Mayor Naheed Denchi left his office to attend a Rockefeller Foundation-organized Resilient Cities Conference in the Netherlands. What was he doing there? And why was it so important that he skip the Calgary Stampede in order to attend it?
00:05:28.740And having read the About Us section, I still frankly have absolutely no idea what a resilient city is or what a chief resilience officer does.
00:05:38.380But we're required to have one as a quote unquote resilient city.
00:05:42.920And yes, and the mayor left town and the mayor didn't tell anybody he was leaving town.
00:05:47.000He didn't tell any of his council colleagues.
00:05:49.540He didn't tell Councillor Jody Gondek, who was acting mayor that month, and so would presumably have to take on some of the ceremonial responsibilities during Calgary's largest annual event.
00:06:01.560So just what was so important in Rotterdam and why, once again, did the Rockefeller family pay for our mayor to go on another summer European trip?
00:06:10.760Yeah, and you know, I read some of the documents, we filed access to information into the City of Calgary to find out exactly what a resiliency officer is.
00:06:27.020But I do know that the Rockefeller Foundation plays a role in selecting the resiliency officer, and they pay for some of the resiliency officer.
00:06:39.240So you have the Rockefeller Foundation, explicitly anti-Alberta Foundation, paying for their person to be involved in the City of Calgary.
00:06:51.720And you know, for all the outrage about the Rockefeller Foundation and their foreign meddling in the ability for Albertans to get their oil and gas to market and how that problem has really just hit Calgary's downtown core,
00:07:08.840I think it is terrible that the mayor has chosen to spend his time with them as opposed to his city during arguably the most important 10 days of the year.
00:07:20.140You know, I think for a lot of us, we don't understand what this whole Resilient Cities Summit and program is all about.
00:07:32.860Certainly, we haven't got any detailed reporting back from his worship about what it is they talk about at these things, what are the benefits to Calgary.
00:07:43.120And, you know, people are rightly concerned about foreign organizations interfering in our domestic political affairs.
00:07:50.980The people who make decisions about how we're governed and what our policies are should be Canadians.
00:07:55.660Certainly, who should make the decisions about how Calgary is being run should be Calgarians, not these large, well-funded international groups who may or may not be pursuing their own agenda, which doesn't have Calgary's best interest at heart.
00:08:10.140As you rightly point out, the Rockefeller family, across its many tentacles, has supported huge amounts of anti-energy, anti-oil sands, anti-Alberta energy activities.
00:08:21.520And what exactly is Calgary getting in exchange for signing on the dotted line and taking Rockefeller Foundation money to have this chief resiliency officer?
00:08:31.520And why don't they ever just sit down and tell us in plain English what exactly it is that this organization is, what they want to achieve, and what the point of it is?
00:08:40.820Why doesn't the mayor ever say proactively, hey, I'm going to Rotterdam next week.
00:08:48.940Why do we only find out when he's on his way back from these sorts of events?
00:08:53.480To me, it all leads us with this idea that they're trying to hide something.
00:08:56.900They're trying to pull the wool over the eyes of everyday Calgarians, just because this council has on so many previous occasions.
00:09:03.940Yeah, this really is the most secretive council in all of Canada.
00:09:07.200Now, speaking of the stampede, Trudeau did come to town, sort of.
00:09:13.060His big stampede appearance was at a Liberal Party fundraiser where Trudeau said some, well, I'm going to say it, pretty crazy things.
00:09:23.560He said that he thinks the Liberals will not only hang on to their seats, but actually win more seats here in Alberta, and I just can't see that happening.
00:09:32.600You know, it's possible the Prime Minister may have been out a little late one night, a cowboy, had a few too many drinks, done a little too much line dancing, because it's clear he obviously lives in an entirely different world than we do.
00:09:45.360There are three Liberal seats in Alberta.
00:09:58.600I cannot see a way that those three Liberal MPs will get re-elected.
00:10:04.140I mean, Kent Hare, he himself booted from Cabinet and suspended briefly because of questions around his own misconduct.
00:10:11.560First, Amrajit Sohi, who has championed anti-energy and anti-pipeline initiatives as one of our ministers, and frankly, only won by the narrowest of margins last time.
00:10:23.780I mean, it was a real squeak-through win.
00:10:26.300And I guess the one who maybe they think has the best chance of winning re-election, Brandy Blossoneau at Evidence Centre.
