FILDEBRANDT： The unions bought city hall
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Summary
Jodi Gondak is Calgary s new mayor-elect. She largely represents a continuation of Nahid Nenshi s purple reign that has led the city s council and government since 2010. But there are hopeful signs that, personality-wise, she has less of the outgoing mayor s Jupiter-size ego and petulance.
Transcript
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I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. Jodi Gondak is Calgary's new mayor-elect.
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She largely represents a continuation of Nahid Nenshi's purple reign that has led the city's
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council and government since 2010, although there are hopeful signs that personality-wise,
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she has less of the outgoing mayor's Jupiter-size ego and petulance. Gondak's victory means not
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only that Jeremy Farkas will not be the mayor, but that he will no longer continue in his role as the
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unofficial leader of the opposition. The size of the Conservative bloc on council may end up
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relatively similar to its pre-election makeup, but its influence will be much diminished.
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In addition to Farkas, the Conservative bloc has lost Joe Meglioca, and while Sean Chu has won the
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day, his scandal involving a minor in 1997 continues to deepen. CTV is reporting salacious new details,
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that could make his continuation in that position untenable. Chu denied the allegations in an
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exclusive interview with the Western Standard, but more evidence will be needed to be produced
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one way or another to determine who's really telling the truth. The jury is still very much out on this
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one. Adding to the Conservative bloc, however, is Terry Wong, who replaced one of the most stridently
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leftist members of the council, Drew Farrell, as well as Dan McLean, who unseated Weathervane incumbent
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Diane Cully Urquhart. Centre-right former councillor André Chauveau also returns to council,
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as does the swing vote Peter de Maung, who was the only incumbent with no union candidate endorsed
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against him. Taken together, the Union bloc, the Conservative bloc, will likely be made up of four
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councillors, if Chu can hang on. If they can sway De Maung, they can make up five votes on the council,
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soaking wet, well short of the eight votes needed to win a majority on any given issue.
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The Union super PAC, Calgary's future, swept the table. Their candidates took the Mayor's chair,
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eight council seats, although their leftist bloc will likely be joined by non-union endorsed Richard
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Poopmans. That brings the Union progressive bloc to ten votes on the city council. Ten union
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progressives, four Conservatives, and one swing. It's a clean sweep that puts Calgary on a course
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for a more interventionist government for at least the next four years, and with Calgary's tendency to
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re-elect municipal incumbents at perpetuity, potentially much longer. Could Jeremy Farkas have won?
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It's always an error to add up the votes of the also-ran candidates and just add their total to
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the runner-up as if a party or a candidate has any kind of ownership over them. But let's just do it
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for the sake of hypotheticals anyway, shouldn't we? Since well before the official campaign period
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kicked off, Jeremy Farkas was the clear Conservative standard bearer for the Mayor's chair. He led the
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Conservative bloc on council, sometimes as a vote of just one on some of the more controversial issues.
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He led every single poll in the race until the very end, and other center-right-ish candidates
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never came close to catching him. On election night, he polled 30% of the vote to Gondek's 45%.
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Jeff Davison ran the mold of a business Conservative, promising a more enterprise-friendly environment,
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but to not go to war with the city's administration. The card-carrying Conservative polled a respectable 13%
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on election night. Similarly, Bradfield ran a semi-conservative, business-friendly campaign,
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pulling down 5% of the vote. Together, the 18% of the vote earned by these two candidates could
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theoretically have put Farkas over the top. Of course, that's bad math. Just that the Federal Tories have
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no right to the votes of PPC voters, or the Federal Liberals have no right to the votes of the NDP or
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Greens. Farkas has no inherent right to the votes of Davidson and Field. The only people with a right
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to someone's vote are voters themselves. But it is worth asking why there were three credible
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center-to-right candidates on the ballot, but only one credible left progressive. In the absence of a
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municipal party system, big-money PACs have filled the void, effectively picking candidates with their
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war chest. On the union progressive side, Calgary's future had an incredible $1.7 million dollars to
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spend on its slate, effectively clearing the field of nuisance progressives for the clear front runners
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to emerge for the mayor's chair. And in most wards, progressives like former Federal Liberal
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Cabinet Minister Kent Hare saw the writing on the wall soon after he declared. This effectively
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consolidated the vote behind a single candidate, allowing them to stand out from the PAC in 10 of
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the 14 races win. The conservative side of the fight was much less clean cut. There was no single
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dominating super PAC able to effectively bankroll a slate of candidates and clear the field. Until very
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late in the game, big business and conservative establishment were hesitant to get behind Farkas.
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He may have been a conservative, but he was not their man. Farkas was a libertarian who hailed from
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the old Wild Rose Party and a protege of Preston Manning. He opposed major corporate welfare projects
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that are often supported by much of the bigger business community. They tended to prefer more
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moderate conservatives, less likely to throw a hand grenade into the city council chamber. But Farkas had
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built up enough public profile and locked in a solid base of support before the conservative
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establishment could anoint their own candidate. As reported in a Western Standard exclusive one year
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ago, a party insider told us that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney himself was on the hunt for a more
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amenable conservative mayoral candidate whose name was not Jeremy Farkas. The usual Tory establishment
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voices pleading for unity and to not split the vote were seldom to be heard beseeching Davidson and
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Field to get behind Farkas. The outsized role of union money in the campaign is curious. Not so much
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because they tried and succeeded in buying a majority on council to sign their contracts,
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but because it was allowed to happen at all. The Alberta UCP government introduced stiff new
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legislation curtailing the ability of unions to collect money from their members for use in political
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purposes without their direct consent. The legislation would require unions to obtain the sign-off
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of individual union members to opt into using their dues for political activity rather than just
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spending it without their consent as has historically been the case. Most curiously,
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Kenney never proclaimed the legislation into law even though it has long passed through all stages of
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the legislative assembly. The union bosses took notice and raised more money than ever for their
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slate of candidates. In the place of political parties running our civic elections, Calgarians have woken up
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to a council bought and paid for by government unions. Who is to blame is a debate that is going to need to be
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a 편중ic-evil people as well towards the right of the administration. He had an eldest.