Western Standard - Do Calgary's new councillors have it in them to repeal open zoning？

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:00:20.980 of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, October the 23rd. In Alberta, we've just had municipal

00:00:27.840 and school board elections, and we see a lot of new faces, but in Edmonton and Calgary at least,

00:00:34.260 to me, it doesn't look like the political center of gravity has changed much.

00:00:39.620 But I could be wrong. Here with me tonight is somebody who will know, Patrick Polyeuve,

00:00:46.260 who for the past four years was a political staffer in Calgary City Hall. Welcome, Patrick.

00:00:51.960 Good to be here, Nigel.

00:00:53.340 So, look, Patrick, first thing people are going to want to know,

00:00:57.600 Polyev, are you part of that family?

00:01:01.940 Proud to say that I am.

00:01:03.260 Yes, indeed, I'm Pierre Polyev's brother and grew up with him in South Calgary here.

00:01:07.820 All right.

00:01:08.580 Well, thank you, Patrick.

00:01:09.520 Thought we'd better lay that out right away.

00:01:12.020 Patrick, after all the outrage around zoning, I was expecting a revolution.

00:01:16.600 But it was a low turnout.

00:01:17.760 What was it, sort of 30% something?

00:01:19.720 30 wasn't 40%.

00:01:20.840 That's not a revolution.

00:01:22.580 That's not outraged taxpayers coming forward and saying,

00:01:25.320 we demand change.

00:01:27.240 And up in Edmonton, where they face the same things,

00:01:30.360 we've got a new mayor who calls himself centre-left.

00:01:33.320 Andrew Knack is his name.

00:01:34.540 I don't know much about him, but at any rate, in Edmonton,

00:01:37.600 that's who they chose.

00:01:39.780 Probably no surprise there.

00:01:42.660 But has anything changed in Calgary City Hall?

00:01:47.400 Well, Nigel, I feel like that has yet to be seen.

00:01:50.260 And, you know, we've got a new mayor here in Calgary, pending a recount, of course.

00:01:55.760 And, you know, Jeremy Farkas, I think, has stated, from what I've heard, that he doesn't want to define himself as right or left.

00:02:02.980 He wants to work with other councillors and see what he can get accomplished for the city of Calgary.

00:02:08.400 That sounds a purple thing.

00:02:09.800 A purple thing, right?

00:02:11.480 That's another ninchy.

00:02:12.920 Yeah, well, I mean, I certainly hope not.

00:02:14.700 um you know from what i've seen from jeremy in the past he's taken principled stands on some issues at

00:02:19.580 personal cost and i will see if he has the ability to work together there has been a bit of a

00:02:24.140 reputation from his last uh term on council where he was sort of opposed from from the majority and

00:02:30.220 from my view that's not necessarily a bad thing if the majority is wrong i'd like to see someone

00:02:34.780 show leadership and oppose them so we'll see what uh what comes from jeremy he's going to have some

00:02:39.420 work to do he's got a lot of new councillors uh 10 of this uh 10 members of this council are brand

00:02:44.300 new and uh have never been on council before so you certainly got some work to do to get council

00:02:49.900 working with them now when you're looking at i mean in edmonton it's a left-wing city you get a

00:02:57.500 left-wing council you you get a left-wing mp you get a left-wing mla we kind of know what roughly

00:03:03.100 what the game is up there but calvary still thinks it's conservative even though it hasn't really

00:03:08.140 elected a conservative council for for what uh 15 years nearly uh these are on you just said these

00:03:16.260 are an unknown quantity these new aldermen i'm sorry councillors these new councillors we don't

00:03:22.400 10 of them we really don't know very much about at all but what's your sense has there been a

00:03:26.700 little bit of a an ideological shift on council well i can say you know for a generation now

00:03:33.560 calgary has failed to elect the conservative council and and you can see the reasoning for

00:03:37.440 that when you have a turnout in the mid-30s here, like we seem to have had this election.

