Western Standard - Farkas defeats Gondek： Calgary Elections 2025

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00:02:30.720 Good morning, I'm Derek Phil, the Brandt publisher of the Western Standard. It's October 21st,

00:02:36.400 2025. We're at it first thing in the morning today, still having my coffee here. We're

00:02:43.580 breaking down the, what we know at least, of the Calgary municipal election results.

00:02:51.200 We decided not to do live stream last night because, well, we just, we're not expected

00:02:57.860 to have any of the numbers and as of this morning well we've got some of the numbers and we've got

00:03:02.900 a pretty good idea but it's still a lot up in the air so we're going to break down what we know

00:03:07.460 what we don't know no knowns known unknowns etc uh i've got with me our uh western standard

00:03:16.660 oh my goodness i'm having a feedback loop here shut up eric there we go well i've always wanted

00:03:25.220 to say that you're not allowed you're not allowed shut up mike okay all right we got uh western 0.68

00:03:30.980 standard city hall columnist mike thomas and western standard news editor and former city

00:03:37.640 hall editor of for calgary city hall with the calgary sun dave naylor morning morning so go jays

00:03:44.360 go uh you know the last time i cared about baseball i think i was about seven years old

00:03:50.820 and it was the chase of the World Series in 1993.

00:03:54.300 Time to get interested again.

00:03:55.580 Yeah, I just watch Moneyball over and over.

00:03:58.640 I just like the economics of it now.

00:04:00.340 Okay, so yeah, we didn't even bother with this last night,

00:04:04.020 but I was watching it until I fell asleep.

00:04:07.060 And what a nail-biter.

00:04:09.840 There's only one thing we know for absolutely certain.

00:04:13.700 Jody Gondag is gone.

00:04:15.020 She be gone. 0.97

00:04:15.900 Ding dong, the witch is dead. 0.86

00:04:18.980 So beautiful. 0.57

00:04:19.820 So beautiful. That was, I think, for non-left-wing Calgarians, just the most important thing.

00:04:27.460 Gondak's gone. So much confusion about who people should vote for in the mayor's race.

00:04:33.500 I mean, the newsroom here, we racked our brains to the very last minute.

00:04:38.140 Who's the best candidate? We still don't even really have a clear answer necessarily.

00:04:42.500 No, we don't.

00:04:43.300 But we all just knew one thing. Gondak's got to go.

00:04:46.200 So she has gone down to defeat as the first sort of – technically, I guess there was a successor of Ralph Klein, lost an election.

00:04:55.760 But that person hadn't been elected mayor.

00:04:57.240 They were just made mayor by the council as an interim mayor.

00:04:59.560 But this is the first truly incumbent mayor since 1980 to lose.

00:05:04.480 And I got to look into it.

00:05:06.280 I'm not sure the last time an incumbent mayor has come in third place.

00:05:10.460 Not even close.

00:05:13.020 don't know but you know she buried herself bad decisions going woke so dei um with with

00:05:20.860 those counselors that she had were aiding and abetting her they just asked for it interesting 0.89

00:05:26.540 that uh the majority of gondex gang bailed out this year people like karra and walcott who were

00:05:34.460 the the preachers of the party uh said that's enough and walcott was only there for one term

00:05:41.180 So I think he probably knew what was coming.

00:05:44.280 Yeah.

00:05:44.860 Okay, well, let's kind of go through the mayor's race.

00:05:47.300 The council race is still a dog's breakfast because counting is taking a much longer time.

00:05:54.040 I didn't vote in Calgary.

00:05:55.540 I voted out in the county.

00:05:57.800 But it was actually pretty straightforward.

00:06:02.160 But they have to check your ID now, which seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. 0.76

00:06:08.100 But because of the Canada Post strike, no one had voter cards.

00:06:11.960 That was actually, I think, the big thing, drawing the big delays in voting.

00:06:16.900 The other thing, I don't know about your poll, but the other thing is that if you were voting for a councillor, for mayor, and school board.

00:06:25.040 Three separate ballots.

00:06:26.160 That the people behind the desk were printing your name out.

00:06:30.300 They didn't have a processor.

00:06:32.060 So everything was being done by hand.

00:06:33.800 So depending on who you got, that's how long it took for them to write it down, which really slowed things down.

00:06:40.540 If you got a name like Fildebrandt or the incorrect spelling of Mike, it could take a while.

00:06:44.940 It's confusing.

00:06:45.940 Yeah.

00:06:47.200 So anyway, that's why we don't have all the results.

00:06:49.200 We do have 380 of 380 polls reporting for the mayor's race, Dave.

00:06:55.060 We do not have anywhere close to that for the council races.

00:06:58.880 I'd say on average, there's between 14 and 18 polls reporting of 60-odd in each of the wards.

00:07:06.960 So in some of them, we'll go through them after the mayor's race.

00:07:10.580 In some of them, we've got a pretty good idea of who's very likely to win.

00:07:14.580 In some, they're still way too close to call.

00:07:17.420 Not enough polls reporting in, and the race is tight.

00:07:19.700 So we'll go through the mayor's race here.

00:07:23.060 We've got it all in, but there's a definite recount here because it's a nail-biter.

00:07:28.220 So the great news first, incumbent mayor Jody Gondek went down to defeat with 71,397 votes, third place.

00:07:39.640 Fourth place, despite all the polls, that campaign push showing it'd be very different.

00:07:45.580 Jeff Davison, it was a respectable, like it was a kind of a four-way race-ish.

00:07:53.100 Or actually, no, five feet, because he's actually not far ahead of Thiessen.

00:07:56.340 yeah so brian theason the calgary party so for those who don't know there's political parties

00:08:00.580 now uh dave once you break down three parties well you've got the uh the calgary party which

00:08:06.820 i guess strangely would be the liberal party right mike and then a couple of uh uh better

00:08:13.540 communities uh communities first which would be the conservatives yeah well there's two conservatives

00:08:19.460 yeah uh abc yeah a better category a better caliber yeah no wonder people are confused on

00:08:25.940 the conservative yeah so yeah and uh you know brian theason the the so-called liberal candidate

00:08:34.260 you know he did okay 40 000 votes and uh davidson in third place uh as all the uh

00:08:42.260 sorry fourth place as all the polls were saying uh then he wasn't but he wasn't he was not the

00:08:47.060 official candidate of the abc party but he was endorsed by the abc parts yeah and then uh the uh

00:08:53.540 the poor miss gondek in 71 000 still a good chunk of votes right and then you got to the uh uh 1.00

00:09:00.900 farkas and uh sonia sharp basically you know they're it took them two days to count the first

00:09:07.620 time it's going to take them several more days to count the recounts so yeah it's going to be it

00:09:11.940 It could be in limbo for a couple more days yet.

00:09:15.060 So, yeah, Sharp, 90,480 votes.

00:09:19.480 Farkas, 91,065 votes.

00:09:23.700 Like, it could, that is close enough.

00:09:27.940 You know, recounts normally don't change the initial result because, you know, some votes will flip.

