00:12:04.940They can just do this arbitrarily when a couple of weeks later
00:12:08.360an article comes out in the same newspaper that says
00:12:11.940the province has minimal powers to remove a councillor,
00:12:15.440a city councillor in Calgary, Sean Chu, after a legal review.
00:12:19.900Well, we reviewed it legally and we decided we didn't have the power to remove this guy.
00:12:23.900So how is it that you have the power to remove almost an entire city councillor or council in Chestermere, but you can't take out one city councillor in Calgary?
00:12:52.600Thank you, Jeff, for the chuckle removed mayor, Jeff Colvin. Have you looked into this? Have you looked into how they were able to remove you guys so easily, but not this city councilor in Calgary? It seems a discrepancy to me.
00:13:06.660Yeah, no, it is. So under the MGA, which is, it's very questionable, this ability to do this. The, you know, even in the opinion that Rick McIver sought about 10 days, no, it was about 20 days after we were elected.
00:13:26.200By the way, for you guys who don't know, Rick McIver, he is the minister responsible for removing this council, just so you know.
00:13:35.680Yeah, so we were elected October 18th, 2021. And then we were in office for about two years, and we were removed on December 4th, 2023. And so what was surprising to us is that we found out that Rick McIver had identified an opinion, had gotten opinion from his lawyer on how to remove a council and how to remove a councillor.
00:14:02.820And, you know, the main point that the lawyer had indicated was don't, was just you can't even go there.
00:14:12.680And really, he indicated then that if there is such egregious reasons that something is just completely off the wall, then you need to go through a bunch of these serious steps.
00:14:27.340And he indicated that they need to do an inquiry and a inspection.
00:14:31.680and um and then go through a number of other steps and so you kind of ask yourself well what
00:14:37.500in the heck did we do that we became egregious and uh you know kind of off the wall um you know
00:14:44.200we took office we were we were we're all we're obviously all citizens of chestamere but we've
00:14:49.900all been here for a long time in chestamere my um i live yeah i'm gonna bring in removed
00:14:55.200councillor uh stephen hanley here he's removed and you'll find a few more removed councillor
00:15:03.880blaine funk into the uh picture here so everybody is on we've got a wendy and a gourd here as well
00:15:09.280should we bring them on too or no just just these are the three councillors the only other councillor
00:15:13.940that might join us um is mel folk okay fair enough so anyway you were saying you were yeah so i was a
00:15:20.660resident of Chestermere for 25 years. When I first moved here, we had a population of around
00:15:26.860just over 2,000. And right now we're at a population of about 30,000. And so our borders
00:15:32.780are actually connected to the city of Calgary. We actually touched the same border. And so our city
00:15:38.860has grown substantially in comparison to the number of residents we had originally. And what
00:15:45.200what we ran on very quickly was that we all identified there was a lot of irregular activities
00:15:51.480that were going on in our city and a lot of people think that is happening everywhere and so
00:15:56.140what we saw though um we actually had a petition in 2016 that actually brought 5500 residents over
00:16:04.18018 and signed a petition to investigate the current council and our utility company for
00:16:09.980corruption and municipal affairs did nothing um and and then in our situation we uh through uh
00:16:16.520discovery um and an affidavit they had to release that they only got 37 letters over two years
00:16:24.460about us and not all 37 were negative that's what that's how crazy this is and how they try to
00:16:29.980manipulate the data that they show uh the public but in that time period um didn't mckiver release
00:16:36.240a 46 page report on on you guys about how terrible you are yeah no in in the um in when he removed us
00:16:44.540he did send that to every resident in chestermere this this document that had all these little
00:16:49.680three three line items or two lines about all these things we did terrible and all these things
00:16:54.940that we did wrong um and it's just it's just incredible that the person can manipulate
00:16:59.840what the public can read because they take advantage of the fact that the public doesn't
00:17:06.260know um this business to to the degree that that he does or that we do and i'll give you a quick
00:17:12.080example is that they said for example unfortunately mail votes not here but they said for example
00:17:16.900that mail breached section one i think it was 174 or 175 of the mga which which means that if you
00:17:24.340if a counselor doesn't vote in a council meeting they can be removed okay and the reason for that
00:17:30.320and it does make sense that you're there to vote you're there to help your your your community and
00:17:35.240make sure you you know you're you're present for all the challenges that might be there
00:17:39.320not only doesn't that happen all the time where a counselor just says i'm not going to vote in this
00:17:43.820no no no you can't do that no you can't do that i mean you might be away at a doctor's appointment
00:17:49.000or on vacation or something like that so you can you can miss but if you're present and you're not
00:17:54.240and you're not in some kind of conflict of interest,
00:17:57.660which is typically pecuniary, so financial,
00:18:19.640where a public hearing is being heard,
00:18:21.420which i believe is section um uh shoot uh 175 and it's i can't remember anyways when a public
00:18:29.320hearing is happening a counselor can be present for part of it and still be allowed to vote in
00:18:36.580the after a public hearing um when we do the bylaw to either accept or refuse uh that the
00:18:42.980information that we got in that public hearing so the problem is is that he he tells something
00:18:47.300that's true and then he manipulates it so that the public thinks that it's factual in relation
00:18:52.780to what he's talking about and how as a public person how in the world can you expect to know
00:18:58.320whether he's telling the truth or telling a lie and that's what's so disappointing in the way that
00:19:02.720he approaches everything he talks about about us is that it's always slanted and you ask yourself
00:19:09.120geez why would Rick McIver do such a thing and so when we first got in we ran on a platform all of
00:19:15.140us had individual platforms but we all ran on a platform of transparency for our residents
00:19:19.900and transparency of business activities within the city we wanted to reduce corruption and then
00:19:26.320we wanted to see if it's possible to reduce our taxes in the city of Chestermere being from the
00:19:31.880outside and none of us are politicians Mel did have a term before us as a councillor but the
00:19:37.460other three of us never had any experience in the political arena so we didn't know if you could
00:19:43.380right i mean we're thinking from the outside everybody sees all this waste and city doing
00:19:47.220things that they shouldn't do and they're always like man if you guys could be more efficient we
00:19:51.000could reduce taxes right so when we got in uh we had all like all been experiencing these
00:19:57.680irregularities while living in chestamere that the things were costing three times four times
00:20:02.760the price that they should normally be and that's only the pittance of information that you get as
00:20:07.680a public person and so my background is construction and development of all types of
00:20:13.820communities and construction as well as utilities water and sewer and pipelines and and and treatment
00:20:21.160facilities and so that facilitates most of the information or actions that a city does though
00:20:28.380there is obviously a lot more they do when they're dealing with the public social programming and
00:20:34.800whatnot but but the things they do with the the ground and the really the roads and the mortar
00:20:40.220and the houses that's what I was my background was and and so seeing these problems that they
00:20:45.480were doing it was it was easy for me to see that there's something going on now it originally I
00:20:49.800thought that this was actually the city being taken advantage of by the by the construction
00:20:55.800companies and so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and I was trying to help them before I ran
00:21:01.360for election and so when i would say to them i would meet with the mayor and i'd meet with the
00:21:06.400cao and i'd say you know i heard that you guys are are potentially getting taken advantage of
00:21:10.920in certain construction projects they were beginning or looking at like when you say
00:21:14.560taken advantage of jeff what do you mean like so shady backdoor dealings that kind of thing
00:21:19.700well pricing so um if you don't understand the price of something how can you expect to make a
00:21:25.740decent decision and you're relying entirely on your staff to say something to you of okay that
00:21:31.700makes sense and as a counselor when when they come to you and say okay we're going to build a bridge
00:21:35.900for eight million dollars and you sit there and you go uh is that a good price should it be six
00:21:43.260should it be four should it be 20 you know what's the right number and that's a real challenging
00:21:49.180situation and what what we found is that um the city had some some ghastly terrible situations
00:21:57.020that happened on on projects and and and when we got into the to the office we started looking into
00:22:02.440these and what we found was massive resistance from our senior staff um we found that our cao
00:22:09.920at the time which had been with us only for he'd been to the cao for the previous council but we
00:22:15.820found that um he was not truthful to council not telling all of the full information to council
00:22:20.600holding information back so we removed him probably i want to say two or three weeks in
00:22:25.900maybe into the operations i'm sorry to interrupt you how did you figure out that he was not being
00:22:32.280fully truthful were there documents that were available to you that he didn't mention hidden
00:22:37.160documents something you just kind of stumbled across or did you actually do an investigation
00:22:41.240on this yeah so so when we were um out when we were not in council yet we would watch the
00:22:46.780council meetings and you would watch how the person the cao would talk to the counselors
00:22:53.000and you would he's the gatekeeper okay which is a problem he's the gatekeeper and he's giving
00:23:00.000the information to council and then council has to use that information only um to then
00:23:05.640make their decisions and if they're not given the correct information or all of the information
00:23:10.860or if they're given a slanted view on something, the CAO is kind of manipulating them.