00:03:42.440 And it seems the people who are most likely to turn out are those who have a vested interest

00:03:46.380 in who's elected, such as the public service workers in the City of Calgary. They'd show up

00:03:51.800 in much larger numbers than the average. And I think that's why we end up having a more left

00:03:57.080 leaning council than what's reflected in the wider public. So when it comes to have things shifted

00:04:02.500 at City Hall I would certainly say they have. Last election we on day one probably had 12 or 13

00:04:08.460 councillors who were leaning towards the left of the spectrum whereas in this council it seems we

00:04:13.200 have a pretty even mix on day one here and I do think things shifted over the term of this prior

00:04:19.060 council where we had five or six who were voting in a more sensible direction closer to the end

00:04:23.400 of the term but from day one you know we had 13 or 14 people declare a climate emergency on day one

00:04:28.840 And so I think that shows the ideological leanings of the people who are elected.

00:04:33.260 What's the chances of seeing that turned over?

00:04:36.840 Seeing which turned over?

00:04:38.620 You know, make one of the first orders of business to take away the climate emergency, which is kind of farcical.

00:04:45.720 And there's a few other things like renaming Fort Calgary and so on, which could be undone by a council that wanted to show that new people were running it with new ideas.

00:04:56.400 Right.

00:04:56.660 You know, I certainly hope that the current council would consider rescinding the climate

00:05:01.300 emergency in the near future.

00:05:02.520 It's not something a lot of people discussed on the campaign.

00:05:05.680 I do think the first order of business is going to be the rezoning.

00:05:08.400 They're going to get to that quickly, and we'll see if they can get the 10 votes required

00:05:12.260 to overturn it.

00:05:13.880 But these other issues that most Calgarians were shocked to see happen, especially then

00:05:18.740 renaming a Fort Calgary.

00:05:19.900 And, you know, we had some other bonkers suggestions throughout the term as well, cancelling Canada Day fireworks and single-use plastics bans and things like that.

00:05:30.220 And some have already been overturned, but I certainly would like to see them resend that climate emergency as soon as possible.

00:05:36.400 Coming back to what you were saying about people having a direct and vested interest in the outcome of the election.

00:05:41.100 And you said, well, obviously the city workers do, understood.

00:05:45.980 but truly every person who owns property in this city or for that matter even who rents property

00:05:53.020 in the city because in the end the rent reflects the uh taxes uh every one of us has got a vested

00:05:58.780 interest why do you think that property owners do not come out in greater numbers to say put a stop 0.98

00:06:06.220 to the overspending put a stop to the stupid programs you know um let's let's have a more 0.99

00:06:13.580 sensibly run, not a conservative, right-wing, fascist council, but let's just make decisions 1.00

00:06:21.960 that are sensible. Right. Well, you know, I think the number one takeaway from this election is

00:06:27.380 that the city of Calgary and the previous council has failed the electorate. We have the highest

00:06:33.620 voter apathy probably in the country here having only a turnout in the mid-30s, and that is after

00:06:39.560 such a disastrous term on council. So it's not that people don't think that their city council

00:06:44.220 matters. It's more so that they didn't see anything or hear anything that would reflect

00:06:48.800 a positive change in that direction. We had a lot of campaigns saying the same things.

00:06:52.900 We didn't really have anyone coming forward with a drastic overhaul plan, a clear step-by-step plan

00:06:59.820 of how we're going to change things. And I found that the, that lack of a, you know, sort of

00:07:03.900 courageous leadership showing a clear distinct change in position from your opponents is why

00:07:09.800 we didn't have people showing up in large numbers now patrick what would it if you were courageous

00:07:15.280 if you were a courageous newly elected councillor on the city of calgary

00:07:20.000 what would be the courageous approach to reforming i have a feeling it's not just

00:07:28.820 the city councilors there's something else you've got to change well i mean having worked the last

00:07:35.700 four years at city hall i was lucky enough to work for my home warden ward 13 for counselor

00:07:41.420 dan mclean and what how does he do by the way dan did exceptional yeah very residents of ward 13

00:07:48.100 very happy with the performance over the last four years and uh great staff work it has to be that

00:07:53.760 Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly.