00:09:35.060 But they'll flip in both directions, you know, or they'll go through and say,

00:09:39.820 this ballot is spoiled, like I had to spoil my school board trustee ballot because I had just

00:09:47.560 no idea. I didn't see a single sign for them. You know, I always vote on who does the teachers

00:09:53.240 union endorse, and then I vote for the next guy on the ballot. They didn't endorse anyone in my

00:10:00.120 area, so I just spoiled my ballot. But sometimes, you know, the candidates and the scrutineers will

00:10:06.120 argue that no, this should count for this candidate or not, et cetera. It normally comes

00:10:10.460 out as a wash. Sometimes it gets overturned, but it's very rare that a recount actually

00:10:14.880 overturns the result. But Sharpe could win. This is really, really close.

00:10:21.420 I mean, it would need several hundred votes to overturn. And normally on a recount, you

00:10:26.560 maybe get a handful, but I don't think you're going to see this amount.

00:10:30.120 I don't think so.

00:10:30.880 And voter turnout was down significantly in this, despite Calgary having a bigger population

00:10:35.240 now than four years ago i mean a lot of new people come in uh but uh even the gross not just voter

00:10:41.560 turnout as a percentage but even as a gross number is down i think yeah um i would attribute that

00:10:49.000 my own non-scientific opinion would be it was just so damn confusing a lot of people just didn't know

00:10:53.880 who to vote for i think that would be attributed to to that everybody's talking about dolly wall

00:10:59.000 and the Blue Jays and stuff like that.

00:11:01.260 But I think it was more of a not sure who all these people are.

00:11:06.340 Didn't know what to do.

00:11:08.000 Yeah.

00:11:08.460 Despite there being a party system, which is supposed to clarify it.

00:11:11.880 And we'll get more into the parties after.

00:11:14.100 I think it's going to take, I've always said,

00:11:15.560 I think it's going to take a couple election cycles 0.97

00:11:17.300 until clear party systems are established.

00:11:20.360 That's normally the case in any place where it's introduced.

00:11:22.880 um but you know in you know four years ago Gondek was the clear left-wing candidate

00:11:31.640 Barkas was the clear right-wing candidate and then you had Davison as like kind of a mushier

00:11:37.660 soft in the middle uh this time it was it was a dog's breakfast uh no one really knew who to vote

00:11:44.480 for so I think a lot of people just didn't vote or they just kind of randomly picked one of the

00:11:48.900 non-Gondek candidates.

00:11:53.520 Okay, well, you know, we're going to send someone down to Jeremy Farkas' headquarters

00:11:59.540 today and Sonia Sharps.

00:12:03.240 I'm interested, actually, I didn't get a response to you.

00:12:05.380 It was very late last night I sent you a text.

00:12:08.000 You wrote the story.

00:12:09.420 You did?

00:12:10.060 Yeah.

00:12:10.480 I sent you a text.

00:12:11.980 You didn't respond.

00:12:12.600 That makes sense.

00:12:13.060 um uh you wrote the headline that a gondek withdraws from the race did you say she withdraws

00:12:20.440 i did first because i'm doing i was doing it so fast but then i went back okay she conceded yes

00:12:25.680 i changed okay yeah i was like you don't get to withdraw after the ballots are counted

00:12:29.200 okay i just i was so surprised that she came in and said okay i'm done um well she doesn't have

00:12:35.460 to deal with it today no but so i just thought i better get that up there and i for some reason

00:12:40.360 withdrawal came out yeah okay okay that makes a bit makes a bit more sense i was like no you're

00:12:45.340 not allowed to withdraw after the ballots are counted i realized that after i looked at it

00:12:49.040 okay it was late you were working later than the rest of us so i it's okay all right um but yeah

00:12:56.840 so she's she's conceded uh but i'm sure today sonja sharp and jeremy fargus are both going to

00:13:01.580 hold press availability uh i would not expect sonja sharp to concede she should not concede

00:13:08.180 at this point. Wait till the recount.

00:13:10.760 Farkas will probably declare 1.00

00:13:11.960 a tentative victory

00:13:13.800 and begin transition, I would imagine.

00:13:16.260 He pretty much gave a victory speech

00:13:18.380 last night as he was congratulating

00:13:20.840 Gondek for conceding.

00:13:23.320 The way he was

00:13:24.720 talking, and this is before the results

00:13:26.580 came out, but he sounded like he

00:13:27.900 has already won, and Sharp was

00:13:30.460 more like a press conference speech.

00:13:32.920 So I don't know if

00:13:34.540 either one of them is going to

00:13:36.600 send anything out very soon about having a meeting or even wanting to talk about it yet.

00:13:42.820 Well, Farkas, like last night, we didn't have enough results. I mean, he was leading the whole 0.97

00:13:48.220 night, but not by a lot. But now we have the unofficial results. He is the unofficial winner

00:13:55.400 of the election. I think he should likely announce something, and he should probably begin at least

00:14:01.400 a tentative transition team. I would think behind the scenes, what I'm saying, though,

00:14:06.220 is that I don't know if they will hold a meeting with the press and say anything.

00:14:11.020 They've got nothing really to say except well-fought battle.

00:14:15.660 So I don't know.

00:14:16.920 We'll see.

00:14:17.540 We'll find out.

00:14:18.180 Sonia Sharp, I think, if anyone should hold an availability of some kind,

00:14:24.600 it should be Sonia Sharp to say, okay, we'll accept the results,

00:14:28.560 but we're hanging in for the recount because she still has a shot.

00:14:33.100 She could still win.

00:14:34.280 I don't think she will.

00:14:34.940 So, yeah, it's close enough.

00:14:36.460 She could also in that meeting talk about all of the community first candidates because she's the de facto leader of the party.

00:14:44.980 And they did grab some seats in council.

00:14:48.920 Yeah.

00:14:50.480 Okay.

00:14:51.240 Well, okay.

00:14:51.740 So, Mayor, we've got the most clear idea, I think.

00:14:59.700 Likely going to be Jeremy Farkas.

00:15:01.400 um let's talk just briefly about that about where what kind of mayor he's gonna be he ran he was the

00:15:09.220 clear conservative last time i've known jeremy a long time this time it seemed you know i've always

00:15:15.340 he went on his forrest gump run and you know he you know uh he came back and you know somewhat

00:15:23.000 different um he some have argued to me that no no he's still the same jeremy just his language is

00:15:29.780 less strident and he's just more polished and by the book now less off the cuff uh others say no

00:15:36.840 no he's just no longer a conservative at all um you know i interviewed him here and he made the

00:15:43.240 case his principles have not changed he just maybe has learned and matured a bit i don't know where

00:15:49.920 you come down did we did calgarians elect a conservative last night no i don't think so um

00:15:55.800 He decided in the middle of the road who, if he sees a left turn, he'll take it.

00:16:02.500 One area that I looked at his promises or whatever you want to call them was the blanket upzoning thing.

00:16:11.680 He says he's going to change it, not repeal it.

00:16:14.320 He told me he would repeal it.

00:16:16.440 Okay.

00:16:16.600 But if you look inside his literature and everything, he's talking about moving that high density in the single-family neighborhoods to better places for density, which is a good thing, depending on what those places are.

