HANNAFORD： Do Calgary's new councillors have it in them to repeal open zoning？
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Summary
In this week's show, Western Standard editor-in-at-large candidate Patrick Polyerve joins the show to talk about the election of a new mayor and council in Calgary, Alberta's capital city, and why he thinks things have shifted on the political spectrum.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
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of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, October the 23rd. In Alberta, we've just had municipal
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and school board elections, and we see a lot of new faces. But in Edmonton and Calgary, at least,
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to me, it doesn't look like the political center of gravity has changed much. But I could be wrong.
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Here with me tonight is somebody who will know, Patrick Polyerve, who for the past four years was
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a political staffer in Calgary City Hall. Welcome, Patrick. Good to be here, Nigel. So look, Patrick,
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first thing people are going to want to know, Polyerve, are you part of that family?
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Proud to say that I am. Yes, indeed, I'm Pierre Polyerve's brother, and grew up with him in South
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Calgary here. All right. Well, thank you, Patrick. Thought we better lay that out right away. Patrick,
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after all the outrage around zoning, I was expecting a revolution. But it was a low turnout. What was
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it, sort of 30% something? 30 wasn't 40%. That's not a revolution. That's not outraged taxpayers coming
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forward and saying, we demand change. And up in Edmonton, where they face the same things,
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we got a new mayor who calls himself center-left. Andrew Knack is his name. I don't know much about
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him. But at any rate, in Edmonton, that's who they chose. Probably no surprise there.
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Well, Nigel, I feel like that has yet to be seen. You know, we have, we've got a new mayor here in
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Calgary, pending a recount, of course. And, you know, Jeremy Farkas, I think, has stated from what
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I've heard, that he doesn't want to define himself as right or left. He wants to work with other
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councillors and, and see what he can get accomplished for the city of Calgary.
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Yeah. Well, I mean, I certainly hope not. You know, from what I've seen from Jeremy in the past,
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he's taken principled stands on some issues at personal cost. And we'll see if he has the
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ability to work together. And there has been a bit of a reputation from his last term on council,
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where he was sort of opposed from, from the majority. And from my view, that's not necessarily
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a bad thing. If the majority is wrong, I'd like to see someone show leadership and oppose them.
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So we'll see what, what comes from Jeremy. He's going to have some work to do. He's got a lot of
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new councillors. Um, 10 of this, uh, 10 members of this council are brand new and, uh, have never
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been on council before. So he certainly got some work to do to get, uh, council working with them.
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Now, when you're looking at, uh, I mean, in Edmonton, it's a left-wing city. You get a left-wing
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council. You, you, you get a left-wing MP, you get a left-wing MLA. We kind of know what, roughly what
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the gain is up there, but Calvary still thinks it's conservative, even though it hasn't really
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elected a conservative council for, for what, uh, 15 years, nearly. Uh, these are on, you just said,
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these are an unknown quantity. These new aldermen, I'm sorry, councillors, these new councillors,
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we don't, 10 of them, we really don't know very much about at all. But what's your sense? Has
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there been a little bit of a, an ideological shift on council? Well, I can say, you know,
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for a generation now, Calgary has failed to elect the conservative council. And, and you can see the
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reasoning for that when you have a turnout in the mid thirties here, like we, we seem to have had
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this election. And, uh, it, it seems the people who are most likely to turn out are those who have
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a vested interest in, in who's elected, uh, such as the public service workers in the city of Calgary,
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they'd show up in much larger numbers than the average. And I think that's why we end up having,
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uh, a more left leaning council than what's reflected in the wider public. So, um, when it
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comes to has, have things shifted at city hall, I would certainly say they have, uh, last election,
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we on day one probably had 12 or 13 councillors who were leaning towards the left of the spectrum.
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Whereas in this council, it seems we have a pretty even mix on day one here. And I do think things
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shifted over the term of this prior council where we had five or six who were voting in a more sensible
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direction closer to the end of the term. Uh, but from day one, you know, we had 13,
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14 people declare a climate emergency on day one. So I think that shows the ideological leanings of
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the people who were elected. What's the chances of seeing that turned over?