00:07:56.340 All right. Sorry, carry on.

00:07:58.020 I really thought Councillor McLean was one of the top performers on council the last four years.

00:08:02.400 He's one of the people who was willing to listen to his constituents, vote on their behalf,

00:08:07.200 and work hard to ensure that when residents were in contact with us,

00:08:11.040 that we made the changes needed within the community that we could to listen to residents

00:08:16.880 and deal with their concerns effectively.

00:08:19.200 So I think Ward 13 residents spoke loud and clear that that was the case.

00:08:22.640 Good. Coming back to the point, though, that we were, my fault, we got off track. I do this all the time. Look, you're a courageous alderman, you're a courageous council, you've just been elected, and you're going to make a difference in City Hall. Assuming that you could even get some people to work with you, what's the first big obstacle that you're going to run up against?

00:08:49.220 Well, I mean, the number one thing we need to change at the City of Calgary is the leadership, right?

00:08:53.540 And the leadership comes from...

00:08:55.460 You are the leadership.

00:08:56.420 Well...

00:08:56.740 You're the courageous, newly elected councillor.

00:08:59.460 Sadly, in recent years, the leadership has not come from council.

00:09:02.640 The leadership has come from the chief administrative officer of the city.

00:09:06.980 That's the leader.

00:09:07.640 That's the person who probably has more power than anybody around City Hall, even more than the mayor of city council.

00:09:13.840 And that's the thing I think that needs to change.

00:09:15.400 Council needs to wrestle back, control of the budget, control of departments, and become more responsive to residents.

00:09:23.100 What's happened at City Hall here is we have essentially a firewall in the 311 system where residents can't even get in touch with their elected officials,

00:09:30.320 can't get in touch with the departments that they need to talk to when it comes to their roads and parks and services, and that's what needs to change.

00:09:36.940 I don't understand why we have to interface with the computer system or a phone banking system of people who don't even actually, half the time, probably aren't even in the city of Calgary.

00:09:46.760 Whereas we should, when we used to be able to get in touch with our local representatives, you know, a lot of these offices are not even responding to their constituents.

00:09:54.580 Over the four years, I'd hear that from other wards, residents who are frustrated, they'd send emails into their city councilor, they're not getting a response.

00:10:01.740 They submit 311 requests that just summarily get closed without action or attention.

00:10:07.700 That's unacceptable.

00:10:08.960 These are things that need to change in the city of Calgary.

00:10:10.880 And I find it's the culture.

00:10:12.880 There's a culture of, you know, essentially not serving the residents that's developed in the city of Calgary.

00:10:19.760 And I think the leadership on council need to wrestle that back and say, no, we're here to serve the public.

00:10:26.040 Well, now, you work for Dan McLean.

00:10:29.680 You had an office.

00:10:31.220 right that office had a phone number right so if somebody in ward 13 had a pottle

00:10:38.020 they could phone that number and you would answer right and you would say and you better take this

00:10:43.860 one right and he would take it so how is it what do you mean when you say that you can't get hold

00:10:49.940 of your elected representative well i can tell you in ward 13 you could right our office you

00:10:55.220 know we operated in that fashion where we wanted to be responsive to residents um i can't speak

00:10:59.860 for other offices but I do know that that we would hear from residents from other wards saying I

00:11:03.940 can't get a hold of my city councilor they won't respond to me uh more troubling is actually when

00:11:09.060 people are trying to get in touch with administration for assistance with work in the ward

00:11:13.780 now unfortunately from the ward office we can't patch a pothole right we can't mow the grass

00:11:18.020 we can certainly try and get in touch with administration on the residents behalf

00:11:21.620 and that's something we did throughout our term and struggled greatly to get things done

00:11:26.320 There's something off with the services at the City of Calgary.