00:16:32.080 um the so i'm not i am not totally clear what he's planning for uh blanket up zoning i think

00:16:40.660 probably what he would try to do is renegotiate with the feds if that's possible to move all the

00:16:47.420 high density to say lrt platforms or something like that and put all those high rises on every

00:16:53.520 lrt platform he talked about doing that but he's what he said to me was just he's blanket rezoning

00:16:59.420 it's dead it's repealed more or less goes back to the older system and the the idea would be that

00:17:04.860 density would be concentrated around stuff like lrt stations yeah but i mean he now in my experience

00:17:12.060 interviewing the different candidates they said different things to me then were sometimes in

00:17:17.260 their platform and then you know we had to sometimes fact check after i i was a bit

00:17:23.100 disappointed when i interviewed sonia sharp and dave and she said i was against the climate emergency

00:17:30.300 full stop and i was like you know because you know that was kind of famously the very first thing

00:17:34.620 gondek and the old council did when they came in it was just like wow what a what a start guys and

00:17:39.820 she said i was against it and i guess i kind of took it at face value and we found out afterwards

00:17:45.980 in my interview with with jeremy farkas she actually did vote for the climate emergency

00:17:50.540 She then just voted against funding for, you know, the bazillion dollar aircraft carrier style budget appropriated to it. 0.89

00:17:58.700 And I was like, oh, I guess she kind of played fast and loose there.

00:18:01.480 And they all kind of said, they all kind of played, you know, Davison said he's for a hard tax freeze.

00:18:08.900 And then, oh, no, Sonia Sharp said she was for a tax freeze.

00:18:11.760 And then like a day or two later at the debate, she said we can't have a tax freeze.

00:18:16.120 No, Davison came out with a four-year tax freeze.

00:18:18.840 okay yeah well so it was sharp who said also in the studio right here where david's sitting

00:18:23.240 honestly where you're sitting she said she's for the tax freeze but then two days later the debate

00:18:27.400 says we can't have a tax freeze so i was like i don't know they said different things to different

00:18:32.120 people um fargus at least found was tend to be more consistent i'm not sure if i liked it as

00:18:38.840 much but he tended to be maybe a bit more consistent i would i would agree with that

00:18:41.800 like i said earlier i think he was very polished and he he was very narrow in terms of uh

00:18:48.840 platforms and stuff like that and continually repeating the same ones over and over and over

00:18:54.500 again. So I would agree with that. The one thing to remember, guys, is the mayor is only one vote.

00:19:01.320 Yes, exactly. It's not like the prime minister or the premier where it's one vote. There's 14

00:19:07.420 other councillors. It's, you know, how is the lay of the land going to be? You know,

00:19:14.360 The Hateful Eight, the Gondek gang, they're gone. 1.00

00:19:17.800 So it's, you know, what kind of gang is going to be supporting Mayor Farkas if he does succeed?

00:19:26.800 And, you know, is he going to be able to get enough people on his side to pass his platform?

00:19:32.800 Yeah, and that's the big question.

00:19:33.860 Once we have an idea of whether or not we've got a totally independent council or mostly or a left-wing council or a right-wing council, we don't know that yet.

00:19:43.940 No. One thing we've glaring omission from discussion of the mayor's race, though. Larry Heather did not place last.

00:19:54.180 I know. He is at one thousand two hundred two votes. He is ahead of Jager Gustafsson, who had nine hundred and five.

00:20:03.400 So hats off to Harry Leather on his not coming in last this time. Good for you, Larry.

00:20:11.820 Larry, Harry.

00:20:12.780 He'll run again in four years.

00:20:14.380 Oh, set your watch to it.

00:20:17.720 He's already got the signs.

00:20:19.440 Oh, yeah.

00:20:20.720 Does Gondek or Davidson run again in four years?

00:20:24.160 Does Sonja run again?

00:20:26.360 Or maybe four counsels, but it depends.

00:20:30.160 I mean, it depends.

00:20:31.100 If Farkas looks like he's not going to get touched,

00:20:33.520 maybe some of these guys then run for counsel.

00:20:36.800 But also that depends who's in the wards.

00:20:38.960 So if Sonia Sharp's successor in Ward 1 does win, we're going to get into that next.

00:20:45.600 That's Ward 1.

00:20:46.460 If that person wins, then Sonia probably cannot likely reclaim that ward because there'll be her successor incumbent there. 1.00

00:20:54.620 But if a lefty wins it and it's open, yeah, maybe she runs in the ward. 0.99

00:20:59.020 Maybe same with Davison.

00:20:59.980 Davison's had two kicks at the can now.

00:21:02.760 His best showing, I guess, was last time with third, this time with fourth.

00:21:07.760 I think Davison's probably done then.

00:21:11.180 So, well, let's move into the wards here.

00:21:13.940 So, Ward 1 I can speak of.

00:21:16.060 I used to live there.

00:21:18.340 Ward 1, so that's where Sonia Sharp was the counselor for the last four years. 0.95

00:21:24.480 Okay, so all of these results, there's 60-odd, you know, roughly 65 polls in each of the wards.

00:21:35.480 So on average, they've got 15 to 19 polls reporting, roughly.

00:21:45.360 So I'm not going to say that.

00:21:46.640 Just know that for every ward we're talking about here, these are highly tentative results.

00:21:52.100 Some, there's a big enough lead that we can make a call.

00:21:54.960 Some, we can't.

00:21:56.040 Ward 1, where Sonia Sharp had been the councillor for four years,

00:22:01.040 uh the calgary party candidates with the left-wing party joey nowak yep uh is leading 5,649

00:22:13.460 uh and then two candidates medium behind could maybe catch up uh you got the abc candidate

00:22:22.940 A conservative, Kathy Jacobs, and independent, Dan Olson.

00:22:30.140 Too close to call there.

00:22:31.760 Oh, no, no, no.

00:22:32.440 You got Kim Tires.

00:22:33.120 Kim Tires.

00:22:34.040 Sorry, Kim Tires. 1.00

00:22:35.120 Very close second.

00:22:36.400 Communities first. 0.88

00:22:37.420 So that's Sonia Sharp's chosen successor there, right behind. 1.00

00:22:44.620 249 votes separating them.

00:22:47.980 That could easily flip.

00:22:49.500 I could flip real quick.

00:22:50.440 Yeah, that could go either way.

00:22:52.940 Yeah, Ward 1 is too close to call. Why don't you talk about Ward 2 here?

00:23:04.120 Jennifer Wynes is independent, no party affiliation, and leading quite handily right now with John Garden, who is the ABC candidate.

00:23:13.640 She's the incumbent.

00:23:14.440 Yes, she is the incumbent. I think we can probably call her. I don't know that Garden will be able to close that gap.

00:23:20.720 What kind of councillor is she? Is she on the left council? 1.00

00:23:24.640 She's very quiet. She's very, very financial. When she's asking questions-

00:23:30.000 That's a weird way to describe someone.

00:23:31.360 Well, no. Okay, she's got blonde hair. When she's questioning administration or council of members,

00:23:40.640 nine times out of ten, it's about money and what does this cost and what's the return on that and

00:23:45.600 stuff like that so she keeps her her finger on on the calculator quite a bit which is a good thing

00:23:52.400 did she vote more with the sharp faction of council more with the gondek uh i would think

00:23:57.920 more with gondek but that's not to say she hasn't crossed the line and gone the other way okay uh

00:24:04.080 john production so on the side here let's see the comments just in case there's so you guys in the

00:24:08.720 comments feel free to talk and talk and whatever but if you want um we can if you have questions

00:24:16.400 and whatnot maybe maybe we'll address them not guaranteed if you've got a good question oh derek

00:24:21.760 is woke all right i think he meant some wake if you have a coffee i yeah i i i'm already done my

00:24:31.120 my cup here yeah you've had enough of that stuff for the day i'm not woken up i've only had two

00:24:35.120 espressos here okay uh all right so ward two i'd say ideologically that might be kind of a swing

00:24:42.880 vote that goes either way all right ward three uh no incumbent actually running there no andrew

00:24:52.400 yule is uh independent tremendously huge huge lead that's that's one we can call yep he's an

00:24:59.520 an independent. He's not with any of the parties here. But where does he land? Do you think

00:25:05.180 you have any idea where that guy lands ideologically? No, no idea. All right. Well, he is one of

00:25:10.920 the guys we can, I think, pretty safely call at this point. He's got a huge lead, more

00:25:16.560 than twice as much as the next candidate. I think he probably would be, for lack of

00:25:20.760 a better word, a target for Farkas, the former union, or get him into the Farkas camp.