00:23:18.180And during those council meetings, I watched some of the councillors when they had questions.
00:23:23.380And so it's very important that councillors ask questions.
00:23:27.560So when they would ask questions, you know, they're a little cheapest when they were asking.
00:23:33.080This person would take them around like a little story and then insult them partway through to make them like,
00:23:39.740how dare you question staff that what do you think staff isn't good they're like oh i didn't say that
00:23:45.020what do you mean and then he would come back around and he would pretend like he answered
00:23:48.280their question and i remember watching and i'm like you're kidding he didn't answer your question
00:23:54.900you need to write your question down because he would take three minutes to answer it but he would
00:23:58.980come back with he didn't answer anything and you know in the private sector that happens too but
00:24:03.640you call out the staff member real quick when he doesn't answer your question and he's not long for
00:24:09.160the job if he's not getting to brass tacks real quick okay guys so like i'm talking to the audience
00:24:14.900real quick here you guys have heard me say repeatedly over the past couple of years that
00:24:20.900in many cases it's not the politicians who are handling things it's the bureaucracy it's the
00:24:28.500deep state and that's what was going on here you guys sniffed that out and you got rid of the guy
00:24:35.460am i correct well we did um and and so what ended up happening is that as we were saying that we
00:24:42.080were looking into some of these irregularities the staff was blocking us and we were reporting
00:24:46.440these things to rick mciver and municipal affairs and at the time um we never knew anything of the
00:24:52.760backstory so we just kept reporting these irregularities and we thought that they would
00:24:56.560take over we thought that they would take and do the investigation do the adjudication and we were
00:25:01.760like okay we got to get back to work um and we were very surprised to learn that they didn't
00:25:05.960weren't interested they didn't care no matter what we said and I'll go into some of those stories but
00:25:10.460no matter what we said they didn't care and then it wasn't until um well it wasn't until about a
00:25:16.960week well I guess it was three weeks when we went to a conference is when we learned that Rick
00:25:22.160McIver was the brother-in-law to the ex-mayor of Chestermere and we had been looking into some of
00:25:29.640dealings of the ex-council and ex-mayor and we were like oh shoot well that might be the reason
00:25:39.320why they're not looking at this and and unfortunately from that point on um we became the
00:25:45.540target as soon as we were looking and to be tell you how bad it was is that within two months
00:25:51.000they already had started an inspection a review inspection on us um and we were the fastest city
00:25:57.660in all of Alberta's history to have an inspection started us on us that fast and you got to imagine
00:26:03.100that's not a good thing we were brand new to the role right we just got in the door and it's not
00:26:09.160like you don't have help when you're running when you begin right you have a legislative director
00:26:15.020or legislative manager who runs your council meetings and you also have a CAO so we had all
00:26:20.580of that in the beginning even though we got rid of one we had an interim CAO who had 30 years
00:26:25.500experience so it wasn't like you're going off cowboy and doing something you're getting a lot
00:26:31.000of advice from these people plus your lawyer so you're not you're never doing anything that's
00:26:35.560wrong and that and so that's what's you know what's the narrative that Rick McIver is trying
00:26:40.140to spin and it's like well you had all these people here are you ever going to talk about them
00:26:45.300because they're the ones that gave us the advice and and on that topic there wasn't anything that
00:26:50.160they gave us that was wrong it's just that Rick McIver tries to use this idea that the public
00:26:56.520might understand this well they were new to the job so they were doing something wrong
00:26:59.320and it's like what well what bothers me more than anything about this Jeff and by the way
00:27:05.420hello Stephen and Blaine thank you for joining tonight you guys haven't said anything yet so
00:27:09.500you're welcome I thought maybe Blaine you'd fallen asleep but welcome to the show you guys and thanks
00:27:14.460for coming on they only removed four of you and left the other three yeah what is the difference
00:27:22.760between you guys and the other three counselors well and i'll let i'll let the stevens try and
00:27:29.640answer this one but there's there's a lot and this is where it became really conflicting um between
00:27:35.920what was happening um that we were finding out about what these three had done um and how they
00:27:42.640were connected to rick mciver and the past mayor marshall and there's a lot to this story and it's
00:27:49.800it kind of reads like a little bit of a novel but i like now to be clear too i mean we're dealing
00:27:53.940with a ucp minister here this is not an ndp minister and to me this sounds like a battle of
00:28:00.720woke versus sane right yeah and and steven maybe you can elaborate a little bit on the differences
00:28:09.600between you guys and these councillors that remain still?
00:28:13.320Yeah, I guess during the election, you know, there was two sides.
00:28:17.300It was hard fought and it was about change.
00:28:19.900And when we first got elected office, we were all, you know, equal willing participants.
00:28:25.840We wanted to do what was right for the community.
00:28:29.220And then shortly afterwards, we found out that these three councillors
00:28:34.860We're basically contacting our audit, our bank, our audit company, our bank, our IT company, dealing with the lawyer behind our back, writing part of these 37 letters to municipal affairs to actually and telling outright lies.
00:28:52.060We're saying, you know, we didn't do this.
00:28:54.300There's land sold without proper authority, without council consent.
00:28:58.100And it's written and it's signed by the guy who actually made the motion.
00:29:01.360And we have the videotape of him doing so.
00:29:04.860well i mean so even if they're doing this even if they're writing these letters and they're lying
00:29:14.280bald-faced lying i mean wouldn't there have to be more than just these letters to actually have
00:29:19.620you removed or was it can you see like i guess my question here is is when we're talking about
00:29:26.960uh constructive dismissal was this the beginning of what you can see as a constructive dismissal
00:29:33.760They were gaslighting, gaslighting, small lie, small lie turns into a bigger lie.
00:29:38.400Then they finally bring McIver into it.
00:29:40.500Or maybe they've been talking to him the whole time.
00:29:42.480And then finally the boom gets lowered.
00:29:44.400I mean, this sounds like it because you said you took office.
00:29:47.180And then two years later, this happened.