00:11:29.480 And we'd hear from numerous residents who'd submit 311s and never hear back.

00:11:34.160 There'd be no response.

00:11:35.300 There'd be no work done.

00:11:36.740 And the resident would be left wondering, where did my request go?

00:11:39.580 What happened to it?

00:11:40.560 Well, let me tell you a quick story.

00:11:42.300 And you tell me whether this is typical or I was, you know, lucky or what.

00:11:47.800 Where I live, going for a walk one day with a dog, I see somebody who's backed into a roadside.

00:11:53.420 Regular city property roadside.

00:11:55.080 there it is laying on the ground i sort of watched and watched for about six weeks nobody came to do

00:12:00.520 anything about it so i eventually did what i've just suggested i got hold of my local counselor

00:12:07.080 and uh he said oh yeah really no kidding send me a picture oh yeah road signs down isn't it um

00:12:14.680 another week went by and pickup truck came by pickup truck keep that in mind somebody gets out

00:12:23.640 takes a look clearly a city manager or an employee in the in in the line of command

00:12:31.080 is confirming that there is indeed a road sign down they didn't throw it in the pickup and take

00:12:35.640 it away it sat there for a couple more days right and then finally a crew arrived and just happened

00:12:43.720 to catch them in the act so to speak um two guys and they threw this thing in the pickup and away

00:12:49.480 it went and weeks later it was replaced right is that a typical city hall story or is the typical

00:12:58.520 city hall story that i never even got hold of my councillor right well i i would say it depends on

00:13:05.320 the ward you live in i'd say some councillors are better than others i won't name names here today

00:13:09.560 i can tell you that the the people who didn't respond are probably not in office anymore after

00:13:13.320 this most recent election there is a time where we can get that accountability and it is on election

00:13:17.800 day. And that's what's discouraging about seeing the 35% turnout or, you know, the mid-30s

00:13:23.200 turnout is, you know, that was your opportunity to hold your councillors accountable. Now,

00:13:27.060 of course, many of these people didn't even run again this time around, right? We had several of

00:13:30.600 the hateful eight not even show up to the polls because they knew they wouldn't get elected.

00:13:35.520 Did any of them survive this election?

00:13:38.460 Well, I can say, you know, one of them did and that being Raj Dhaliwal in Ward 5, but from my

00:13:43.240 understanding he was a good constituency um city councillor and that's why he won his board right

00:13:48.360 so he may not have been on the same side of the ideological perspective as me but at the same time

00:13:53.740 he did serve as constituents and was re-elected accordingly um but if you look over to ward 11

00:13:58.500 again i won't name names but you can see the results of a councillor who was not responsive

00:14:03.060 to their arrest so um we need to talk about the mayoral race um jody gondek there's going to be a

00:14:10.860 There's going to be a recount.

00:14:12.080 We don't know for sure at this stage

00:14:13.600 whether it's indeed going to be Mr. Farkas or Sonia Sharp,

00:14:16.880 but we do know that it's not going to be Jodi Gondek, right?

00:14:22.500 In an election when not much seems to have changed,

00:14:30.140 the revolution didn't come,

00:14:32.640 the torches and the pitchforks,

00:14:36.820 she changed.

00:14:40.600 She was rejected.

00:14:41.900 Right.

00:14:44.400 How would you interpret that?

00:14:47.960 Well, I mean, I would have been completely stunned had she been reelected. 0.89

00:14:53.180 Seeing some of the things that occurred throughout this council term, both from a behind the scenes perspective, but even on a public perspective.

00:15:01.520 I mean, I've never seen such poor leadership of our city.

00:15:05.480 I mean, on day one, for her to be trying to railroad a sitting city councillor who was duly elected, to be passing bylaws like the single-use plastics bylaw, the climate emergency, the climate action plan, $87 billion, the blanket rezoning despite fierce opposition. 0.55

00:15:22.860 And, you know, there's more, there's more to, you know, the public protest by law, banning public protests in public places, things like that, things that, you know, the CCF have said are a violation of our constitutional freedoms.

