's not the case that Alberta writes a check to the government of Quebec, Alberta
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pays a lot in taxes and has done so gladly over the years because we have always seen
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ourselves as a part of the Canadian Federation.
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And in exchange for paying equalization payments, we believe that the rest of the country would
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in turn support Alberta's most important industry and the industry that is funding those
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So when you see one part of the country really kicking another part of the country that's down,
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it makes you start to question whether or not Alberta, by being such a good part of the
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Federation over the years, is getting a fair shake in return.
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And it's leading many to start to question if it's not time for a conversation about the
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relationship between Alberta and the Canadian Federation.
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And certainly, I think that's what we saw at the rallies over the past few weeks.
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And I think, you know, it was just so tone deaf for Nenshi to take that opportunity to
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What a terrible, terrible time to be talking down to these people, to be calling them,
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They're there rallying for their jobs and, you know, and a future for their kids.
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It's not a time to lecture us, Catherine McKenna style, about the virtues of fighting climate
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I mean, the tone deafness of the remark, too, when you think about it, Nenshi is Canada's
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He earns more than any other municipal politician in this country.
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And for him to be talking about climate change and several other of our city council, you
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know, Councillor Farrell, who, while I agreed and appreciate her support against the Olympics
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when that was happening, don't agree with her on a lot of other issues.
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And when council was passing its, we support Alberta energy motion, Councillor Farrell said
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she would not support any initiative which would stop her unfettered support for climate
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So to me, you think, where are your priorities?
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Are they in Ottawa, in with Catherine McKenna, who travels internationally, talking about the
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Or, as a city of Calgary politician, are your priorities here, the 100,000 Calgarians who
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are looking for jobs, who are struggling to pay their bills, to pay their mortgages?
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And she seemed to think that it was more important to talk about her climate activism than it was
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to talk about the very real problem facing Calgarians right now.
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You know, and Nenshi wasn't alone in his tone deafness at that rally.
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You had Councillor DeMong say that it's not time to be talking about boycotts and trade
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And then he, then, wait, wait, sorry to cut you off.
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But he said we need to be spreading the word about how this industry is a world leader in
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We should be talking about how to support Quebec's dairy industry by buying Canadian cheese.
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And then he said we should be talking about supporting Ontario.
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And then his response, again, just like Nenshi's, saying, wow, really?
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Yeah, it was, it was, you have to wonder if that was pre-planned, his approach, or if it
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was just extemporaneous remarks that went badly wrong in the moment.
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Um, I hope it's, I hope it's just spontaneous remarks that he now regrets having made, because
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on some other issues, Councillor DeMong is usually pretty sensible.
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But in this case, uh, way out to lunch and, and not only way out to lunch, but, um, when
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you, when you're having a difficult time, sort of the relationship with Alberta and the rest
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of Canada, it is not the time to talk down to Albertans about how great other parts of
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this country are and how we need to be supporting them.
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The conversation has to be, what is the Canadian Federation doing to support us?
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What are they doing to support the critical lifeblood of the Canadian economy, our energy
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And for Councillor DeMong to say, let's buy more Quebec guac cheese.
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I mean, I have to say, I, I have, I have started to read labels more carefully now, just to
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wonder if something's made in Quebec, because frankly, being kind of pissed at them, I don't
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And to, and to say to a bunch of out of work, struggling Calgarians otherwise, I think
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is just, uh, politically not the best move he's ever made.
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Well, especially when like you literally can't afford cheese in Canada and they're telling
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you, no, we're going to save the Confederation by buying cheese.
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Like, I don't know, I don't know if, like you said, I hope, I hope that he didn't pre-prepare
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those remarks because those are some of the dumbest I've ever heard.
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And, and then, you know, sort of that whole, wow.
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And the answer is yes, we do call ourselves Canadians, but we're Canadians frustrated with
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We're frustrated that British Columbia is popping, blocking our pipeline to the West.
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And we're frustrated that Quebec is blocking our pipeline to the East.
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And we're frustrated that the federal government hasn't done more to help our pipelines go south.
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So these are legitimate questions Albertans have about how Canada operates as a Confederation.
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And it doesn't mean we're not proud to be Canadian, but it means we're also not going
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to ignore all of these problems because apparently questioning how the federation works somehow
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Being a doormat makes you a good Canadian as far as these people are concerned.
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Shut up and pay the bill seems to be the attitude from a lot of people.
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Now, I want to talk to you a little bit more about the tone deafness happening down at City
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I guess we can start with Councillor Jeremy Farkas and what unfolded with him early this
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Jeremy has definitely had a bumpy week on City Council.
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In fact, I haven't looked to see what's happening right now.
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He may not even still be allowed to be back on City Council yet.