00:30:06.540And it goes back to right after we were elected, when we were in orientation, is now we've got a copy of the Brown Lee letter to Municipal Affairs about how to remove a council.
00:30:16.900We also found that out of our three-year-old councillors, they were dealing with our interim CAO, our city lawyer, and he was bringing in the other two councillors to have an inspection called on the city to have us declared being run irregular, improper, and in Providence.
00:30:36.640And basically almost verbatim the same plan that Municipal Affairs had.
00:30:42.400And this happens on November the 8th, and we've just been elected.
00:30:46.480we've been sworn in we've had i think our first council meeting was on october 26th so you guys
00:30:52.200haven't even done anything yet and they're already plotting to have you removed yes exactly right
00:30:58.800and the one of the things that's you know macgyver tends to accuse you of whatever they're doing
00:31:06.300themselves he says oh you're acting without the authority of council because council must act as
00:31:11.580a whole if they want to decide something there's seven people they have to vote on it right so
00:31:16.460So when, in fact, they're dealing with the lawyer behind the rest of counsel's back, they're breaking the MGA.
00:31:22.480They're acting independently. When the three of them sign a joint letter as counselors to municipal affairs, they're acting independently.
00:31:29.800They're breaking the MGA. They're not acting as counsel as a whole.
00:31:35.080Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when did they when did you guys find out they were doing this?
00:31:39.200Was that right away or did it take some time?
00:31:41.340It took some time. We only found out when the inquiry first got started.
00:31:47.220We thought, OK, the inquiry is going to help us address all of the outstanding issues, the historical issues that we've identified to municipal affairs.
00:31:55.100And we suspected that they were going to actually come and help us with those things.
00:31:58.560Then during the inquiry process, we sort of, there's something strange here.
00:32:03.120Like there's all of these crazy wild stories that people are telling that are not true.
00:32:07.380Here's the evidence. Here's the, you know, the land deal. Here's the motion. Here's the video. Watch it yourself. Right. This is just not true. And then we started to realize that this was more about trying to frame or smear us.
00:32:22.300And then during the process with the inspector, we got leaked a bunch of documents. And in those documents is when we saw, oh, here's the letters from November 8th. Here's the emails and stuff to municipal affairs. Here is all of the information that these people have actually started this whole escapade.
00:32:43.860right and then uh we we brought this to council uh there was some code of conducts that were
00:32:50.880established against uh those people and we said if they've done this then we instructed
00:32:56.640administration to look into well what else have they done right uh when we got all of that
00:33:03.280information because it had been going on for quite some time uh we had more codes of conduct to be
00:33:08.960applied. Every time we tried to introduce a code of conduct, McIver would swing in, and he
00:33:15.740appointed an official administrator, and he disallowed them from happening. And some of
00:33:21.280those codes of conduct actually dealt with his own office, the RCMP, and our councillors. We had
00:33:27.460emails from one councillor introducing him to the deputy minister of municipal affairs, saying,
00:33:33.400uh only call him on his personal self he doesn't want emails he doesn't want anything in writing
00:33:39.620or he doesn't want any paper trail of course not wow let me ask you guys something and
00:33:47.960this is something i noticed just in the last couple of days reading about this situation
00:33:52.880and seeing a picture of the entire seven person council before the four of you were removed
00:33:57.720um these other three counselors would you say that they are because you guys are obviously
00:34:06.600old stock canadians as stephen harper once put it would you say that these other three
00:34:12.760remaining counselors are neo-marxist maybe in the way they approach their politics in the way they
00:34:21.800look at society these days are they fully acceptive of pronouns and do they believe in the
00:34:29.000gender ideology and because i know that you guys look like you're you're pretty sane actually
00:34:33.920uh sane old stock canadians who actually have common sense values and these other three to me
00:34:40.720look like they're of the new neo-marxist breed and i i'm not sure which one of you three wants
00:34:47.300to take that question or if any of you do but feel free go ahead i i would offer in um i guess
00:34:55.040out of the other three um one of them also resigned shortly afterwards but now has a job
00:35:01.640with the city a senior administration job which is you know questionable on its own uh the other
00:35:08.480which is very concerning uh teaches ethics at mount royal college in uh calgary ethics yes like
00:35:17.140the ethics of how to secretly subvert a city council and get them fired i i don't understand
00:35:23.840like and i know it's a touchy question jeff did you want to say anything about it and and
00:35:30.180believe me nobody here is going to go racist you're a racist and i also understand i also
00:35:36.260understand that there's certain things you probably shouldn't say but i mean well and and
00:35:42.800And so so when you're looking at a council, it's good to have it still is good to have a variety of backgrounds that are on council.
00:35:52.360You know, a lot of the socialist programs and socialist agendas need to be thought about.
00:35:59.940But they are second secondary to making sure you're actually bringing in the revenue and spending your money appropriately and not wasting money.
00:36:09.360Of course, we're going to spend money on social programs.
00:36:12.800But the primary purpose of the city is not that.
00:36:17.220And that's where, you know, I would say two of them, two of the three councillors are very much on the other side of that.
00:36:27.280And they very much believe that, you know, that really everything is only around, you know, spending money on firstly and social programming and that's it.
00:36:38.200and business be damned and proper ways of spending money
00:36:43.000and bringing money in on an efficient basis, forget that.
00:36:48.620And it's just a weird way of looking at things.
00:36:52.560And one of the things that I found very concerning is when we joined,
00:36:56.440I was apathetic towards government before I ran.
00:37:00.940And I never thought that they would listen to me.
00:47:24.540What have been the expenses in the prior years?
00:47:27.520And we said, we're not going to approve this.
00:47:29.340And they said, well, you have to because the MGA requires you to.
00:47:33.280So the MGA, we read the MGA and we can basically, we said, okay, we'll authorize you for the first quarter only to spend what you spent in the first quarter of this year, right?
00:47:47.200Very soon, you will have the year-end close.
00:47:49.140We will have all of the actuals for this year, plus we should have all of the actuals for all the prior years.
00:47:54.760So we'll do a review of all of the expenses, not just the ones you want us to look at or you suggest we have some degree of influence over.
00:48:05.680We'll look at it all and we'll ask the appropriate questions.
00:48:08.740When we started looking at it all, there was huge problems.
00:48:12.900And one of the key things is they operate with public sector accounting, which is unlike private business accounting,
00:48:20.520where in private business, if you have an expense at the end of the year, there's a process that
00:48:24.580you can accrue the expense the same as you can accrue the revenue to make sure your financial
00:48:29.560statements make sense. But because you're a taxable entity, those rules are closely followed.
00:48:34.940For government agencies, they have restricted surplus accounts. And restricted surplus accounts
00:48:40.660offer the same thing. So if they have a $500,000 project, they spend $100,000,
00:48:45.540they can just artificially create an expense for $400,000 and move the money off to the
00:48:50.220balance sheet yeah plug all of these huge numbers within all the various managers and once it's in
00:48:56.580the budget they're free to do whatever is in the budget so they could take money in take money
00:49:01.580pull money in or push money out as the as they saw fit then they could even come back to council
00:49:07.360in the prior year and say oh out of this five hundred thousand dollar project i i only got
00:49:12.420a hundred thousand spent so i need four hundred thousand dollars more for the next year so they
00:49:19.560So one of the very first things we did is we basically cleared all of those lines out of the entire budget,
00:49:25.820took that authority away from all managers, and said,
00:49:28.720if anybody wants to put money in or out of these accounts, you must come to council for authority.