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Seeing which turned over? Uh, well, you know, make one of the first orders of business to
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take away the climate emergency, which is kind of farcical. And there's a few other things that,
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like, uh, renaming Fort Calgary and so on, which could be undone by council that wanted to
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show that new people are running it with new ideas. Right. You know, I, I certainly hope that,
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uh, the current council would consider rescinding the climate emergency in the near future. It's,
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it's not something a lot of people discussed on the campaign. I do think the first order of business
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is going to be the rezoning. They're going to get to that quickly and, uh, we'll see if they can get
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the 10 votes required to overturn it. Um, but these, these other issues that most Calgarians
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were shocked to see happen, especially then renaming a Fort Calgary. And, um, you know,
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we, we, we had some other bonkers suggestions throughout the term as well, cancelling Canada
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day fireworks and single use plastics bands and things like that. And some have already been
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overturned, but I certainly would like to see them resend that climate emergency as soon as possible.
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Coming back to what you were saying about people having a direct and vested interest in the outcome
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of the election. And you, you said, well, obviously the city workers do understood,
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but truly every person who owns property in this city, or for that matter, even who rents property
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in the city, because in the end, the rent reflects the, uh, taxes, uh, every one of us has got a vested
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interest. Why do you think that property owners do not come out in greater numbers to say, put a stop
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to the overspending, put a stop to the stupid programs, you know, um, let's, let's have a more
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sensibly run, not a conservative right wing fascist, uh, uh, council, but let's just make decisions that
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are sensible. Right. Well, you know, I think the number one takeaway from this election is that the
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city of Calgary and the previous council has failed the electorate. Uh, we have, uh, the highest voter apathy,
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probably in the country here, having only a turnout in the mid thirties. And, and that is after such a
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disastrous term on council. So it's not that people don't think that their city council matters. It's
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more so that they didn't see anything or hear anything, um, that would reflect a positive change
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in that direction. We had a lot of campaigns saying the same things. Uh, we didn't really have anyone
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coming forward with a drastic overhaul, um, plan, a clear step-by-step plan of how we're going to change
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things. And I found that the, that lack of a, you know, sort of courageous leadership showing a clear,
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distinct, uh, change in position from your opponents is why we didn't have people showing
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up in large numbers. Now, Patrick, what would it, uh, if you were courageous, if you were a courageous,
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newly elected councilor on the city of Calgary, what would be the courageous approach to reforming?
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I have a feeling it's not just the, the city councilors, there's something else you've got to
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change. Well, I mean, having worked the last four years at city hall, uh, I was lucky enough to work
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for my home warden ward 13 for counselor, Dan McLean. And what I, how does he do by the way?
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Dan did exceptional, very residents of ward 13. We're very happy with the performance over the last
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four years. And, uh, great staff work. It has to be that. Right. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Sorry.
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Now carry on. No. And I, I really thought counselor McLean was one of the top performers on council
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the last four years. He's one of the people who was willing to listen to his constituents,
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uh, vote on their behalf and work hard to ensure that when, when residents were in contact with us,
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that we, uh, made the changes needed within the community that we could, uh, to, to, uh, listen to,
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to residents and, and deal with their concerns effectively. So I think, you know, ward 13
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residents spoke loud and clear that that was the case. Good. Coming back to the point though,
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that we were my fault, we got off track. Uh, I do this all the time. Uh, look, um, you're a courageous
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alderman, you're courageous counselor. You've just been elected and you're going to make a difference
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in city hall. What's assuming that you could even get some people to work with you. What's the
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first big obstacle that you're going to run up against? Well, I mean, the number one thing we
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need to change at the city of Calgary is the leadership, right? And the leadership comes from,
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you are the leadership. Well, you're the courageous newly elected counselor. Sadly, in recent years,
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the leadership has not come from council and the leadership has come from, uh, the chief administrative
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officer of the city. That's the leader. That's, that's the person who probably has more power than
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anybody around city hall, even more than the mayor or city council. And that's the thing I think that
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needs to change. Council needs to wrestle back control, control of the budget, control of departments
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and become more responsive to residents. What's happened at city hall here is we have essentially
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a firewall in the 311 system where residents can't even get in touch with their elected officials,
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can't get in touch with the departments that they need to talk to when it comes to their roads and
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parks and services. And that's what needs to change. I don't understand why we have to
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interface at the computer system or a phone banking system of people who don't even actually half the
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time, probably aren't even in the city of Calgary. Uh, whereas we should, when we used to be able to
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get in touch with our local representatives, you know, a lot of these offices are not even responding
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to their constituents over the four years. I'd hear that from other wards, uh, residents who are
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frustrated, they'd send emails into their city council or they're not getting a response. Uh, they submit
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311 requests that just summarily get closed without action or attention. Uh, that's unacceptable.