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That's a conversation I think that's still happening.
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Jeremy wanted, you know, in this tough economic times, which you and I have talked about here
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in Calgary, we've got one out of four office towers vacant, a huge hole in the taxes that
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we used to collect from those office towers and how we were going to make up the difference.
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And Jeremy said, look, council has to lead by example.
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I think we should take a 5% pay cut as city councillors.
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So many in the private sector have had to take pay cuts.
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The least council can do is follow suit and send the message that we're serious about
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looking for ways to restore Calgary's economic stability.
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He couldn't even get a seconder on his motion to cut by 5%.
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He then brought in a motion that said, well, then let's freeze council pay.
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And before he could, Councillor Sutherland actually got that motion moved, another city councillor,
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Now, it looks like, based on the hard information we have until November, the council was only
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lying for a 2 point something percent pay increase.
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A bureaucrat, a city bureaucrat, in attendance of the meeting said, well, we haven't finished
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crunching the numbers, but it now looks like there might be a very small pay decrease,
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because Calgary City Council pay is based on how the economy is growing or contracting overall.
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And that led to a bunch of councillors voting against, including Councillor Sutherland,
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And because he did that and didn't report the unofficial information, city council decided
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he had to go and take a walk, and they kicked him off council.
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They tried to censor him, because didn't this all happen behind closed doors, again, because
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it's Calgary City Council, nothing happens in the open.
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But what he tried to do was try to tell the people, this is what's happening behind closed
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While you're outside rallying, because you don't have a job, city council is voting itself
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And it did happen behind closed doors, because that's how we govern here in Calgary.
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But I think why, I think this, if you look at what Jeremy said, he said, here is the hard
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information we have from the city administration.
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We know until November, up until now, it says pay increase.
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Possibly it's going to change, and we'll come in with a decrease.
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I think Jeremy would have been very happy to have a motion that said, if it's a salary
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increase, we're not going to take it, we're going to freeze pay.
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And if it's a decrease, we're going to take the decrease.
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To me, that would have been a perfectly reasonable thing.
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But this really wasn't about what Jeremy had posted on Facebook.
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This was all of city council deciding that they had had enough of being embarrassed by
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a councillor who is trying to make this city council more accountable and more fiscally
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So they took him out to the woodshed, and they punished him for that.
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You know, it's astounding, too, like how one councillor who just is advocating for transparency
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Like, I've never seen this sort of discontent and discord and controversy happening at Calgary
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City Hall, which leads me to believe that for years, for decades, there have been just
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councillors going along to get along, to get their paycheck.
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And they really didn't seem to care about what the people who are paying the bills should
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I mean, if you ask some of these councillors, they say things like, city council used to
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be a lot more collegial, would be one of their words.
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But I think Clubby would be a better one, because what it was, was a bunch of political
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insiders who nobody was really paying that much attention to on a day-to-day basis, were
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funding the projects that were important to them, that were raising taxes year after year
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after year without, you know, without really having anybody stand up and fight for fiscal
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And now, suddenly for the first time, they can't get away with it anymore.
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It's no more, I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine, and let's just put the bill
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Jeremy is making that impossible for them, or at least a lot more difficult.
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And for a lot of them, I think they're really upset that their, you know, chummy insider
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I wanted to talk to you about something that I just read in the news today.
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I see that Calgary is moving towards a social procurement strategy.
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I have to tell you, on the surface, it doesn't sound like something I would particularly like.
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I think you add the word social when it means you're not going for value for money as the
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primary driver for how the city is going to pay for things and buy for things.
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See, that's the part that really bothers me about all these sorts of things.
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It's the same as the federal liberals' gender lens that they're running pipelines through
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The bottom line should always be the best value for the taxpayer and the best person for the
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This just all seems very expensive to me to be examining the social impacts of procurement
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as opposed to the fiscal impacts of procurement.
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And this is not extra dollars that the city council really has.
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Look, maybe if times were really good, we could afford the luxury of all of these other, you
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know, sort of modern programs and modern and in vogue practices that the left so much love
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We should be looking at who can get the job done the most effectively.
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How can we build this and get the best value for money?
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You know, how can we how can we build a community and do so in a way that's going to meet the
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And if we start going down, I mean, I have to laugh at the gender based or the gender lens
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on the budget, the federal minister of status of women, when she introduced it, gave such an
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incomprehensible explanation for what it actually meant.
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And I read it over and over again, still have no idea what she was actually talking about in
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So for me, rather than dwelling on on all of the invoke PC culture type things, we should be
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looking at how to get value for Calgary taxpayers because we need it now more than ever.
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There's something else I wanted to talk to you about, again, something I read in the
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news today, that the safe injection site at the Beltline, police now this is not anecdotal
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They say that they are seeing a rise in violence and drug dealing around the safe injection site.