00:25:29.520 All right, Ward 4, I'd say that one's too close.

00:25:34.320 You've got Daniel James Kelly, 8.6 thousand, Jeremy Wong, 7.2 thousand.

00:25:43.480 Who was it earlier that says, oh, you said this in a meeting,

00:25:46.540 because there's two Wongs running for council, different wards.

00:25:49.200 Two Wongs don't make a right. 1.00

00:25:50.440 No, but they are on the white party.

00:25:52.080 Okay, so yeah, only three candidates in that writing, or that board.

00:26:01.360 But yeah, the leftist Calgary Party candidate is leading Wong, pretty close-ish behind.

00:26:10.100 It's close enough that it could be caught, maybe, maybe.

00:26:14.480 Possibly, yeah, I would go with that.

00:26:16.160 Yeah.

00:26:16.720 There we go. Okay. Ward five, Raj Dhaliwal. He's the incumbent. Yep. He's pretty comfortable,

00:26:28.480 I think. I would think he's comfortable. Yep. Yeah. I'd say he's likely to stay there.

00:26:35.120 What's he like? He's not listed with a party, but where does he stay on council?

00:26:39.040 Dhaliwell voted in favor of blanket zoning, but on other occasions, depending on the issue, he has voted on the right side of the divide.

00:26:51.080 You know, he voted on climate emergency.

00:26:52.860 That's a pretty big telltale sign.

00:26:55.760 Not sure.

00:26:58.780 Okay.

00:27:00.360 I mean, it's just a good litmus test.

00:27:02.020 How did you vote on climate emergency?

00:27:04.160 Yeah.

00:27:05.000 All right, Ward 6.

00:27:07.360 What was it you said about this one?

00:27:09.060 No, what was it?

00:27:09.880 Dave said?

00:27:10.840 It's all Greek to me.

00:27:11.820 It's all Greek.

00:27:12.980 John Pantazopoulos.

00:27:17.760 Pantazopoulos.

00:27:18.680 Pantazopoulos. 1.00

00:27:19.560 Damn you Greeks. 1.00

00:27:21.300 Why do you have to have names like that? 1.00

00:27:23.880 I don't know, but he's got...

00:27:25.200 I like the Greeks, but God. 1.00

00:27:26.220 He's got a huge lead.

00:27:28.140 Yeah.

00:27:28.940 We're going to have to get used to spelling it because he's going to win.

00:27:31.800 Johnny P.

00:27:32.880 Johnny P.

00:27:33.840 There we go.

00:27:35.480 From Ward 6.

00:27:36.480 Pantazopoulos.

00:27:36.840 Johnny P.

00:27:38.500 Pantera.

00:27:40.640 All right.

00:27:41.380 Do you know anything about this guy's politics?

00:27:45.300 Panta?

00:27:46.020 Yeah.

00:27:46.280 Johnny P?

00:27:46.860 Yeah.

00:27:47.160 No.

00:27:47.680 No idea.

00:27:48.280 I didn't have a whole lot of time to get into all these people.

00:27:53.260 Okay.

00:27:54.620 But in that ward, there was only, that's interesting,

00:27:57.840 there was only one party on the ballot in that ward.

00:28:00.940 That's the Calgary party, the lefty party.

00:28:04.900 No ABC, no Communities First.

00:28:07.580 Um, Jeff Watson, actually, that's, that's interesting. He is a former member of parliament

00:28:12.860 from the Windsor area in Ontario. And he moved out here a number of years ago. Um, I think he

00:28:18.920 may have sought a UCP nomination at one point. I'm not positive. I think he sought a UCP nomination,

00:28:23.300 uh, unsuccessfully, uh, ran for council, uh, but obviously does not appear to, uh,

00:28:29.440 been successful he's running fourth uh okay award seven uh do two wongs make a right

00:28:39.680 uh terry wong the incumbent uh is behind mike atkinson by about 1400 but i don't know i mean

00:28:48.240 i think it's too close terry could come sternum back with all those postal account

00:28:52.800 yeah terry wong is interesting he's so he's so right now yeah we've got um

00:28:56.960 Yeah. Mike Atkinson. I don't know where that guy stands, but he's not with a party, but not too far behind. Terry Wong is the incumbent. He's an interesting guy. He came from the Wild Rose. He's been a Wild Rose candidate in previous, I think, at least one, I think two provincial elections. Not successful. He's running in a pretty urban liberal part of the city.

00:29:23.460 Yep. But he definitely did not seem to be like a Wild Rose member of the council. Like he was

00:29:31.380 pretty moderate. But he ran as the community's first candidate.

00:29:37.060 He's voted both sides of the spectrum depending on the issue. He's very vocal in council,

00:29:45.780 talks to administration probably more than any of the other councillors and digging and getting

00:29:51.540 information, and a lot of it is financial information. So he does a good job, I think.

00:29:57.320 Yeah. So, I mean, he's got a shot, but he's not leading right now. There's 17 out of 72.

00:30:05.760 That Ward's got a lot of polls, more than others that we've gone through so far. So he's still

00:30:11.760 got a shot of closing it, but he's trailing right now. Ward A, it's another interesting one. Again,

00:30:19.400 only one party on the ballot, Cornelia Weeb of Communities First, one of the conservative parties.

00:30:28.280 She is running a pretty close-ish second behind independent Nathaniel Schmidt. Do you know

00:30:36.920 anything about Nathaniel Schmidt? No party. No party, but Ward 8 is interesting. I think it's

00:30:43.000 one of the most interesting wardens in the city, because last year they returned Courtney Walcott,

00:30:48.600 decidedly the most left-wing member of council uh in ward 8 which includes some pretty pricey

00:30:55.320 neighborhoods as well as the belt line so it's it's really weird down there uh schmidt uh

00:31:01.240 independent i think he's probably a little bit on the left side but he also might be uh

00:31:08.920 a target for farkas to to join into the farkas group if it becomes one 0.92

00:31:17.640 In there was Gary Bobo. He was a global reporter, I think. He was a global reporter. He became

00:31:30.420 liberal. I think he was chief of staff for the liberal, the very morbid liberal party

00:31:34.600 for some time, which I thought was odd. I like Gary. He's left of me, but he's not an

00:31:41.340 insane liberal, I find. No, I think in this election, he gravitated a bit to the right

00:31:46.280 from where he was. If you look at his platform and stuff like that, he couldn't kill

00:31:52.540 upzoning the whole deal. He's gravitated more to the right. Yeah. He's running a respectable

00:31:59.540 third, but does not have a chance of catching up here. You know, if I was going to see kind

00:32:03.380 of a liberal-ish guy elected, I think Gary would have been good. I think he just, he cares about

00:32:07.400 the city. He gets it.