00:49:34.380So right off the bat, you cut off their piggyback, right?
00:49:38.800And the money started to fall out immensely.
00:49:40.940see and shadow what's um what's so scary about what steven just said is that um the administration
00:49:48.720had no oversight over these restricted surplus accounts they were able to so if they had that
00:49:55.900savings in a project of four hundred thousand dollars as steven said they could create this
00:50:00.400expense in this restricted surplus account move the money over into it and then it no longer shows
00:50:06.600this cash on the balance sheet and you're like well where did it go and so they could have done
00:50:12.500anything with it right and that's what happens next is so not only is it now in the budget it's
00:50:18.520been spent according to the the financial statements but in reality it has not been spent
00:50:24.920so when it comes to the end of the year your financial statements go hey all of our budget
00:50:29.840was spent look at that we we've got to keep it at the same for next year or something like that
00:50:34.280and you're like well where was all the savings oh they took it out and they pretended it's not there
00:50:39.500and that's why steven was saying that in the real world in the private sector cra would never let
00:50:45.300you do that if you had a million dollar gain you don't get to create a million dollar expense
00:50:50.400and not pay taxes on it right now the city has ever seen would you suggest that the way
00:50:58.340the council and the administration of chestamere works would be a lot like every other city or town
00:51:07.940in this country yeah and unfortunately councillors don't understand what we just said yeah they don't
00:51:14.400get this one of the things that i made jeff that also helps is people tend to have a a view that
00:51:20.860there's financial statements done the financial statements are done by an auditor they're
00:51:25.460published all the time. And they tend to confuse. Those rules are very much enforced in private side
00:51:31.620because of the CRA. But for publicly traded or public sector accounting companies, the rules
00:51:38.720are not the same. They can go that in. And if anybody reads a financial statement very carefully,
00:51:45.340if you read the auditor's letter in the front, what they do is they get an understanding of
00:51:49.980your financial controls, but not to express an opinion of whether they're good, bad, horrible,
00:51:55.460whatever they're just saying we understand how you do your math the financial statements are
00:52:02.180produced by the city and then the auditors basically say yes you followed your own rules
00:52:07.460whether they're your rules were were foolish or had huge loopholes in them it doesn't matter
00:52:13.520you followed the rules and they also go back and they deal with materiality so in our case our I
00:52:20.180believe our audits were like a million dollars so the financial statements can be off a million
00:52:24.000dollars and that's not material doesn't doesn't matter when you guys first got in maybe let's
00:52:31.440let's say after a couple three weeks did you ever get together in an office or maybe at a bar after
00:52:36.240a rough day of putting up with the corruption and go i can't even believe what we've got ourselves
00:52:42.160into here i mean this is brutal i never thought it was anything like this this is incredibly corrupt
00:52:48.640yeah no shadow that was um every day we would say that every day that i can't believe
00:52:57.060this happens every day for about the first i want to say about for the first three four months
00:53:03.940every day we were blown away with some of the news that we've uncovered and it was actually
00:53:09.620disgusting and and corrupt like when we were within our first shit i want to say that it was
00:53:15.960three weeks um we had the interim cao come to myself and stephen hanley and and mel foe who
00:53:22.400was deputy mayor at the time and he came to us and he asked us in my office in in our boardroom
00:53:27.360in our meeting to meeting table would you accept a mia copa from staff and i'm like what the hell
00:53:34.620is a mia copa um and i said do you mean to forgive criminal activity if they come forward with the
00:53:41.820activity and he says yeah and i said no of course not i said i'm a mayor i'm not a judge
00:53:51.440i don't have that authority um but they should still come forward and if and i said besides
00:53:57.320if they have knowledge of it they really aren't guilty of it per se um unless they participated
00:54:04.000in unless they did their accessories to the crime they're looking for amnesty mr mayor can you grant
00:54:09.640this amnesty i can't i'm sorry tell it exactly it's crazy and we said we'll bring the rcmp in
00:54:16.760and they'll probably get a lighter sentence or something like this but they should come forward
00:54:19.980and you're aware of this you've got to bring it in um and then without skipping a beat he uh he
00:54:25.600goes into his next question which was he wants to pay out some hush money wait you're talking about
00:54:32.660the interim cao of 30 years experience the guy who runs the city runs the city top guy in the city
00:54:41.020yep yep i can't even believe this blaine what's your story over there blaine what's what's your
00:54:49.880story over there you haven't said a word what's going on um it's really unbelievable as you were
00:54:58.540sitting and going through all of this um because it took time for things to make sense um like
00:55:06.600your one question could you believe it and whatnot i used to walk into jeff's office at the end of
00:55:12.480the day i'd come in i i have another job um counselors are part-time positions the mayor's
00:55:17.980full-time um so i come in after and so what stupid happened today pretty much every day
00:55:24.020and you know what it wasn't a joke it was what stupid happened today because jeff's story about
00:55:31.820that is on a continual basis something you would find out information every day that something was
00:55:39.900happening um because it took time for all of this information to come out and start really
00:55:46.900understanding um how how corrupt and how much um how focused the government or municipal affairs
00:55:59.500was on having us removed there were steps they had to go through there that was outlined actually
00:56:06.200in the letter from brown lee that they had to go through in order to remove us so over time they
00:56:12.900had to do um a review that was started within two months of us taking office fastest we just
00:56:20.760holds the record for the fastest inspection ever for a community in alberta two months into us
00:56:27.240do you guys because clearly they recognized that you guys were in there to clean up this town
00:56:33.620yeah and they didn't want that because you know it looks to me like this city and and probably
00:56:38.960every other city and town in this country is set up to be a criminal enterprise and you you guys
00:56:45.840saw that you were uncovering it you were stopping it but was there ever any and and you know you
00:56:51.580feel free to to punch me in the face when we meet in person but i'm going to ask you were
00:56:58.960any of you ever tempted to just go along with it like it seems like everybody else has already
00:57:04.640gone along with it so yeah did you ever think that yeah i'll just get along to go along and
00:57:10.920i'll just do the best i can within those parameters you know honestly no honestly no
00:57:17.600so i think coming from a business background when you're in a business background and you're truly
00:57:23.160in a business you don't have that um ability to take those steps you have policies and processes
00:57:31.680and things that are in place to stop that so and when you're coming in as a business person
00:57:37.560and you're actually wanting to do to remove corruption and actually lower taxes and you
00:57:43.100have a goal it was never an option it was never something we thought about so we were going for
00:57:50.660we were removing um potential or ways to have corruption in place and and lowering taxes
00:57:58.760exactly what we said we were going to do yeah and and to me i found like in in business like
00:58:05.020like blaine i was i was taught what what gets rewarded gets repeated so if you do that and
00:58:11.280then i'm going to be an accomplice in this after the fact no that is not doing the right thing
00:58:16.660that is just totally improper um and i think what might also help here too is is just prior to all
00:58:25.060of this, Jeff talked about the petition that happened in 2016 to investigate our utility
00:58:30.740company and to investigate our council, and none of the council ran again. Our utility company,
00:58:37.000when we first got in, we were asking information about it. They wouldn't give us any information
00:58:41.200about it. And then they said, because you're not the board members. Well, who's the board members?
00:58:45.560Well, the old council is. So we had to basically have a council meeting and appoint ourselves to
00:58:50.660the board. Then when we have our board meeting and sit down, they say, oh, before we can answer
00:58:57.080your questions, you have to sign all of these non-disclosure agreements, which are gag orders.