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These are things that need to change in the city of Calgary. And I find it's the culture.
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There's a culture of, uh, you know, uh, essentially the not serving the residents that's, that's
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developed in the city of Calgary. And I think the leadership on council, uh, need to wrestle that
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back and say, no, we're here to serve the public. Well, now you worked for, you worked for Dan McLean.
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You had an office. Right. That office had a phone number. Right. So if somebody in Ward 13
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had a pothole, they could phone that number and you would answer. Right. And you would say,
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hey, can you better take this one? Right. And he would take it. So how, how is it, what,
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what do you mean when you say that you can't get hold of your elected representative? Well,
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I can, I can tell you in Ward 13, you could, right. Our office, you know, we operated in that
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fashion where we wanted to be responsive to residents. Um, I can't speak for other offices,
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but I do know that, that we would hear from residents from other wards saying, I can't get
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a hold of my city councilor. They won't respond to me. Uh, more troubling is actually when people are
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trying to get in touch with administration for assistance with work in the ward. Now,
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unfortunately from the ward office, we can't patch a pothole, right? We can't mow the grass. Uh, we can
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certainly try and get in touch with administration on the residents behalf. And that's something we did
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throughout our term and struggled greatly to get things done. Um, there's, there's something off
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with the services at the city of Calgary. And we'd hear from numerous residents who'd submit 311s,
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uh, and never hear back. There'd be no response. There'd be no work done. And the resident would be
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left wondering what, where did my request go? What happened to it? Well, let me tell you a quick story.
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And you tell me whether this is typical or I was, you know, lucky or, or what, where I live,
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going for a walk one day with the dog, I see somebody is backed into a road sign,
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regular city property road sign. There it is laying on the ground. I sort of watched and watched for
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about six weeks and nobody came to do anything about it. So I eventually did what I've just suggested.
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I got hold of my local councillor and, uh, he said, Oh yeah, really? No kidding. Send me a picture.
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Oh yeah. Road signs down, isn't it? Um, another week went by and pickup truck
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came by pickup truck. Keep that in mind. Somebody gets out, takes a look, clearly a city manager or
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an employee in the, in, in the line of command is confirming that there is indeed a road sign down.
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Right. Didn't throw it in the pickup and take it away.
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It sat there for a couple more days. Right. And then finally a crew arrived and just happened to
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catch them in the act, so to speak. Um, two guys and they threw this thing in the pickup and away it
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went. And weeks later it was replaced. Right. Is that a typical city hall story or is the typical
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city hall story that I never even got hold of my councillor? Right. Well, I, I would say it depends
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on the ward you live in. I'd say some councillors are better than others. I won't name names here today.
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I can tell you that the, the people who didn't respond are probably not in office anymore after
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this most recent election. There is a time where we can get that accountability and it is on election
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day. And, uh, and that's, what's discouraging about seeing the 35% turnout or, you know, the
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mid thirties turnout is, you know, that was your opportunity to hold your, your councillors accountable.
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Now, of course, many of these people didn't even run again this time around. Right. We had several of the
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hateful eight, uh, not even show up to the, to the polls because they knew they wouldn't get elected.
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Did any of them survive this, uh, this election? Um, well, I can see, uh, you know, one of them did
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and that being Raj Dhaliwal in ward five, but from my understanding, he was a good constituency,
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um, city councillor and that's why he won his ward. Right. So he may not have been on the same side of
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the ideological perspective as me, but at the same time he did serve as constituents and was reelected
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accordingly. Um, but if you look over to ward 11, uh, again, I won't name names, but you can see the
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results of a councillor who was not responsive to their arrest. Right. So, um, we need to talk
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about the, the mayoral race. Um, Jodi Gondek, there's going to be a, there's going to be a recount.