00:15:37.060 The CCF, that would be Canadian Constitutional Foundation?

00:15:40.900 Yeah, right.

00:15:41.580 To see some of these actions and stepping out of your jurisdiction, battling the province on any number of issues and just being adversarial, sneaky and underhanded.

00:15:54.300 I mean, I just saw really, really poor leadership over the last four years.

00:15:58.120 Mayor Gondek worked extremely hard, had different positions than I, but there were some things that were just, from my perspective, straight up unethical and not the right way to represent our city.

00:16:08.740 So I feel like it's a new era for the city of Calgary, regardless of who wins between Jeremy Farkas and Sonia Sharpe.

00:16:15.640 It's going to be addition by subtraction in that regard.

00:16:19.720 Nice way to put it.

00:16:21.300 Addition by subtraction.

00:16:24.840 The Green Line.

00:16:27.220 How do you think this new council is going to look at that?

00:16:32.000 Well, for the Green Line, for people who aren't following this closely, I think I'm right to say it's a line that runs north-south.

00:16:38.740 It terminates more or less where the old Eau Claire market was

00:16:44.040 and brings people in from, what, up Centre Street?

00:16:50.120 Well, correct.

00:16:51.020 You know, there is some debate and decisions to be made

00:16:54.420 as to how they're going to enter the downtown still at this stage.

00:16:56.960 And I'm not an expert on the Green Line itself.

00:16:59.240 It wasn't an issue under my purview in my time in Dan's office.

00:17:02.240 But, you know, it's a huge expenditure.

00:17:05.300 And, you know, it seems the ridership projections are changing over time.

00:17:08.740 So certainly, you know, we need to see a connected city and a better connected city for residents who live in those areas.

00:17:15.860 But it's going to be a significant financial burden for the city to carry.

00:17:21.720 And it'll be interesting to see what this council decides to do.

00:17:25.320 And of course, the province is involved as well, determining how we're going to access the downtown and what the future is that connects up to the center north of the city as well.

00:17:33.720 That was part of the initial plans for the green line.

00:17:36.000 Well, does the city council actually have the option of saying this is not a good use of taxpayer money, whether it's municipal or provincial, forget the whole thing?

00:17:46.440 Well, I certainly believe they would still have that possibility.

00:17:50.100 It would not be an easy one.

00:17:51.540 I think they'd probably have to be, considering the votes that have already occurred on it, you'd probably need a supermajority in order to make that happen.

00:17:58.500 And there would be financial implications, right?

00:18:01.300 There's arrangements that have been made, contracts signed.

00:18:05.460 It's not a simple thing to just cancel this thing and say, cut your losses because you're going to have some costs on that project.

00:18:12.580 So I don't think it's a simple decision.

00:18:14.760 And we are pretty sort of pot committed on this project, if you will.

00:18:19.140 And I don't envy a council that has to deal with the financial ramifications of that.

00:18:24.180 Okay. Now let's come back to the open zoning.

00:18:28.240 How many people made their views known to city council when the offer was opened?

00:18:37.400 Tell us what you think.

00:18:39.320 Well, there were thousands and thousands of people who made written submissions, right?

00:18:43.020 I know we're in the range of the high hundreds, close to a thousand people who showed up in person.

00:18:48.820 It was a record, right?

00:18:50.340 A record showing for a public hearing in the city of Calgary and a vast majority in opposition.

00:18:55.720 I think it was close to 90% of written submissions were against blanket rezoning.

00:19:00.220 Somewhere in the range of high 60s or low 70s of the in-person submissions were opposed to blanket rezoning.

00:19:08.520 And, you know, for a lot of people justify, well, you know, there's only a certain type of person who showed up to those hearings.

00:19:13.740 It wasn't representative of the population at large.

00:19:16.620 Well, I mean, my argument to that would be, well, these are people who cared enough to show up, right?