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Who could have figured that a safe injection site would attract drug dealers?
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We talked a little bit about it in the election, but a lot of people just sort of glossed.
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There was so much other thing, many other things to talk about the election that it didn't get the kind
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Drug dealers go where drug buyers and drug consumers are.
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So we've now got in the heart of Beltline, a community that has really started to invest and
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improve and make itself a community where people want to live, you know, into the close to the
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But now we filled it with drug dealers and we filled it with discarded syringes and we filled
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it with people who are high out of their minds.
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And to me, it is exactly opposite to what Beltline as a community was trying to achieve, which
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was to, you know, shake off that image of being dangerous, of being, you know, sort of decaying
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So but yeah, who would have thought that the drug dealers would go where the drug buyers
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That apparently never occurred to our city council.
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And, you know, the one thing about the opioid crisis is that it hits the suburbs just as
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It hits the affluent and the children of the affluent just as hard as it does those struggling
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But these safe injection sites always end up in low income areas where people are, young
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families can actually afford housing in these, you know, recovering areas.
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But then they have to compete with the fact that the city is actively corralling criminality
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I thought that journalist Tristan Hopper, who lives in Edmonton, and he he lives in an inner
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city neighborhood, too, very much like Beltline would be here in Calgary.
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And he talked about how having moved his family there, his children are now playing in playgrounds
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and walking down streets where there are discarded used syringes.
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And after he made that that statement online, the level of leftist viciousness that was unleashed upon him was truly amazing to be.
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You would have thought he had called for, you know, the invasion of another country, the level of outrage that we saw from the left on that.
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They seem to have a failure to understand the concerns that homeowners and parents have about having drug dealers and drug consumers in their neighborhoods.
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And it doesn't make any sense to me about how they they just they won't accept and they think people who have those concerns are wrong and that they're hateful.
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And I think that just shows the intolerance of the left when it comes to this issue.
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Well, yeah, I mean, they look at you when you say, yeah, I sort of kind of expect for my child to be able to play on the community playground infrastructure that my taxes pay for without catching hepatitis.
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And they look at you like you are, you know, a horrible person.
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And they'll say, well, these drug addicts need to go somewhere.
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I have absolutely I have absolutely a lot of sympathy for people who are struggling with addictions and their families.
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And I don't think there's really a place for the government to be enabling all of it and shuffling it out of sight into inner city neighborhoods.
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The idea that if they're consuming drugs in a supervised environment and using clean syringes, it is making it is less harmful to to drug users.
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The only problem is it's that it's not actually reducing harm, the real harm, which is the consumption of illegal drugs in the first place.
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And to me, if you put up a safe injection site, you're actually solving the wrong problem.
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You're you're solving the symptom, not the cause.
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And you're never going to make tangible progress on this if you don't start addressing the real cause.
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And, you know, the same people who are so pro safe injection site are also dead, you know, deep against tougher penalties and tougher laws on drug dealers and resellers.
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If you're going to put the money somewhere, it should be into reducing the supply of illegal drugs, not into making those illegal drugs safer to consume.
00:24:33.660
You know, there are people who are bringing these poisons into our neighborhoods and it's it's really doing nobody any favors, especially people who espouse sympathy for those suffering with drug addiction.
00:24:48.860
It's doing them no favors to create a revolving door justice system for the dealer.
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They are making money off of marginalized people and destroying neighborhoods in the process.
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Why on earth we wouldn't have the toughest possible laws and punishments for these people?
00:25:15.100
Well, and, you know, we're spending a lot of time on this, but, you know, like this all came out of Vancouver, Insight, and then it's been rolled out across the country.
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It hasn't really made an impact or the impact that they said it would on the social circumstances of the downtown east side in Vancouver.
00:25:45.660
No, and I don't think any community looks to downtown east Vancouver as the model for what it wants for its own city.
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Now, I wanted – this is the year sort of end, wrap-up, or at least my time with you.
00:26:05.140
I'll probably be speaking to you quite a bit in the new year.
00:26:07.500
But I wanted to ask you what is on the horizon for Save Calgary coming up in the new year.
00:26:12.960
Well, I mean, we're really very proud of what we were able to achieve this past year from everything from, you know, starting to actually remind and let voters know how their city councillors were voting on things,
00:26:25.240
which, you know, surprisingly, council doesn't make all that easy to figure out who's voting for higher taxes, who's voting for more secret meetings, things like that,
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to, you know, our success at working with a coalition of people to stop Calgary's Olympic insanity, which was a great moment, I think, for Common Sense Calgarians and, frankly, Common Sense Albertans and Common Sense Canadians,
00:26:47.580
who are also going to be on the hook for these games.