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We don't know for sure at this stage, whether it's indeed going to be Mr. Farkas or Sonia Sharp,
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but we do know that it's not going to be Jodi Gondek. Right. Um, in, in a,
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in an election when not much seems to have changed, the revolution didn't come, the, the, you know,
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the torches and the pitchforks, she changed, she was rejected. Right.
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How would you interpret that? Well, I mean, I would have been completely stunned had she been reelected,
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seeing some of the things that occurred throughout this council term, uh, both from a behind the
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scenes perspective, but even on a public, uh, perspective. I mean, I've never seen such poor
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leadership of our city. I mean, on day one to, for her to be trying to railroad a sitting city
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councillor who was duly elected, uh, to have, to be passing bylaws like the single use plastics bylaw,
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the climate emergency, uh, the climate action plan, $87 billion, uh, the blanket rezoning,
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despite fierce opposition. Um, you know, there's more, there's more to, you know, the, the public
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protest bylaw banning public protests in, in, in public places, things like that, things that the,
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the, you know, the CCF have said, uh, are violation of our constitutional freedoms.
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The CCF, that would be, um, Canadian constitutional foundation?
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Uh, to, to see some of these actions, uh, uh, you know, and, and stepping out of your jurisdiction,
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battling, uh, the province, uh, on any number of issues and just being adversarial,
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sneaky and underhanded. I mean, I just saw really, really poor leadership over the last four years.
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And, uh, you know, Mayor Gondek worked extremely hard, had different positions than I, but there were
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some things that were just, just, um, from my perspective, straight up unethical and not the
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right way to represent our city. So I feel like it's a new era for the, the city of Calgary, regardless
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of, of who wins between Jeremy Farkas and Sonia Sharpe, it's going to be addition by subtraction in
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Nice way to put it. Addition by subtraction. Um, the green line.
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How do you think this new council is going to look at that?
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Well, for, the green line, uh, for, for people who aren't following this closely,
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I think I'm right to say it's, it's a line that runs north, south, right?
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It terminates more or less where the old Eau Claire market, uh, was, uh, and brings people in from
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Well, correct. You know, there is some debate and decisions to be made as to how they're going to
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enter the downtown still at this stage. And I'm not an expert on the green line itself. It wasn't
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an issue under my purview and my time in Dan's office, but you know, it's, it's a huge expenditure
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and, you know, it seems the ridership projections are changing over time. Um, certainly, you know,
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we need to see a connected city in, and a better connected city for residents who live in those areas.
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And, but it's going to be a significant, uh, financial burden for the city to carry. And, uh,
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it'll be interesting to see what this, what this council decides to do. And of course the province
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is involved as well, uh, determining how we're going to access the downtown and what the future
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is that connects up to the center north of the city as well, because that was the part of the
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initial plans for the green line. Well, does this, does the city council actually have the option of
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saying this is not a good use of taxpayer money, whether it's municipal or provincial, forget the
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whole thing? Well, I certainly believe they would still have that possibility. Um, it would not be an easy
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one. I think they'd probably have to be, uh, considering the votes that have already occurred
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on it, you'd probably need a super majority in order to, to make that happen. And there would
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be financial implications, right? There's, uh, there's arrangements that have been made,
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uh, contracts signed, right? It's, it's not a simple thing to just cancel this thing and say,
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you know, cut your losses because you're going to have, uh, some costs on that, on that project.
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So I don't think it's a simple decision and, and, you know, we are pretty sort of pot committed on this
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project, if you will. And, uh, I, I, I don't envy a council that has to, to deal with the financial
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ramifications of that. Okay. Now let's come back to the, or the open zoning that, uh, how, how many
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people, um, made their views known to city council when the offer was opened? Tell us what you think.