00:19:20.960 So the people who did support blanket rezoning obviously didn't have as much passion or vigor behind their position to show up.

00:19:28.520 And the reality is you can only count those who do show up to have their voices heard.

00:19:33.420 And it was disappointing to see council pass that bylaw.

00:19:38.100 And you can see now it is going to have to be rescinded and it's going to be messy, right?

00:19:41.540 It's not a simple matter.

00:19:43.340 How are you going to deal with all these pending applications?

00:19:45.520 All the properties have already been rezoned.

00:19:47.300 And what about those places that actually already have a monstrosity sitting next door that's dramatically impacted their parking, their garbage, their property values?

00:19:56.500 You know, it's a real mess that's been created.

00:19:58.240 And this is all due to not listening to the public.

00:20:01.040 It's a shame that it happened the way it did.

00:20:03.680 So, I mean, could there be a moratorium on rezoning in disputed areas while we think this one through?

00:20:14.160 Well, I mean, that would be one option.

00:20:16.040 While we figure out the dynamics of how to repeal blanket rezoning,

00:20:21.040 it could be an option just to put a freeze on new applications, right?

00:20:25.440 It might be something that city councils should consider to do in the immediate term.

00:20:29.100 But, you know, based off last session of council, I mean,

00:20:32.260 we declared climate emergency within a couple of weeks of the election.

00:20:35.440 So I can see they could act pretty quickly on this if they have the desire to do so.

00:20:39.880 Well, that's, we'll see what they do with it.

00:20:43.300 That seemed to me the thing that was going to get everybody out, and it didn't,

00:20:48.360 so maybe they have a little more leeway to deal with that than I would have imagined.

00:20:54.440 But certainly there are people who have already bought the property that they mean to rezone,

00:20:59.200 and they're financially committed.

00:21:01.680 They even have their rezoning, their building plans approved.

00:21:06.640 You can only stop it up to a certain point.

00:21:09.080 Exactly. Okay, the rezoning, line eight, any other major issues for this council? Sorry, the green line, I call it line eight. The green line and the rezoning, what's the other big issue this council has to look at?

00:21:26.340 Well, I think the number one issue that hadn't been talked enough nearly in the campaign,

00:21:30.740 and that's property taxes. Over the last council term, we saw a 30% increase in spending

00:21:36.740 over a four-year period, which is just a remarkable increase in spending. We've taken

00:21:40.980 on huge expenditures in the arena deal, the green line, various other infrastructure projects. You

00:21:46.820 know, we had the Olympic Plaza transformation. The city finances are getting out of control,

00:21:51.860 right and we're seeing a decline in services uh that this you know which doesn't doesn't reflect

00:21:56.580 that increase in property taxes and how is this council going to deal with the increased spending

00:22:01.620 and they'll end the decrease and declining quality of services the city provides or should they deal

00:22:06.500 with it oh i mean they have to i mean the reality is people can't afford to continue to pay these

00:22:11.380 taxes businesses you know you look at our downtown it's got a 30 vacancy rate um you know people

00:22:17.700 can't afford to pay these taxes businesses don't want to operate here they're choosing to operate

00:22:21.620 on the outskirts of the city in other jurisdictions

00:22:23.920 because our property taxes are so out of control.

00:22:26.340 This is a serious issue that this council needs to address,

00:22:29.040 and if they don't, it will be at the peril of the rest of us.

00:22:33.580 Patrick, thank you for coming in and laying this out for us.

00:22:37.580 It is not nearly as easy as just electing a new council, is it?

00:22:42.280 It certainly isn't, but I do have a lot of faith

00:22:44.560 this council will do a better job than the last,

00:22:46.780 and I wish them all the best in doing what's best for Calgary.

00:22:50.060 Well, on that optimistic note, thank you again.

00:22:52.720 Thank you, Nigel. Appreciate you.

00:22:54.200 And for the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

00:22:58.120 Good night.

Western Standard - October 24, 2025

Do Calgary's new councillors have it in them to repeal open zoning？

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