00:59:01.820And we read them and we say, we're not signing these. Oh, you have to because of the unanimous
00:59:06.400shareholders agreement. So we go, okay, we have this debate and discussion. We're going to recess
00:59:11.960this meeting. We then are sitting there as a group of seven. So we then have a council meeting,
00:59:17.660a special council meeting we all sign a piece of paper follow the mga we call up the unanimous
00:59:22.260shareholders agreement and we strike all of the sections for the confidentiality because there
00:59:27.560should be public transparency to everyone we noticed that the unanimous shareholders agreement
00:59:33.640that outgoing council in 2017 they did it on june 2nd of 2017 and there was a couple of other things
00:59:42.080we found out about lawsuits against the utility company that came in and we were not with these
00:59:47.400confidentiality clauses, we were not allowed to talk to anybody about it. We were not even
00:59:51.580supposed to know as councillors what we knew as board members, and we could not talk to staff.
00:59:58.380So there were these veils of secrecy. So when we, after we changed the shareholders agreement,
01:00:05.400we closed our council meeting and we came out of recess of our board meeting,
01:00:09.380right? And we started to say, okay, now we're, we have questions and answer the questions.
01:00:14.960Shortly afterwards, the head of that company resigned from us and in his resignation reminded us of how he's indemnified against any wrongdoing while he was in charge, according to his contract.
01:11:23.660Before we get on that, so the one thing I think is we really need our residents in Chesterwood to understand how bad this sewage problem is.
01:11:32.700Because this is actually going to keep getting worse as our city grows.
01:11:36.940That's where you should drop all those sons of bitches who have been screwing over the city for all these years, right in that sewage pit there.
01:11:44.600And then you let it go after you get the right amount in there.
01:11:47.780because we've actually been quite nice and we haven't really explained this well
01:11:51.800to residents while we were actually in council but the problem is when you drive down this
01:11:57.560one main road in Chestermere during certain parts of the day it actually stinks it's raw sewage
01:12:05.580really bad really bad and it's bad but and this is going to keep growing and getting worse because
01:12:10.880we don't have a plan in place to deal with this so every day we're using those pipelines
01:12:16.620for two miles up a road to store sewer sewage and you and you never want to store sewage because
01:12:24.160the sediment settles right so you never want to do that you want that sucker moving because that's
01:12:29.520how you plug pipelines and and that then costs a bunch of money to unplug um but it's you know it
01:12:35.940causes a lot of situate a lot of smell like blaine was mentioning and the reason for that is because
01:12:40.540they're storing it and if we develop every inch of our city okay within all of our boundaries
01:12:45.560approximately we would add up to 15 capacity in that in that plant well so this this problem
01:12:55.460with this storage is going to continue to grow forever we fix this long long time the long long
01:13:01.980time so uh there was some mortgages that you were talking oh yeah yeah so the so a mortgage a city
01:13:11.100is not allowed to give a mortgage to a resident okay we're not a bank obviously um and what do
01:13:16.120we manage taxpayers money so we're not authorized we're not allowed it's totally illegal the mga
01:13:21.540says it's illegal you're not allowed to do it well of course our city did it um and this wasn't us
01:13:27.440this was actually two councils ago this was a while but i remember hearing this story there
01:13:32.260was a couple of guys responsible for it i can't recall their names now but anyway well there was
01:13:37.060they actually gave 19 mortgages to residents around the lake in Chestermere. And so what the
01:13:42.660story is, is that all the residents around the lake were having a problem, a disagreement with
01:13:48.280the irrigation district. And the irrigation district wanted us to buy the land right along
01:13:54.880the shoreline. And everybody around the lake thought and believed that we own that land,
01:13:58.980why would we buy it? And so to resolve the situation, the city inadvertently jumped in
01:14:05.560said we're resolving this and we're going to force the the landowners to pay and we're like what the
01:14:12.860heck are you doing why would you get involved you have no interest in this so they did they forced
01:14:17.940everybody to pay um and and residents this payment is anywhere from about fifteen thousand dollars to
01:14:24.200two hundred thousand dollars and they wanted you to pay it right now so some people did some people
01:14:30.960took out debt some people did whatever there was seven people that couldn't afford to do it
01:14:35.660what the city did is they went and put up six foot chain link fences across the back of their
01:14:40.820property some of some of the properties are short in length so literally people had a six foot fence
01:14:47.400three feet off the back of their deck of their house and they weren't allowed to go on the other
01:14:52.200side of the fence never mind to the water um and what ended up happening is we had a resident that
01:14:57.640came to us and said you know i've been dealt with unfairly would you guys help me and we said sure
01:15:02.200what's going on and they said i've had a six foot fence across my property for 10 years
01:15:07.040my kids haven't been able to use this lake for 10 years they're all grown up now but i still
01:15:12.440want to buy this property and we said okay there's a lot going on in that statement um
01:15:17.760okay let's let's sell it to you then what's going on that's when we started uncovering all of this
01:15:23.160this crap literally is the city gave 19 mortgages to people and they did not give mortgages to
01:15:30.780people that really needed it even though it's illegal there's no sense in the matter and so
01:15:35.540what ended up happening is that of these 19 mortgages none of this was self-reported so we
01:15:42.160self-reported this again to Rick McIver councillors ex-councillors Rick McIver they all say it's not
01:15:50.060true it's not true and we said well here's the mortgages that were from their titles here's the
01:15:56.640actual information then and trying to get this out of staff was like pulling teeth um and then and
01:16:02.540getting this out but it's 100 true and we proved it and what was so terrible about it this one
01:16:07.900person she tried to buy the land a year under a year after because her husband had a heart attack
01:16:14.480at the time when the city was saying you had to close so they couldn't deal with it she came back
01:16:19.220to the city under a year later and the city tried to charge her 300 on the value of the land and
01:16:27.460she's like i can't afford that what so why would they give other people zero to four percent
01:16:33.340mortgages or and this person they wouldn't give it to other people that couldn't afford it and
01:16:39.420this person they tried to rape them for three hundred thousand dollars or three three hundred
01:16:44.200thousand three hundred percent like that's just insane that a city a government would do that to
01:16:49.840its own citizens and so you know we come out and we talk about this and we you know we self-reported
01:16:55.400this of course because it's 100 illegal under the mga um and and it's just disgusting when you get
01:17:01.680ex-counselors that come up and say you know it never happened and and try and pretend that this
01:17:07.060actually didn't happen but it is real it's 100 true and all these things are public information
01:17:12.660because it's on their title you pull a person's title and look up their historic title
01:17:16.980you can get the information you can get the mortgage it's right there you guys
01:17:24.820you guys sound like you just want to do the right thing by the people of the city
01:17:29.460your residents of the city of course uh you want to do things above the you know above board and
01:17:36.020And do you have any, I'm sure you do, but do you have any idea how the media is painting you guys out there to the general public?
01:17:46.460Yeah, so we've had terrible experiences with the media.
01:17:49.240Our one rogue counselor that kind of started all of this, he's Connect, who is an incumbent counselor with the ex-mayor who is the brother-in-law to Derek McIver.