00:32:09.500 Seems to like talking to people.

00:32:11.600 And I always thought, even though he was

00:32:13.280 kind of a liberal reporter,

00:32:15.220 I always thought he was fair to me.

00:32:17.400 You know what? Kind of rare to see.

00:32:20.400 So,

00:32:21.480 that's too bad.

00:32:23.440 Shame on you, Ward 8.

00:32:26.680 Ward 9,

00:32:28.180 anybody's

00:32:29.600 guess. Two independents

00:32:31.380 there, and then tight, tight, tight.

00:32:34.240 Yeah, so

00:32:35.060 leading by a hair,

00:32:36.780 uh harrison clark no party affiliation uh just barely over gargar yes you got that right you

00:32:44.640 can see it up on the screen gargar g-a-r first name g-a-r last name uh squirt uh gargar uh hold

00:32:53.200 Hold on. I think this guy did.

00:33:03.620 I'm looking at looking this one up. I recognize that name.

00:33:06.460 I think he has run. Yeah, 2019.

00:33:10.840 He was the Alberta Party candidate, Calgary East riding.

00:33:14.960 And he ran in 2017 for council as well.

00:33:19.720 I knew I had seen his name before because like that, that's a name.

00:33:22.960 But Gargar is not his real last name, is it?

00:33:25.640 Gargar is not – there's another name at the end there somewhere.

00:33:28.920 I don't know.

00:33:29.860 On Elections Calgary, he's just listed as G-A-R, G-A-R.

00:33:34.320 Well, maybe I said that.

00:33:35.220 I mean –

00:33:35.900 Reminds me of Boutros – Boutros Calgary.

00:33:38.740 Yep.

00:33:40.100 I don't know what you're talking about.

00:33:41.200 Is this a old guy thing? 0.84

00:33:42.420 No, he's a former head of the UN.

00:33:46.340 It's the United Nations.

00:33:47.560 It's in New York.

00:33:48.840 Haven't heard of it.

00:33:49.480 Okay.

00:33:50.000 Okay.

00:33:50.240 Okay, so Gar-Gar. 0.92

00:33:54.240 Gar-Gar. 0.83

00:33:54.820 Running.

00:33:55.820 Go Gar-Gar. 1.00

00:33:56.680 He is running a really close second behind Harrison Clark.

00:34:02.740 Then the ABC party is running respectable third.

00:34:07.940 That's Tony Dinn?

00:34:10.300 D-I-N. 1.00

00:34:10.640 Tony Dinn, yep.

00:34:11.760 Dinn?

00:34:12.200 I don't know if I got that right.

00:34:14.760 Anyway, that ward, way too close to call.

00:34:19.360 and the two leading candidates are not affiliated with any party.

00:34:25.960 Ward 10, Andre Chabot, very long-time councillor.

00:34:31.000 Centerite, I think that's a solid call.

00:34:33.720 Chabot.

00:34:34.400 Yep, he's in.

00:34:35.820 Did you know he could spend most of the day walking around on his hands?

00:34:39.880 What?

00:34:40.500 He used to walk around on his hands at City Hall.

00:34:42.580 Then he had a heart attack and had to stop.

00:34:45.480 Is this a real thing?

00:34:46.600 Yeah.

00:34:47.360 You were City Hall reporter for the Sun?

00:34:49.240 I witnessed many times Andre on his hands.

00:34:52.380 I just didn't see that once this year.

00:34:54.520 No, I told you he had a bit of a heart issue and stopped,

00:34:58.980 stopped his performances.

00:35:02.500 Well, another one that we can definitely call Ward 11, Rob Ward,

00:35:07.420 who was actually briefly an employee here at the Western Standard.

00:35:13.380 Thumping lead 23 out of 70 polls reporting.

00:35:16.500 He's at 14,703 votes.

00:35:18.960 his next closest competitor and he so he and he's so he's communities first he's he's conservative

00:35:25.200 next closest competitor is independent courtney penner that's an incumbent to destroy an incumbent

00:35:31.600 that decisively she destroyed herself um yeah histrionics is her second name middle name um

00:35:41.920 she put on facebook i think it was last week she was crying her eyes out and said i never asked for

00:35:47.360 this i never asked for this i'm thinking do that in your bathroom but i think that hurt her massively 0.89

00:35:52.640 she also was crying uh when council shot down the development of glenmore landing when she came out

00:36:00.000 to the media scrum she's crying and talking about uh she couldn't believe council shot it down i

00:36:06.640 mean the density is ridiculous but she says she said well we've got all of these buses going by

00:36:13.280 the Glenmore Landing. We need people to put it on the buses. That was their whole thing about it.

00:36:20.320 Rob has been a community activist for many years now. He ran in the last election,

00:36:25.840 lost only by 800 votes. He's been around for a while, a member of the Sonia Sharp party,

00:36:34.800 but I think he's one that could probably find a way to work with Farkas.

00:36:39.600 yeah ward 12 uh sarah ferguson no uh prince and this is the closest one yeah this is uh the

00:36:52.020 closest one i think we've got sarah ferguson yeah she's at 4954 votes james mike jameson

00:36:59.840 4958 now that's conservative versus conservative uh so no no no no no she's oh no you're right

00:37:07.960 Yeah. Sarah Ferguson is Calgary party, left party, a better Calgary, which is, by some perceptions, the most conservative party for.

00:37:21.720 Oh, the ABC candidate leading by four votes. Yes.

00:37:25.140 leading four votes behind uh mike so mike jameson abc party leading by four freaking votes uh sarah

00:37:35.440 ferguson behind by four votes and then not too far behind uh i've known this guy a long time i

00:37:41.420 can't pronounce his last name shane uh bick bick yuk bishik bishik bishik i think that's it yeah

00:37:49.540 i should know i i've met the guy a couple times uh i don't know well but uh so he's a conservative

00:37:54.820 communities first, the Sonia 0.84

00:37:56.800 Sharp party.

00:37:58.960 It's close enough. He actually could

00:38:00.400 still win. I mean, there's a lot to come in that

00:38:02.820 ward. There's a whole lot to come in all the wards.

00:38:04.620 That's a three-way race in there.

00:38:06.900 And then an independent

00:38:07.920 Brent Curtis.

00:38:10.680 Pretty respectable 2,161

00:38:12.600 right now. Not going to win, but

00:38:14.620 I mean, there's a number of candidates

00:38:16.680 with some heft in that ward.

00:38:19.200 That is the least

00:38:20.760 callable ward of all of the wards right now.

00:38:22.800 I would think.

00:38:23.180 If anything's going to flip, it's going to be that one.

00:38:26.620 But it'd be interesting to see, because this one is the ABC party's best chance of electing a councillor.

00:38:33.760 Right now, at a party affiliate, you've got a lot of independents.

00:38:37.380 But then you've got Communities First, Centre-Right Party, Calgary Party, the Lefty Party.

00:38:43.920 They've elected, or are very likely, have got leading candidates, or are likely to elect people.

00:38:50.260 ABC didn't have incumbents, had no incumbents, right?

00:38:55.180 Whereas the other two parties did.

00:38:58.360 This is their best chance right here.

00:39:00.740 And if so, then you've got elected people from both parties on council.