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Well, there were, there were thousands and thousands of people who made written submissions,
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right? I know we're in the range of, uh, you know, the high hundreds, close to a thousand people
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who showed up in person. It was a record, right? A record showing for a public hearing in the city
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of Calgary. Um, and a vast majority in, in opposition, I think it was close to 90% of
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written submissions were against blanket rezoning. Um, somewhere in the range of, uh, high sixties
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or low seventies of the in-person, uh, submissions were opposed to blanket rezoning. Um, and, you know,
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for a lot of people justify, well, you know, there's only a certain type of person who showed up
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to those hearings. It wasn't representative of the population at large. Well, I mean,
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my argument to that would be, well, these are people who cared enough to show up, right? So
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the people who did support blanket rezoning obviously didn't have as much passion or
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bigger behind their, their position to show up. And the reality is you can only count those who do
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show up to, to have their voices heard. Um, and it was disappointing to see council pass,
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pass that, uh, that bylaw. And you can see now it is going to have to be rescinded and it's going to
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be messy, right? Uh, it's not a simple matter. How are you going to deal with all these pending
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applications? All the properties have already been rezoned. And what about those places that
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actually already have a monstrosity sitting next door that's dramatically impacted their parking,
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their garbage, their property values? You know, there's, it's a real mess that's been created.
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And this is, this is all due to not listening to the public. And, uh, it's a shame that it happened
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the way it did. So, uh, I mean, could there be a moratorium on, uh, rezoning and disputed areas?
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Is that all we think this one through? Well, I mean, that, that would be one option while we figure
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out the, the, the dynamics of, of how, how to repeal blanket rezoning. Uh, it could be an option
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as to just to put a freeze on, on new applications, right? It might be something that city council
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should consider to do in the immediate term, but you know, based off last session of council,
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I mean, we declared climate emergency within a couple of weeks of the election.
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So I can see they could act pretty quickly on this if they have the desire to do so.
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Well, that's, um, no, we'll see what they do with it. Uh, uh, that seemed to me the, the thing that
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was going to get everybody out and it didn't. So maybe they have a little more leeway to, to deal
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with that than, than I would have imagined. But, uh, certainly there are people who have already bought
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the property that they mean to rezone and, uh, you know, they're financially committed. They even have
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their rezoning, uh, uh, their, their building plans approved, right? You can only stop it up to a
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certain point. Exactly. Okay. The rezoning line eight, any other major issues for this council?
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Sorry, the green line, I call it line eight, the green line and the rezoning. What's the other big, uh,
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issue this council has to look at? Well, I think the number one issue that hadn't been talked enough
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nearly in the campaign and that's property taxes. Uh, over the last council term,
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we saw a 30% increase in spending over a four year period, which is just a remarkable increase
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in spending. We've taken on huge expenditures in the arena deal, uh, the green line, various other
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infrastructure projects. You know, we had the Olympic Plaza transformation. Um, the city finances
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are getting out of control, right? And we're seeing a decline in services, uh, that this, you know,
00:21:55.320
which doesn't, doesn't reflect that increase in property taxes. And how is this council going to
00:21:59.800
deal with the increased spending and the, and the decrease and declining quality of services the city
00:22:05.320
provides? Or should they deal with it? Oh, I mean, they have to, I mean, the reality is people can't
00:22:10.120
afford to continue to pay these taxes. Um, businesses, you know, you look at our downtown,
00:22:14.200
it's got a 30% vacancy rate. Um, you know, people can't afford to pay these taxes. Businesses don't
00:22:19.640
want to operate here. They're, they're choosing to operate on the outskirts of the city in other
00:22:23.320
jurisdictions because our property taxes are so out of control. This is a serious issue that this council needs
00:22:28.120
to address. And, uh, if they don't, it'll be at the peril of the rest of us. Patrick, thank you for
00:22:35.000
coming in and laying this out for us. It is not nearly as easy as just electing a new council,
00:22:41.240
is it? Certainly isn't, but, uh, I do have a lot of faith this council will do a better job than the
00:22:46.200
last. And, uh, I wish them all the best and doing what's best for Calgary. Well, on that optimistic
00:22:51.480
note, thank you again. Thank you, Nigel. Appreciate you. And for the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.