Edmonton councillor Mike Nickel on potential foreign influence on local elections.
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
176.84958
Summary
Mayor Don Iveson's relationship with political consulting firm Stratcom has been in the news lately, and Councillor Mike Nichol has called for an investigation into whether or not outside funding played a role in the last election.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Okay, so I'm sitting today with Councillor Mike Nichol from Edmonton.
00:00:12.280
Councillor Nichol's been really making some news now and then as the Maverick
00:00:16.280
Councillor up there, similar for Calgary Watchers.
00:00:19.580
He's like the Edmonton Jeremy Farkas in some ways.
00:00:22.320
He stands out from the crowd and these municipal politics that seem to kind of
00:00:25.200
all move in a pack, and they sure get upset when somebody dares to break
00:00:31.380
Something that has recently come out, though, is Councillor Nichol has sent a
00:00:36.020
letter to the Municipal Affairs Minister, Tracy Allard, the new one,
00:00:40.500
as well as Casey Maddew, our former one, asking for an investigation into what
00:00:47.560
appears to be some outside funding, perhaps influencing the last election.
00:00:58.200
This has to deal with Mayor Don Iveson and his relationship to a
00:01:07.700
And back in 2013, when the Mayor Don Iveson was running for election,
00:01:16.040
It says Stratcom did various voter contact, polling, and so on for him.
00:01:25.660
And so, but what's interesting is Stratcom is also a company that works for other
00:01:29.960
organizations like David Suzuki, Greenpeace, I believe Paths for People on there.
00:01:35.760
Certainly, I would say organizations and nonprofits are not on my Christmas card list,
00:01:40.900
and they wouldn't be, I wouldn't get, you know, it's, that's just not my kind of crew.
00:01:47.780
But what's all, but the important thing here is to delineate is that they also do charitable
00:01:55.760
And that's also commendable, but it says very clear in the Income Tax Act,
00:02:00.240
no charitable resources or funding can go to partisan politics whatsoever.
00:02:05.560
So my question was very simple to the mayor and to Stratcom, how are you ensuring that
00:02:18.360
I just need a yes or no, and we have this saying, trust but verify, the old Ronald Reagan
00:02:25.220
And that's all what Stratcom is really about, but it is very serious because if you look
00:02:29.600
on their website, Stratcom is also the company that organized some of our anti-pipeline or
00:02:41.340
And so I'm back to the trust but verify, and I'd like some straight up answers.
00:02:46.140
Yeah, I believe you mentioned Lead Now as well, and that group is very politicized.
00:02:52.280
And they've taken part in some very, well, to be blunt, hard left-wing campaigns,
00:02:57.100
which is a democratic right, but you don't want to do that under the radar.
00:03:00.520
I mean, voters want to know who's coming from where.
00:03:04.960
Yeah, and it's also, some of your viewers might be aware, Vivian Krause did some work
00:03:09.420
with American-funded sources, or American sources of bringing money into Canada.
00:03:16.800
And I believe Lead Now, Lead Now did take some money from Washington, D.C. group a while
00:03:26.780
And when it gets to this level and these sorts of issues, they're not all federal.
00:03:33.900
So this is coming right down to the meat and potatoes at the municipal level as well.
00:03:38.340
So the same sort of scrutiny that we had on the We Charity scandal that we have here in
00:03:43.220
Alberta on other issues, I think it's just commensurate that we should be, you know,
00:03:53.720
As long as people know where things are coming from, the voters can make up their own minds.
00:03:56.840
But it's when they kind of sneak under the radar, it seems almost a consequence.
00:04:00.560
We've really seemed to have cracked down in the last decade on open contributions by businesses
00:04:04.180
or large contributions to candidates provincially and municipally.
00:04:08.080
But then what happens is like a game of whack-a-mole, PACs pop up and special interest groups
00:04:12.320
and so on and just sort of do and funnel that money that the candidates used to.
00:04:15.700
And I think some of the transparency actually got lost.
00:04:19.980
And it's really important for people to understand that some of these campaigns that seem to be
00:04:26.400
grassroots, seem to be organic, are certainly not.
00:04:30.580
Now, I'm not suggesting Stratcom or any other organization does that.
00:04:34.080
But I will tell you, it is kind of odd that I receive emails on certain civic issues from
00:04:42.040
And so something else is going on here that I really do believe, like you said, for transparency's
00:04:50.980
And I think politics has changed dramatically in the last 10, 15 years.
00:05:01.360
So I'll just talk quickly on some of the issues you've dealt with for daring to speak up.
00:05:05.780
As I said, municipal councils seem to kind of move in packs and they really don't like
00:05:12.880
And you had to deal with a code of conduct issue and you were taken on the carpet there.
00:05:18.860
Maybe if you could let our Calgarian listeners and then maybe expand for the Edmonton ones is
00:05:24.980
Well, it's very, very, very similar to Jeremy Farkas, your councillor down in Calgary.
00:05:34.060
I don't know if that's a coincidence or whatever.