01:18:00.540he is a friend of the reporter here in chestermere for the calvary herald so we've always had don't
01:18:09.880they live across the street from each other or something well that's what i understand and and
01:18:15.300we went to the editor of the herald and we actually had a consultant go to the editor
01:18:20.560just in case he didn't want to talk to us because we're these bad people and he said here's evidence
01:18:25.980of what you're printing is wrong and what was so crazy is that the editor didn't care and i'm like
01:18:32.240what do you mean he doesn't care now i was naive okay i thought the news told the truth
01:18:37.620what do you mean he doesn't care they don't they don't tell the truth they don't tell the truth
01:18:43.400i'm like this is just terrible you know i can't believe government i can't believe the media
01:18:48.000it's uh it's really disappointing i gotta say like um you know i'm third generation
01:18:54.300in albertan i my my grandpa came here in 1905 in calgary actually right before fort calgary
01:18:59.780and we've been here our entire life and and you know it's it's terrible what's this has turned
01:19:05.800into this this province and it's disgusting um and it needs to be better and the good news is
01:19:11.580is and i can tell you some stories after i let the other folks talk yeah there is ways to resolve
01:19:16.840this and we started resolving this which is how we were able to reduce taxes over 31 percent
01:19:21.760in two years like and we've saved a ton of money and we showed people how you can stop corruption
01:19:28.000like it's it's not rocket science um but you do have to shine the light on everything and
01:19:33.220make transparency happen in true truly make it happen but that's when the cockroaches go running
01:19:39.160for the corners and didn't you guys have uh wasn't there a meeting like a town hall kind of thing a
01:19:46.140couple of weeks ago where some people came out and and were yelling at you and other people came
01:19:51.740out and we're on your side and like what is the mood of the city after all of this yeah no it
01:19:57.380didn't happen like that um you do get it played out and exaggerated in the media of course um
01:20:01.900there was if there was some people that were out front of the building um they like to wear these
01:20:06.660pink shirts so that that that and i feel that's really abusive to the whole pink shirt idea because
01:20:12.320the whole pink shirt idea is to stop bullying um and so they they're wearing these pink shirts
01:20:17.560ever since they stopped bullying jeff bullying has never been worse i mean right you know it's
01:20:25.260never been worse than it is now it's just and they they were they were respectful to tell you
01:20:31.360the truth i mean they they never they weren't yelling at us or anything and there was no issue
01:20:35.160we walked we walked in in the doors and they didn't run into the building or anything crazy
01:20:40.240there was nothing like that at all we did have inside we we do our presentation and whatnot and
01:20:45.300we show all of the evidence that we talk about and it's all on a slideshow and we talk about
01:20:50.480what you're looking at so you can read it and see it and emails and and documents and stuff
01:20:55.160we did have some ex-counselors that were there they don't like the fact that we're disclosing
01:21:00.320stuff um and quite frankly it's like this is public information okay it should have been
01:21:07.000disclosed before and this idea of you know not disclosing stuff to your citizens i just never
01:21:13.140understand in a public company in a private company i totally get it but in a public company
01:21:17.800i don't get it this is their information it's not yours so they didn't like the fact that we were
01:21:23.420doing that secondly they tried to disprove one of them was trying to disprove this whole mortgage
01:21:29.200thing he's like that's not true it's not true um and then we showed it on the screen and and he was
01:21:34.820like you faked it you've you've made up this photoshop it's this it's that um and since then
01:21:40.720i reached out to that ex-counselor and i said you know i'll show you here's all the information if
01:21:45.900you want to actually read the mortgage signed by the city i've got that information and so i can
01:21:50.880provide it to you and something had happened after the meeting because he had figured out that i was
01:21:56.240that we were telling the truth and so um he wasn't uh as aggressive anymore and so it's it's it's
01:22:02.660pretty stark my philosophy was all of our counselors should know everything and i think
01:22:08.140some counselors may not have either had the smarts to see what they were reading or understand it.
01:22:14.680And secondly, might have been kept in the dark. And that's why that single CAO, I really disliked
01:22:21.440that idea. I mean, we're in a democracy. So that means you've got to have multiple eyes on stuff.
01:22:26.480We started what's called it, we called it tri-CAO model. And that brought three CAOs into
01:22:32.760the picture. A single CAO, these guys get paid so much money, it's ridiculous, between $300,000
01:22:38.560to $500,000 a year. And they get severance packages between a year and two years. And I'm
01:22:44.800like, what world is that from? In the private sector, you would never do that. And so with
01:22:51.340our CAOs that we hired, we brought them back to 100% the labor code. That was it. There was no
01:22:58.620severance packages it's whatever the labor code allows that's the end of it because there's got
01:23:03.220to be a relationship between them performing and us you know trying to keep them as our staff if
01:23:09.560they're performing it's got to be a give and take situation and so sure change these three caos um
01:23:15.180one person was responsible for corporate services which is you know your internal operations one
01:23:20.480person was responsible for outside operations which is your roads and fleet and snow plow and
01:23:25.340parks and then one person is responsible for the professional side which is your engineering and
01:23:30.360development for the city so these are very very different people okay very different skill sets
01:23:35.720all professionals um and we pay them between 120 and 160 000 a year but they're actually working
01:23:43.360people they work in their departments they don't just sit on their throne or in their office and
01:23:47.920wait for people to come tell them and they gloriously somehow know the answer to everything
01:24:12.040And we increased our performance by 300% in our second year with 25% less staff.
01:24:20.260You know, that's very interesting that you bring that up, the tri-CAO model, because you have to have consensus, right? Two out of three have got to agree, or is it like all of them have to agree?
01:24:31.420No, no. So, I mean, they do have, we do specify different job duties, so it gets split up into the three, and so they're responsible for their own area.
01:24:39.420Now, if there is something that overlaps one area to another, there's really not a lot, but there could be some.
01:25:35.560so that's not good for anybody because if they're having that kind of severance package for the
01:25:40.220cities cities are going broke paying these guys oh dude we had we had one here in winnipeg who
01:25:46.100was making land deals for fire stations and police stations overruns on the new police station went
01:25:52.200into the billions of dollars and he got a 500 000 package and took off out of the city went to
01:25:58.320arizona exactly what are you gonna do right right it makes no sense so what can you do i mean like
01:26:05.900like when i ask you what the mood of the city is you guys live there i mean are the people of
01:26:11.380chestamere understand what has happened have you managed to get the the real story out to them or
01:26:17.820are they still in the dark no no they've started i mean you do have a lot of apathy though um people
01:26:23.100don't pay attention to what's going on with government however obviously in our situation
01:26:27.360people started to hear about it more um we do i won with a 65 um success rate in the when i
01:26:34.560when i was elected and i didn't start running until august of an october election so i was quite late
01:26:40.680um and so it was it was very apparent that people wanted a business approach to things um and
01:26:49.040and people some people criticize that they say you know you can't run a government like a business
01:26:54.280And I always say, what are you talking about?
01:26:57.640That just makes that just makes no sense.
01:27:00.280This Darcy fellow says with that, I'm sorry to interrupt you, this Darcy fellow in the comments with the Oilers logo, you can see at the bottom of the screen, the three CAO model is not allowed under the MGA, he said.
01:27:13.140Yeah. So they unfortunately, they don't understand what they're saying and they're intentionally trying to lie because the the MGA specifically says in Section 210 that one or more people can carry out the duties of the CAO.
01:27:27.780We never wrote it. They did. And so I can I don't know if you're able to share your screen.