00:39:04.740 We'll talk about the party system, how it's going to shake up after.

00:39:07.700 But that complicates things for the conservative side.

00:39:09.660 Both parties are elected to council.

00:39:14.960 Ward 13, Dan McLean of Communities First.

00:39:18.160 he's smashed it

00:39:20.580 he's been a pretty solid counselor

00:39:22.480 yeah I think so

00:39:23.880 he's not afraid to speak his mind

00:39:25.800 nope

00:39:27.220 especially on the phone

00:39:30.160 this is off the record Mike

00:39:31.440 but okay

00:39:32.720 no he's got that wrapped up

00:39:35.980 he is extremely popular down there

00:39:38.100 yeah

00:39:38.640 he's not too far south

00:39:40.880 he's barely south

00:39:42.960 he's southwest

00:39:43.540 and only two candidates

00:39:48.140 It's on the ballot there.

00:39:49.020 That's something.

00:39:51.400 And ABC could have definitely run a candidate there, but they didn't.

00:39:54.620 They liked Dan.

00:39:56.160 Yeah, and also I think they were just the –

00:39:58.500 McClain is so darn popular in that ward.

00:40:01.840 Better off not let him resign.

00:40:04.880 Yeah.

00:40:06.300 Okay, ward 14.

00:40:07.640 This is the last one.

00:40:09.860 A hero.

00:40:10.540 A hero in this city.

00:40:13.560 Landon Johnson.

00:40:15.100 He's the man who started the Get Gone Gone deck.

00:40:18.420 Recall.

00:40:18.920 Recall.

00:40:19.500 Recall.

00:40:20.080 Yeah.

00:40:20.780 Yeah.

00:40:21.440 And then the city had the audacity to invalidate every single signature he collected.

00:40:27.180 Yeah.

00:40:27.820 So it's good to see him in there.

00:40:29.240 He got his revenge.

00:40:30.440 Yes.

00:40:31.180 Yep.

00:40:32.180 Landon's revenge.

00:40:33.800 That's a heavy.

00:40:35.720 We should write a piece on that.

00:40:36.800 Landon's revenge.

00:40:37.600 I like that.

00:40:38.800 Yeah.

00:40:39.900 And he is not affiliated with a party, but he is most definitely a conservative.

00:40:43.900 Oh, yeah.

00:40:44.480 The ABC party had a candidate there.

00:40:49.120 Kenner Hatchie, if I said that right.

00:40:53.460 And then the Calgary party, Ryan Stutt or Stute.

00:40:58.900 There's no K-N, Stute, but two T's.

00:41:02.940 But he's pretty far out ahead.

00:41:05.860 I think it's, oh, and then there's Aaron Averbuka.

00:41:12.740 I don't know.

00:41:13.760 But he's pretty far out ahead.

00:41:15.280 I'd say it's going to be unlikely anyone catches up to him.

00:41:18.560 He's likely coming on, and he's not affiliated with the party,

00:41:21.460 but he's pretty rock-solid conservative.

00:41:25.160 Oh, yeah, very.

00:41:26.380 Who knows?

00:41:27.700 We'll have to see the way he shakes out,

00:41:28.880 but he may end up being the most conservative guy on council.

00:41:35.680 Okay, well, let's talk about the party system here.

00:41:38.120 There's three parties.

00:41:39.760 Calgary Party, the left, center-left party,

00:41:43.220 Communities First

00:41:45.420 which ranges from

00:41:46.460 maybe even very moderate center left

00:41:49.640 to

00:41:50.320 the right

00:41:52.040 and then you've got

00:41:54.560 it's kind of a progressive conservative-ish

00:41:57.420 party, but it's got people on the right in it

00:41:59.340 but it's got people who are definitely not conservative as well

00:42:01.680 it doesn't seem to have any far left

00:42:03.700 it has no gone back types

00:42:04.920 but it's got people on the left

00:42:06.620 Terry Wong

00:42:08.460 can vote with the left side

00:42:10.900 he's done that before, so there's an example

00:42:12.940 Yeah. Then you got ABC, a better Calgary. I had no incumbents, so it's less of an established party, but which is more consistently conservative.

00:42:26.340 By party affiliation, it looks like a majority of the council, including the mayor, is likely to be nonpartisan, but they'll have their own leadings.

00:42:36.540 But ABC is, sorry, Communities First is definitely going to have elected councillors.

00:42:40.520 Calgary Party is definitely going to have elected councillors.

00:42:43.780 ABC looks like it's got a good chance, a reasonable chance of one, but it's separated by four votes.

00:42:49.120 May or may not.

00:42:51.540 Then you've got Independence on the left and the right.

00:42:54.840 You know, we were just talking about Landon Johnson.

00:42:57.600 Very conservative, not affiliated with the party.

00:43:00.300 I've always thought it's going to take a couple elections for clear party system.

00:43:05.580 to develop. Yeah, I think so. I think it will. Farkas, if Farkas keeps his win here,

00:43:12.760 the mayor not being of a party complicates the development, I think, of this because

00:43:17.120 it's kind of, I don't know, do you think it's in his interest to form a party? He ran as like,

00:43:22.100 I'm going to keep parties out of city hall, stop us, party takeover. If you think about it,

00:43:27.280 and I wrote this about Gondek was the de facto leader of an unofficial party that I'm

00:43:35.560 i'm sure that they sat down in a board room somewhere and said okay this we're all together

00:43:39.800 on these issues let's do that uh practice could do that very easily with with the independents

00:43:45.080 and and the conservatives even maybe some calgary party people i don't know uh i it's it's the door

00:43:51.800 is open for him to do that yeah and he'll have you know his first week in office he'll have sit down

00:43:57.720 private chit chats with all of them yeah and uh you know start laying the groundwork for whatever

00:44:02.600 needs. Do you think it's in his interest, Dave, to stay as nonpartisan as he can? Ideologically,

00:44:11.800 at least now, he's not on the hard left or the hard right of the council. He's probably kind of,

00:44:17.240 again, the council is so up in the air, but he's likely to be, relatively speaking,

00:44:21.320 in the middle ideologically of the council. And municipal issues are not as straightforward

00:44:25.960 ideological as at the provincial and at the federal level. No, he's got a couple years

00:44:30.840 to figure it out he's got four years in power so he wins and you know derek that's the thing that

00:44:36.600 confused everybody in this election was communities calgary better calgary nobody knew what it all

00:44:42.440 stood for all of those parties could disappear right and then we start you know a year into the

00:44:49.480 before the next election we start getting new different parties coming up and to confuse

00:44:54.920 everybody again so i think yeah i think uh jeremy's best play at this point is to stay independent

00:45:01.160 yep yeah uh my my favorite name of a political party in canada was a municipal party in vancouver

00:45:08.280 the non-partisan association party i'm like yes we're the non-party party but it was i think i

00:45:14.920 think it wasn't it was kind of a conservative party they called it so the non-partisan association i

00:45:19.720 I mean, it was kind of, it was pretty goofy names.

00:45:23.280 All these municipal parties have such generic, bland names.

00:45:27.840 I think it was a mistake for the, you know, when the UCP brought in the right of, at least

00:45:32.740 in Calgary and Edmonton, to form political parties.

00:45:34.840 I think they should have allowed them to use the names like conservative and liberal.

00:45:38.040 I think they should have.