00:05:40.320
I have a show called Mic Check that I get people to tune into.
00:05:44.340
And we talked about his code of conduct and my code of conduct.
00:05:47.960
Basically, it was me calling out emergency bike lanes in the city of Edmonton.
00:05:56.080
I don't mind bike lanes as long as they're being used.
00:05:58.720
But putting pylons in the road in the middle of a pandemic, is that really well?
00:06:05.560
And the pylons are turning into a hazard because the homeless people are throwing them in the
00:06:14.240
And then some people decided to file some code of conduct charges against me.
00:06:19.560
What I found most frustrating, though, is that our integrity commissioner said this was off
00:06:30.620
Basically, she said she could come onto my social media, my personal social media, and edit
00:06:36.360
And, of course, I was not going to apologize for calling out emergency bike lanes.
00:06:41.240
I was not going to stick back from what I have done, especially on my own pages that
00:06:50.780
And eight of my fellow councillors agreed, and four did not.
00:06:55.880
But much to their chagrin, or my chagrin, however you want to use it, they didn't get
00:07:03.360
Unlike Jeremy, who got escorted out of council.
00:07:09.580
It doesn't sound like you plan on stopping speaking up.
00:07:12.000
But it's just ridiculous, the lengths that these little clusters are going to shut out
00:07:18.880
I mean, we don't have a formal opposition party in these municipal governments models.
00:07:22.820
So we really do need somebody to speak from outside of the pack critically, whether they're
00:07:26.780
And, again, it's up for the voters to determine.
00:07:28.220
But it's a scary trend when they're really forcefully trying to quell differing voices
00:07:38.060
There's a kind of a political bigotry that's kind of entered into our politics, where if
00:07:42.820
you dare have a different point of view, their only idea is to either bully you or shout
00:07:48.340
or chew down and not talk about the substantive facts around the issues.
00:07:52.480
And I've always said this is the feelings, not facts, you know, politician that permeates
00:07:59.960
When you try to present the facts to them, well, I feel it should be different, even though
00:08:05.460
But, you know, we can go back to emergency bike lanes, you know, we're talking about putting
00:08:17.300
It's like no concept of, you know, fiscal responsibility.
00:08:21.460
It seems to be just an epidemic among municipal government, well, every form of government.
00:08:29.220
Now, I understand you guys are putting in a 7% tax increase in Calgary?
00:08:40.480
This happens, you know, they'll back off a little bit in the election year, but they
00:08:44.020
keep hiking all the way through and everybody gets upset.
00:08:47.440
Mayor Ninchy and the rest of them all get reelected every time.
00:08:49.740
So it's at a point where I think it's kind of up to the voters to say they've had enough.
00:08:52.880
But in times like this, it's insane that they're increasing taxes like that.
00:08:57.700
And again, Jeremy Farkas and a couple others are the only voices daring to speak up, which
00:09:02.140
You know, this might be surprising to a lot of you people in Calgary.
00:09:07.580
I have a very good relationship with our civic unions here in town.
00:09:13.940
And I basically sat them down and I said, it's not how much I pay you, it's how much
00:09:18.660
productivity I get out of you for the money I pay you.
00:09:32.060
I'm sure these sound very familiar to what's going on in Calgary with a council that doesn't
00:09:36.820
seem to want to fix anything or get to the mechanics of it.
00:09:44.480
They bring forward a motion and they throw it to administration.
00:09:50.700
And it sounds like the priorities are backwards.
00:09:52.940
I mean, I know in Calgary City Council, they'll sit and spend a whole day fighting over the
00:10:00.200
And then when it comes to broad oversight, they'll shut down councillors who dare to question
00:10:05.940
In my view, it seems that a municipal government should be the high level overlooking and watching
00:10:11.240
of things and directly questioning administration, but not messing around with the little stuff.
00:10:19.320
But I think both in Emmett and Calgary, the voters have finally realized value for your taxes
00:10:24.180
and return on investment, social return on investment must be measured.
00:10:28.060
We can't keep throwing money at our problem at the wall and hoping it's going to stick.
00:10:36.600
Our economies are decimated, both in Emmett and Calgary.
00:10:40.360
We're talking a complete mechanical, if not philosophical, overhaul of what we need to do.
00:10:45.980
And so the voters here at Emmett, you know, it almost is like there's the downtown point
00:10:54.280
And the people in the suburbs are getting very, very frustrated at that.
00:10:58.020
And certainly from the business point of view, the exodus has been not just alarming, but
00:11:06.380
Calgary's got a 30% downtown vacancy and growing right now as well.
00:11:10.000
Well, we're coming into an election year, so let's hope it's a watershed one.
00:11:17.940
So I really appreciate you sitting down with me.
00:11:19.400
I'm sure we'll be seeing and hearing more from you as you keep holding their feet to the
00:11:26.080
We have a couple more for you, too, that we think are going to be pretty shocking for
00:11:31.700
the citizens to see as we lift the lid on administration and what the city's been doing
00:11:45.500
I hope we can talk about it when you lift that lid off.