01:27:33.620um i have a part of our powerpoint president it's section 205 story um of the mg8 and it's
01:27:42.600i can read it to you but i wouldn't mind showing it to you i i we haven't got the capability for
01:27:47.360on the four screens that we're already on right now so if you could just yeah so you don't need
01:27:51.300to throw it out there i mean like look man we we understand that you you guys are the good guys
01:27:56.400here and you've obviously just quoted the rule with and this guy got it wrong so uh and plus
01:28:02.920you couldn't have done it if it wasn't allowed oh there's no question i mean we had legal opinions
01:28:09.020on it of course i mean but you you do read the mga but remember it's one book so it's not that
01:28:15.620hard to read right you know it's not like it's a law school where you've got a library of books
01:28:21.480that's not what it is it's one book and so you you definitely read it um and then secondly you
01:28:27.520still get legal opinions on everything you do. Why wouldn't you? Never mind your legislative
01:28:32.980services opinions and that. So the narrative that it's not allowed is something that Rick
01:28:37.300McIver put out. That's where it started. And this is why it's this garbage that the government
01:28:43.320continues to feed people and people go, oh, well, the government must be telling the truth
01:28:47.600since they said something like that. Have you guys asked Danielle Smith for her opinion on
01:28:52.300any of this? Has she come out and said anything at all or has she been silent?
01:28:56.480No, she's been silent the entire time.
01:28:58.940And my understanding is that she's got, you know, her challenges within her own party.
01:29:02.920And part of the problem is Rick McIver is part of the Old Boys Club.
01:29:07.620And, you know, that's what's wrong with politics in Alberta, is that, you know, this Old Boys Club and this idea of doing things wrong, it just can't be tolerated.
01:29:19.600And we've been, you know, asked to speak at different cities around Alberta, different towns.
01:29:24.900And, and, and this is the information we show just like that question. Oh, we heard that the MGA doesn't allow it. It's like, well, here's the MGA and it allows it. Oh yeah. So why would somebody tell you a lie? Why would they do that? It's allowed. You can read it yourself. You can look it up yourself under MGA, Alberta, section 205. It'll show you right there. It says one.
01:29:48.760The dude says here, he goes, this is what was reported by Rick McIver.
01:31:56.380We thought that there was a misunderstanding that his staff must be telling him something wrong.
01:32:01.740And I asked for meetings with him because I found just getting a letter is hard to write back and forth because it's all written very legalese, right?
01:32:21.260And then one time after the inspection was done and the directors were initiated, he met with all of counsel, but he would not let us talk.
01:32:31.740and we're like what i like look dude i don't know what power trip you're on but i was elected by
01:32:38.840the people i represent them and so our council should be allowed to talk he would not let us
01:32:44.020talk in the meeting and it's like okay he wouldn't let you talk like he put a gag on you
01:32:49.160at gunpoint or what was it every time you open your mouth hey you shut up now
01:32:53.720like yeah what he just said you're not allowed to speak and it was in a board it was what i know
01:33:00.200or what what are you gonna do tackle me um yeah it was it was i mean you're you are trying to
01:33:06.160respect these people i mean they are in serious positions and you're trying to take you know
01:33:09.800here's the thing about that this is something that i think we've all learned in the past few years
01:33:14.640that respect is earned i don't care i don't give a rat's ass if you're sitting in the prime
01:33:20.100minister's chair the premier's chair the mayor's chair i mean we respect the position but we don't
01:33:25.940necessarily have to respect the person sitting in that position especially if they act deplorably
01:33:31.900the way mckiver has you're not allowed to speak i'm sorry but that alone is enough for me to slap
01:33:38.820the guy in the face and say yeah i am it was shocking it was shocking and all of us were
01:33:43.940pretty taken by that comment he doesn't care about the truth at all well it's like when they had the
01:33:50.680they released the inspection report and that when we got the municipal or the municipal orders
01:33:57.260from MacGyver at that time it was Rebecca Schultz she came she briefed us in the council chambers
01:34:03.320beforehand they did something they'd never done before they had a town hall to go through the
01:34:08.120report tell their lies to all the community and we were told there's no place for us and we were
01:34:12.980not allowed to rebut any comment or anything they said wow i'm sorry you can't argue your own case
01:34:22.820and some of the things that were shocking is that we found spies that the in this in the city that
01:34:29.520the sea that the municipal affairs had put in we found that they found out that they tried to bribe
01:34:34.820one of our staff two of our staff um and they were offering her a fifty thousand dollar raise
01:34:39.700and that she would become a corporate services director and she actually came to some of our
01:34:47.140staff and asked them about how they felt about her becoming the boss which is how we found out
01:34:51.320about it and then that she also approached one of our caos with the pay raise and that he would
01:34:56.840become the single cao when mick when rick mckiver kicks us out and this was long before we were
01:35:03.420removed and so you know we documented this has that happened when did that happen has that
01:35:10.380happened has there been a single ceo now since you guys have been yeah so they they put in a
01:35:14.980single cao they fired not only did they fire the four of us counselors they fired all three caos
01:35:21.280which is pretty shitty because these people are good at their jobs and they're not politicians
01:35:26.800their employees and and they just treated these people like crap um and and i feel frustrated that
01:35:33.520you know we we can we have to let the government do this um because he's it's they're so corrupt
01:35:41.100that it's it's just just totally unfair to our our population that voted us in duly elected
01:35:47.740um and then this guy comes along with his massive conflicts of interest uh and is allowed to do what
01:35:54.840he's allowed to do and it's it's just disgusting so what is the state of the city right now i mean
01:36:00.620there's no mayor there you there's three councillors missing there's only three councillors
01:36:06.200remaining i mean who's running the so they don't let so the three councillors they don't let them
01:36:10.980sit in council anymore um they they rick mckiver put that um official administrator that i mentioned
01:36:17.740that he put in in 20 hours after we put the investigation that he stopped he put him is
01:36:23.220than him as the entire council so one guy puts his hand up and says you agree i agree and it's
01:36:31.120passed no debate no discussion and i gotta tell you it's it's so deplorable what he's doing
01:36:37.720we saved a bunch of money okay we had we had about 16 17 million dollars that we had saved
01:36:43.100and we also had an agreement with our developers that because they're creating new communities
01:36:48.840which is fine they have to pay for everything that they touch need or effect period everything
01:36:54.700the city's not banking anything anymore and that stops the corruption that stops a lot of it right
01:37:01.100there so we were we had a fire hall that the developers needed or they wouldn't be able to
01:37:07.640continue developing because you have certain time limits between the distance it takes from a fire
01:37:12.400hall to the people's houses anyways um the developers were going to fund this and they
01:37:17.540were going to pay for it etc etc up front well you know what happened as soon as we got removed
01:37:22.080not only did they increase the density in the cities massive for approvals they also then spent
01:37:29.440our money on their on the city paying for the fire station and you're like and the price went up 60
01:37:35.30050 and you're like why would you do that those people were prepared to pay for it they should
01:37:42.060pay for it and now you have the city paying for it we're banking them again that money was
01:37:48.380earmarked for a pool and for partial funding for a hockey rink and our developers were going to pay
01:37:53.740the other amount and this guy comes in and he wipes out our it's not all of our savings but
01:37:59.340wiped out the savings that we accumulated um and went and spent this money the developers were
01:38:05.300going to pay and it just speaks it just reeks of corruption because how the corruption happens is
01:38:11.420that the city wants to do all of the development and then two years later they then put the
01:38:16.840off-site levy in for the developers to pay them back well when there's no eyes on it then the