00:45:39.000 I think they just didn't want there to be brand confusion in the event that like, okay,

00:45:42.000 there's a conservative nominated for mayor or councillor somewhere, and they say something

00:45:46.240 embarrassing.

00:45:46.940 They don't want it to reflect on them.

00:45:48.700 Yeah, I think it was brand protection. I think that's the reason. But it also then just confused everything.

00:45:53.680 It did. And people are busy. They don't have time to go, OK, is this ABC party left or right or middle or what?

00:46:01.100 And it also comes down to how many people even knew there were parties in the electorate.

00:46:08.120 Don't know. Don't know. I think the bottom line is that if the political parties were a car, they're all on flat tires right now.

00:46:18.700 that's a very nice metaphor i i think the most likely thing to happen is farkas stays

00:46:25.660 likely without a party but i think the two conservative parties likely coalesce into a

00:46:32.140 single party either one just becomes hyper dominant takes over the other one are you

00:46:36.540 talking about conservatives conservatives don't get along with each other yes but they tend also

00:46:41.900 to merge those two parties were fighting from day one right right up until yesterday but it was

00:46:48.540 it was more personal one had the incumbents one didn't um you know so if you if you end up with

00:46:54.700 that one abc candidate winning and then you've got say three maximum four communities first

00:47:02.380 well maybe even more i don't know but let's say there's three to four communities first

00:47:05.980 counselors and then there's one abc and then you've got independent clearly conservative guys

00:47:11.580 like Glenda Johnson,

00:47:15.320 like, they're going to form a block

00:47:17.480 because we've, and the council always

00:47:19.500 has its blocks, and then there's people in the

00:47:21.580 middle. I think it's likely that

00:47:23.320 Communities First, ABC, and then some of the

00:47:25.480 clear conservative independents

00:47:27.480 like Glenda Johnson,

00:47:29.820 they'll begin probably forming

00:47:31.360 as a block, and then eventually, you know, they're going to get

00:47:33.400 to know each other. They're going to go for beers

00:47:35.300 after council meetings.

00:47:38.020 I think these guys are,

00:47:39.340 I think by next time,

00:47:40.380 you're going to have a more clear

00:47:42.980 left party, you're going to have a more clear right

00:47:45.020 party, and then you're still going to have independents

00:47:46.820 in the middle, and maybe even on the flanks too.

00:47:49.560 But I predict

00:47:51.080 there's not going to be two major organized

00:47:53.200 conservative parties by the next municipal election.

00:47:55.300 I tend to agree with that, yeah, because they're going to

00:47:57.080 have four years now to identify

00:47:59.500 by their votes.

00:48:02.300 And they go,

00:48:03.080 look, we're all voting for the same thing, the same way.

00:48:05.160 Let's quit this and get together.

00:48:07.200 Yeah. I think that's likely.

00:48:09.000 Maybe we can get Jason Kennedy to sort of mediate between them.

00:48:12.540 He's not doing anything.

00:48:13.820 That's a good idea.

00:48:16.780 Yeah.

00:48:18.700 I guess I think it's going to be a natural way of doing it here.

00:48:22.800 And it's a less adversarial system than in a legislature.

00:48:25.860 Derek, there's nothing natural about Calgary City Council.

00:48:29.820 Poor choice of words.

00:48:31.520 Poor choice of words.

00:48:32.780 Yeah.

00:48:34.920 All right, Mike.

00:48:35.960 After all, both of you have the same question.

00:48:38.840 You're both really long-time City Hall watchers.

00:48:40.880 You watch it closer than I do.

00:48:42.220 You're our City Hall columnist.

00:48:43.640 You were City Hall editor for the Calgary Sun before coming to the Standard as our news editor.

00:48:49.820 So I'll start with you, Dave.

00:48:54.900 Council's still such a mess, but we can, on the aggregate, predict.

00:48:58.280 We have a good idea of the mayor's race.

00:49:00.980 How much better off are we, do you think, with this mayor and council?

00:49:04.120 Oh, 100%.

00:49:05.120 100%.

00:49:06.400 Big improvement.

00:49:07.000 Big improvement.

00:49:08.000 Gondek was, you know, there's a reason she was the worst polling mayor in Calgary history. 0.97

00:49:13.880 She was awful.

00:49:16.460 You know, it could take Farkas four years to undo the damage that she's done. 0.76

00:49:24.200 So, yeah, you know, we can argue about whether Farkas leans a little bit to the left or leans a little bit to the right.

00:49:30.620 Bottom line is he's not Jody Gondek, and it cannot get any worse from here on out.

00:49:36.360 Before I go to you, Mike, just the commenters. God, I hate Jason Kenney. That Kenney joke wasn't funny at all.

00:49:46.920 Don't make fun of Kenney.

00:49:48.260 Well, I guess I've learned my lesson.

00:49:50.320 Yeah. I don't take not much appetite for that.

00:49:54.320 Okay. So, yeah, Mike, same question to you. Again, a council we really don't know.

00:49:59.320 mayor we probably know but you know cats we have an idea uh on aggregate based on what we know

00:50:06.400 how much better off are we well i think we're much better off but go back to uh 2021 when

00:50:13.780 all those new faces were put on council it's basically the same thing i think gondek sat

00:50:19.460 down with them early and said here's uh i understand your politics the same as mine

00:50:23.580 here's what we're going to do and they they just did it she she got away with all that stuff because 1.00

00:50:28.000 she knew she was going to have the support on council.

00:50:31.180 This one, I think, it really depends.

00:50:34.480 I mean, if Forrest gets the crown,

00:50:36.640 it really depends on how he treats everybody,

00:50:39.940 not just the left or the right.

00:50:43.120 He's got to, I think, sit down with all of them one-on-one

00:50:46.180 and say, these are the important things that this city needs.

00:50:49.860 This is what the people need.

00:50:51.260 So let's just stay in that lane

00:50:53.220 and just try to fix things in this city.

00:50:58.000 Okay, he needs to find seven allies.

00:51:01.080 Yep.

00:51:01.520 I think he should have an easy time doing that.

00:51:03.260 I mean, he's a nice, he's an easy-to-get-along-with guy.

00:51:08.540 He's less stridently ideological than he was four years ago.

00:51:15.060 And I think also just his rhetoric is not like, you know, he was the leader of the opposition against Nenshi.

00:51:25.320 He is the reason Nenshi did not stand for re-election.

00:51:29.140 Kind of comes back to Gondek losing here.

00:51:32.220 No incumbent elected mayor in Calgary has lost since 1980 when Ralph Klein took down Ross Elger.

00:51:40.600 All right, you all guys remember that.

00:51:41.940 I wasn't warned.

00:51:44.000 You're older than me just so well.

00:51:45.780 Oh, I'm old now too.

00:51:48.180 You're in your fifth decade now.

00:51:51.900 Sorry, hot mic.

00:51:53.580 Hot mic.