00:10:32.500Well, he's up against a great candidate, great Conservative candidate named James Cumming, who has been door-knocking endlessly since the last election.
00:10:40.680And, you know, was one of the people on the Jody Wilson-Raybould testimony committee on behalf of the Liberal Party and just had the most sycophantic, obsequious questions.
00:10:51.580You know, towing the Liberal Party line, hook, line and sinker all the way through that, and I think was even an embarrassment to his own Liberal colleagues on that committee.
00:11:00.540So I don't see, you know, far from picking up seats, I don't know how the Liberal Party retains any of its seats heading into after the 2019 election.
00:11:09.500I think the Prime Minister just dreaming in technicolor.
00:11:12.320And you're right, the only reason he came to Calgary was for a Liberal fundraiser.
00:11:16.080He did claim to have a Trans Mountain Pipeline announcement, but every media who showed up to cover it realized it wasn't an announcement.
00:11:24.500An announcement means new and meaningful information about something.
00:11:30.120He had bromides and platitudes and talking about why he thinks the pipeline's important, even though they just appointed a star candidate in Quebec who is dead set against the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
00:11:41.840So, like on so many other files, Prime Minister Trudeau has no credibility when it comes to either pipeline or Alberta's energy sector.
00:11:49.660Yeah, that carefully staged photo op with Justin Trudeau in Sherwood Park with regard to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
00:12:01.040It was held inside a facility, even though the weather was okay that day, because there's no ground being broken outside.
00:12:10.080So, you can't take a picture where construction on TMX is happening, because there is no construction happening whatsoever.
00:12:19.560It was held inside, you know, a facility at the refinery where that's the terminus for TMX, because there's just no work happening.
00:12:27.340They keep promising we're going to have shovels in the ground, but there's none.
00:12:31.720So, let's go back to the City of Calgary, because you and I have talked about this on, every time we talk, really.
00:12:39.400We've talked about the spending problem at Calgary City Hall, and you and I have said, you know, like, look, City Hall has to get a handle on their spending.
00:12:50.140And apparently, the only place that City Hall can find to cut their spending is on emergency services, of all things.
00:13:03.320For any big, bloated bureaucracy that doesn't really want to make any cuts and frankly thinks that cuts are heresy to civil servants,
00:13:14.460they always go for the most popular, most beloved, most supported groups.
00:13:19.360So, who they go after, they went after firemen, and they went after police officers.
00:13:23.180And you think to yourself, in a city employing tens of thousands of people with salaries, wages, and benefits in the stratosphere,
00:13:32.720they're so high and so generous, is that really the only place we can cut?
00:13:36.520Is it really putting the lives of Calgarians in danger that makes the most sense when it comes to cuts?
00:13:42.100You know, I would say, and the mayor, of course, who, when several councillors expressed alarm that the cuts were going after,
00:13:51.300you know, emergency services and emergency personnel, several councillors said, well, we don't think that's the right way to go.
00:13:57.420The mayor said, well, it's not council's job to second guess the cuts being proposed by administration.
00:14:03.100And I would respectfully suggest, actually, it's entirely council's job as our elected representatives to provide direction to a bureaucracy that,
00:14:12.380in my opinion, is completely out of control.
00:14:14.820They seem to think it is them who runs our city, and they're the ones to make decisions,
00:14:20.640and they will just have to talk council into agreeing to what they want.
00:14:23.840And I think Calgarians have had enough.
00:14:26.680And if you look at a recent Think HQ public opinion poll, everybody seems to think,
00:14:32.520or at least an overwhelming majority of people, have a very low opinion of council as a whole's job record,
00:25:43.880In the interest of accuracy, I need to correct something that I said.
00:25:47.660In my interview with William, I cited a bit of a wrong number, but just barely,
00:25:51.880and it doesn't change the point that I was trying to make anyway.
00:25:54.600According to Payscale.com, the average salary in Calgary is about $60,500 per year.
00:26:01.920When I was talking to William, I said it was closer to $57,000, but that's just the number for Edmonton.
00:26:09.280But the point remains that all those administrative positions that are earning well over $100,000 per year to work for municipal governments
00:26:18.140pay anywhere from $43,000 to $83,000 per year for the same job in the private sector.
00:26:25.000And that's a problem for taxpayers who have to bear this unsustainable burden of these completely out-of-whack public sector salaries.
00:26:34.320Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.