01:38:22.180that's how you get the kickbacks and that's how you get the corruption what we changed was that
01:38:26.840the developers have to be involved at the very beginning not just the rfp or the rfq not the
01:38:32.660quoting process they have to be involved in the design process as well as the quoting as well as
01:38:38.940the language in the contracts for the scoping because then you don't have the change orders
01:38:43.740so they're involved in everything and the public could see this as well but everything was was
01:38:49.120transparent and that's how we brought down massive savings on projects we saved five million dollars
01:38:54.840on a 17 million dollar project that's unheard of that's a lot and the developers were very happy
01:39:01.700about that you you mentioned that you were going to run again uh jeff and steven and blaine i'm
01:39:07.400sure you guys are as as well um do you have opponents do you know who's going to be running
01:39:12.300against you yet or you've got to go through a bunch of hoops before all of this happens well
01:39:16.300technically you're not supposed to campaign yet okay you're only allowed to campaign i think it's
01:39:21.620um 60 days or so before the for an election or 90 however these three people have announced
01:39:29.100they're they're running as they're going to run as the mayor one is the ex-mayor marshall chalmers
01:39:34.640the person you mean brother-in-law yeah he wants to run um which is really really odd
01:39:43.140um and then we've also got an ex-counselor and we've got one of the three rogue counselors
01:39:49.220wants to try and run for mayor and i'm saying hey go for it wow you know do you guys have your
01:39:55.080support oh yeah very much so very much okay because i think that everybody all of the people
01:40:03.980of chestamere need to see this show tonight just so you guys have the information that you need i
01:40:10.480mean you may have heard you know if you're watching from chestamere right now i've got
01:40:13.760friends i got many friends that live in chestamere i used to play golf quite a bit at at the golf
01:40:18.020course there lakeside greens i think it's called that's true that's their name yeah yeah it's been
01:40:22.32020 years since since i've been but um you guys need the information to be able to make the
01:40:28.820decisions going forward do you want more corruption or do you want the corruption cleaned up and
01:40:34.540guys i do have to commend you for standing against this because there's a lot of people
01:40:41.160who would have just gone you know what i'm gonna go along with this i mean did you think it at any
01:40:46.740time and i realize i might be getting dramatic here but at any time were you in danger like
01:40:53.060were there any threats that came your way financially or physically or otherwise
01:40:57.580well this is where the the part three i guess of the story comes in um so just recently they tried
01:41:05.480to um blackmail and intimidate uh one of our counselors uh and that that uh was was removed
01:41:14.240um and and they brought him into an office at city hall and they had a guy that was the
01:41:20.840an ex RCMP officer. And this person threatened this guy that he would throw him in jail between
01:41:28.800two to 14 years. They said they've got all this evidence and all this crap on us and all this
01:41:34.460stuff. And they're going to throw us in jail. And they said, if you don't turn on these guys
01:41:41.260and lie about what is going on, we're going to throw you in jail with them. Right. And,
01:41:49.880And, you know, for a lot of people that aren't in running companies and all this kind of stuff, it's pretty intimidating to have people come say these things to you and try and blackmail you, I guess, or extort you.
01:42:05.840It's very disappointing they would try and do something like that.
01:42:08.760And so, you know, we're going to take these people to task.
01:42:12.900You know, we're going to file complaints against them and take them to court.
01:42:16.840but you know for it really rocked this guy it really rocked him and it was unfair to him and
01:42:23.700it was unfair to his wife and you know but my opinion is that this is the problem with government
01:42:29.400and this kind of shenanigans is going on and you're like what would you guys do what would
01:42:35.860you not do to people and the next thing I want to tell you is that we uncovered a plot to
01:42:43.520trying to arrest myself and charge myself and the one of the caos uh by the rcmp it accidentally
01:42:52.900got emailed to the city by the rcmp themselves they sent an email to ottawa and then they cc'd
01:43:02.780they had to ottawa they had to the k division commander and then they had it to this person
01:43:08.380that was the same name as one of our staff um and it's you know you make those mistakes with
01:43:13.060email you push send and off it goes um and in that they had a situation report and an and an
01:43:18.920email that outlined that because we were considering the issue that they said was that
01:43:23.960we were considering replacing the rcmp that's it and because we were considering that um they were
01:43:32.180looking at to file charges against us for what they were calling bugging the office the building
01:43:38.500and so we were like oh my gosh and they said in the in the report it says charges are are probable
01:43:45.700highly probable um and so this was just a pure bullying thing because of course we had nothing
01:43:52.500to do with anything like that this is like cop land that movie with sylvester stallone and harvey
01:43:57.320kytel you ever see that it's like everybody's corrupt you don't know where to turn and so we
01:44:02.240talked to our lawyer and he referred us to a criminal lawyer um and then that criminal lawyer
01:44:07.120got a hold of the crown justice and said, you know, is there something going on? And the crown
01:44:13.000said, no, there's nobody being arrested in the city of Chestermere. And he said, well, here it
01:44:19.200is. And he couldn't believe the pieces of paper. They were official. They were legit. He couldn't
01:44:25.500believe that that was happening. And so he told us, he said, just to protect yourselves, order a
01:44:31.260sweep of the entire building. And they gave us the name for a company that does sweeping for the
01:44:36.660police in calgary and they came in and immediately swept the entire building and we had to leave
01:44:42.940um and it was they gave a certificate that said there was nothing there so that we established
01:44:48.120a baseline for the lies that the rcmp were prepared to tell so when you think about that
01:44:54.540it's like hold on a second these people these rcmp are willing to risk their careers over these false
01:45:00.300charges so do you think you're in danger do you think you're um it's it's an unsafe situation
01:45:07.020yeah yeah it is and i always said geez you don't want to get pulled over at nighttime with these
01:45:13.260guys you're going to end up having something planted in your car yeah or maybe they'll drive
01:45:18.860you 20 miles outside the city and just drive you there throw you in the lake um and so so what we
01:45:24.740did is we had we held a public news conference we came out with this stuff and um you know we
01:45:29.720always with any of the evidence we ever find we immediately send it around so that it's never hey
01:45:35.600we've got it only in our possession and somebody could stop us and so we we never hold on to it
01:45:40.420we never ever hold on to it um and and these people they need to be stopped like you know
01:45:45.580mciver is uh he's one heck of a guy um and uh his connections with these people like it this it goes
01:45:53.620deep and these guys are people that are running your towns running your cities running your police
01:45:59.100forces, this stuff needs to be changed. Like I think Chestermere needs to have its own police
01:46:03.620force, but how do you stop corruption from permit from beginning to happen there? And I think,
01:46:10.220you know, I don't, I'm not an expert in that area, but I would think you'd want a public
01:46:14.580police commission so that that committee is responsible for looking into complaints about
01:46:20.880the, about the police that you have and, and it, it, the committee changes and whatnot,
01:46:25.000so that you're always making sure that transparency is key
01:46:28.000and that you are investigating, you know, allegations.
01:46:31.800And that was the reason that we put forth that investigation
01:46:35.200into the request for investigation by the ACERT group.
01:46:40.600What kind of toll has this taken on all of you mentally, physically?
01:46:45.380Well, it's serious stuff, obviously, you know, families and whatnot.
01:58:50.400I will be doing a very special website-only show Q&A.
01:58:56.500So if you want to join me on that, I would love to have you.
01:58:59.820It's going to be a Q&A, and here's the thing about that.
01:59:09.260Right now, maybe I should postpone that until next weekend.
01:59:15.460And the reason I say that is because right now, when you watch the show online on my website, you can only comment if you're actually watching on a laptop or a desktop computer.