00:51:54.460 Um, so yeah, I'm, um, but yeah, 1980, 45 years ago, the last time a mayor who has been elected

00:52:05.040 has been defeated in a Calgary election, a real incumbent, uh, the last time an incumbent mayor

00:52:10.660 went down to third place. Um, I'm going to look that up. I will go in here. Uh,

00:52:15.820 so did you watch the game last night i did okay well just trying to fill the air well yeah oh

00:52:29.980 okay you want to talk about baseball now what do you think the chances are beating the dodgers

00:52:34.220 Slim to none. Slim just left town. Oh my God. In the history of Calgary, no incumbent mayor has

00:52:50.780 ever finished third or lower. This is the worst result for an incumbent Calgary mayor. It's only

00:52:57.660 giving me back to 1951 they didn't have google up before that yeah we would have the results

00:53:06.380 they should be there i think we've got okay here we go western standard award the gondek award for

00:53:11.100 worst oh my god re-elected re-elect calgary mayors always get it's just the same guys over and over

00:53:18.940 they always get re-elected yeah a lot to be said about name recognition on the ballot okay oh yeah

00:53:24.780 Jody Gondek, tentatively here, I'm going to have to do a little more here, but this could be wrong,

00:53:30.460 but it appears she has the biggest defeat in the history of Calgary mayor's races going back to 1894,

00:53:42.080 Calgary's first mayoral election.

00:53:44.360 You remember that, eh, Mike?

00:53:45.720 I do. 0.89

00:53:45.980 You were just a cum reporter back then? 0.96

00:53:47.260 I was. 0.96

00:53:47.660 I was still in diapers, but I was still reporting.

00:53:50.180 You were the paper boy.

00:53:51.840 You were still delivering.

00:53:52.900 Yeah.

00:53:53.640 Yeah.

00:53:53.960 Well, you know what?

00:53:54.560 she was historically low in the polls so she's finished historically low in an election so calgary

00:54:00.960 mayors incumbent mayors uh they tend to stay popular for whatever whatever reason and then

00:54:06.080 when they cease being popular they cease being a candidate for re-election that's that's the key

00:54:11.440 that's the secret sauce they retire you know rock klein okay he goes on to bigger better things

00:54:16.320 but if you get unpopular you just don't run again like that's the secret sauce that's the biggest

00:54:21.280 reason Calgary mayors

00:54:22.800 incumbent mayors don't lose

00:54:25.140 Nenshi was very unpopular

00:54:27.640 when he said

00:54:29.380 he was not going to run again

00:54:30.320 I know the Farkas camp was not happy 1.00

00:54:33.200 when Nenshi said he was not running again

00:54:34.880 yeah sure it felt good okay he's gone but

00:54:36.540 then you get a fresh face on

00:54:39.220 kind of the same

00:54:40.320 political side of things you know it's like

00:54:42.540 kind of replacing Trudeau

00:54:43.980 Gondek was

00:54:47.200 the first who

00:54:48.940 I guess

00:54:49.980 didn't see the writing on the wall and like there was decent there was other people who could could

00:54:54.980 have run carried the left banner mildly competently maybe someone else bigger would have stepped up

00:54:59.900 without her because she her staying in the race meant it was harder for the left to wait because 0.65

00:55:04.000 the left has traditionally been pretty united in calgary mayoral elections absolutely they were

00:55:08.480 not united here uh her staying in the race meant that it didn't make sense for another big name 0.99

00:55:13.720 lefty to really get into the race uh she stayed in and it's now cost them the mayor's chair 1.00

00:55:20.180 Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right.

00:55:21.300 She did not see the writing on the wall or didn't believe it.

00:55:25.000 Everyone saw it.

00:55:27.240 Well, she was thinking that the right vote was going to split and she could sneak up the middle again.

00:55:32.060 That's what she was hoping for.

00:55:33.160 The right vote did split, but her vote was so damn small it didn't count. 0.70

00:55:38.580 So I guess, you know, there's just a few good news stories here.

00:55:42.140 The biggest is the contact's gone.

00:55:44.160 Second is that she lost historically.

00:55:47.780 historically like this is the biggest defeat for an incumbent mayor in the history of the city

00:55:57.540 i love the smell of me palm in the morning

00:56:01.460 okay um any other uh big takeaways you want to leave people with before we wrap it uh just one

00:56:08.180 um i know sonia if she was going to be the mayor was going to take on administration and having 1.00

00:56:16.580 watched my share of council meetings this year um something needs to be done inside administration

00:56:24.180 to make them understand they're not the boss um they they do things i mean a lot of this woke

00:56:31.860 dei stuff was endorsed by administration the dan mcclain tells me stories of of some of the internal

00:56:39.300 learning systems and sessions they have to go through but administration needs to be put in

00:56:43.940 this place and and if farkas or can can put that together and put the onus on council to make the

00:56:51.220 big decisions rather than them just approving administration's decisions because essentially

00:56:57.860 that's all they do uh but the council needs to to take more control of city hall dave any uh

00:57:07.940 well first thing i'd like to see uh mayor farkas is uh change the name of fort calgary back to fort

00:57:13.060 i asked him about that on the interview he said uh he spoke to some you know indigenous groups

00:57:20.820 they said they take it as a declaration of war uh i don't know i mean it's fort calgary it's

00:57:28.020 it's the nucleus of this great city um i mean that would be a really i like who the hell no

00:57:35.300 one was calling for that no one was like i don't know anyone who was saying yes fort calgary's

00:57:41.620 racist. We need to get rid of Fort Calgary

00:57:44.120 and make it the confluence.

00:57:45.460 No one cares about the confluence.

00:57:47.820 Yeah, I think that would be nice.

00:57:49.040 That would be a good opening day statement.

00:57:51.020 That would be huge. Not hopeful, but hey,

00:57:53.400 there you go. Jeremy, if you're listening,

00:57:55.980 Fort Calgary.

00:57:57.780 Yeah, I think it would send a

00:57:59.500 very good message about revitalizing

00:58:01.640 some pride in this city, because this city's been

00:58:03.420 really battered, not just over the last

00:58:05.400 four years. The city's

00:58:07.420 really gone downhill for

00:58:09.320 some time now, and

00:58:11.400 restoring some civic pride i think that's a good easy way and it doesn't cost the taxpayer a penny

00:58:17.680 nope you can put the old signs back up reuse them okay well uh we're not going to abuse everyone's

00:58:24.980 time uh some of you have jobs uh so uh so do we yeah we yeah we got we got to get back to work

00:58:32.180 and get back to our normal parts of our jobs got to fix the election i mean um all right well stay

00:58:37.880 tuned uh the council race is still a dog's breakfast by the way i don't know if we mentioned

00:58:42.920 this but just so people know they're saying elections calgary is saying council numbers

00:58:48.520 probably won't be known until eight o'clock tonight well that'll be the closest races

00:58:54.200 there'll be others that we can continue to call throughout the day there's some we've already

00:58:57.560 called uh so you know let's stay on top of that we'll do individual stories for each of the wards

00:59:02.760 as we call them i think that's a good idea here because they're not getting called all at once

00:59:06.520 and we'll continue to post news stories as we are able to reasonably make the calls.

00:59:16.420 Some of them are going to be so damn close, we're going to have to wait for the end

00:59:19.460 and they might still have recounts themselves.

00:59:22.540 So, you know, the latest unofficial results, 8 o'clock tonight.

00:59:26.440 But there'll be ones we can call throughout the day.

00:59:28.300 Yes, yeah.

00:59:30.000 Okay, well, we don't want to abuse your time.

00:59:32.060 You guys get back to work, earn some money, pay your taxes.

00:59:36.520 if you feel like it. Thank you very much for joining us today. God bless.

Western Standard - October 22, 2025

Farkas defeats Gondek： Calgary Elections 2025

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