00:26:50.600
In the new year, we're looking at what we're going to be able to do.
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But I will say that part of it's going to be about if we have the resources in order to be able to keep pursuing this kind of work.
00:27:02.540
We operate, as I think you know, Sheila, on a pretty small budget.
00:27:07.380
We are primarily driven by people who are passionate about Calgary and want to see Calgary be, you know, a truly great city.
00:27:19.320
You know, we found out this week the Pembina Institute got $340,000 to attack Calgary's energy sector.
00:27:28.580
We don't get any money from the city of Calgary.
00:27:30.680
We're reliant on the donations and the support of everyday Calgarians.
00:27:35.680
So for us, we're really going to be looking to them to help us financially so we can keep up this work in 2019.
00:27:43.580
You know, I think that you have done some incredible work, like you just pointed out,
00:27:48.760
with your shoestring budget and your skeleton crew at Save Calgary.
00:27:53.760
I mean, you effectively led the no charge in the Olympics and defeated the deep pockets of the yes side,
00:28:04.260
which had the Chamber of Commerce and the city of Calgary funding their campaign.
00:28:09.160
They put out an advertising blitz in the last week.
00:28:14.000
And somehow still, you at Save Calgary were able to overcome that.
00:28:17.700
I think you have a very big job, but you've been able to do a lot with a little.
00:28:22.260
And I would love to find out what you can do with even a little bit more.
00:28:29.540
I think next year is the year we're going to start looking towards the 2021 Calgary municipal election.
00:28:36.380
You cannot wait till six months before an election, because otherwise, if you do, you're not going to win.
00:28:42.320
So for us, next year will be the year where we start to get ready for 2021.
00:28:47.960
And that could be including trying to find some municipal candidates, to find people to run for city council,
00:28:54.400
to find someone to run for mayor, to get them the team they need, the training they need,
00:29:04.160
But that is all going to rely on the financial support of Calgarians.
00:29:08.420
So I guess my question to Calgarians who are seeing this, and it doesn't have to be Calgarians.
00:29:13.600
It could be anybody who thinks a strong Calgary is good, is your investment, your $20, your $50.
00:29:22.600
If you give that to us, we're going to use it in the best way we possibly can in order to try and create the Calgary
00:29:30.760
that's going to be good for everyday Calgarians or for taxpayers.
00:29:33.460
So I hope that enough of them are going to be able to look at what we've done
00:29:38.120
and think it's worthwhile to make a contribution so that we can keep doing the job we have been doing
00:29:45.500
So I guess my final question to you is, what's the best way for people to find out what Save Calgary is up to
00:29:52.480
and also the best way for them to throw you a few bucks throughout the year?
00:29:56.660
The best way to stay on top of what we're doing, there's three things.
00:30:03.220
You can also certainly make a donation there online through our website.
00:30:08.020
Go visit us on Facebook, facebook.com slash savecalgary.
00:30:12.420
We post a lot of content through our Facebook channel and we like to try and keep you up to date
00:30:18.560
and informed on what's happening on City Council.
00:30:20.820
And the third way is when you're on our website, sign up to our mailing list.
00:30:24.860
We put out a newsletter every single week on an issue of concern to Calgary voters
00:30:30.480
and that's the best way to stay on top of what we're working on and what's happening down at City Hall.
00:30:37.120
So those three things, we would really encourage you and it would mean a lot to us and our success if you were to do that.
00:30:43.080
Well, and those, I got to tell you, those emails are incredibly well written and I think you're the author.
00:30:52.260
You know, you get a lot of political fundraising emails and press releases in a day,
00:30:57.500
but I actually look forward to reading the ones from Save Calgary.
00:31:01.620
William, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and I want to wish you a very successful 2019
00:31:07.620
and I want to thank you for being so generous with your time with me this year
00:31:14.700
Well, thanks, Sheila, and a very Merry Christmas to you and to yours
00:31:18.080
and thank you also for giving our group the coverage that you have
00:31:22.400
and talking about the issues that so many others in the mainstream media aren't talking about
00:31:28.240
So we really appreciate it too over here at Save Calgary.
00:31:32.440
Okay, William, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:31:52.380
There really are just a handful of voices fighting for transparency for the Calgary city taxpayers.
00:31:59.760
Councillors, Sean Chu and Jeremy Farkas, are two on council who are doing it from inside the machine of government.
00:32:07.700
And Save Calgary really is the loudest and yet the most underfunded voice holding city council accountable from the outside.
00:32:18.180
I mean, they helped stop the Olympics juggernaut despite having all the odds stacked against them.
00:32:31.360
Well, everybody, thanks for watching the show tonight.
00:32:35.780
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.
00:32:41.240
And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.