Western Standard - Is This Municipal Election Really About the Candidates or About Control？

00:00:00.000 Well,

00:00:29.760 hello there everybody and fine viewers welcome to the western standard this is the corey

00:00:34.480 morgan show i am not cora morgan i am lindsey wilson of link strategies i'm filling in for my

00:00:41.200 very good friend corey morgan who is traveling abroad right now john would you kindly put up a

00:00:46.880 photo of corey morgan just so people can remember what he looks like excellent yes this fine looking

00:00:53.680 gentleman right here he is currently overseas he is traveling i believe in israel right now so i'm

00:00:59.200 I'm sure when he returns to take his show back on, he will come here with lots of photos

00:01:04.260 and stories and adventures.

00:01:06.320 So Corey, we wish you well.

00:01:07.740 Please travel safely and make it back home to tell us all about it.

00:01:11.340 Well, folks, it's been quite the election week here in Alberta.

00:01:15.180 And if you are a political junkie living and working in this space like yours truly, you've

00:01:19.540 probably got more questions than answers coming out of this one, because what we've just

00:01:23.400 witnessed in Calgary and Edmonton is a tipping point for how politics at the local levels

00:01:27.760 played and how the province regulates it. Let's start with the basics. Turn out or more accurately

00:01:34.000 the lack thereof. Just 33% of Calgarians cast a ballot and worse yet in Edmonton, 30% is that

00:01:41.440 democracy in action or on life support. To make matters worse, the process itself threw up

00:01:46.240 unnecessary obstacles. As reported at the Western Standard, Alberta held course on eliminating

00:01:51.840 electronic vote tabulators in favour of paper only system and the results were exactly what you'd

00:01:57.200 expect. Long lines, delays in counting, confusion, and in some political polling stations, the

00:02:03.180 lineups were stretched so long that voters just left rather than wait. We heard reports that some

00:02:07.900 areas were taking two to three hours for voters to cast their ballots, and all signs point to

00:02:13.280 people just getting fed up and leaving. If you already think that local government has lost your

00:02:18.220 interest, being confronted with a voting experience that looks like it was designed for the 1980s

00:02:22.920 doesn't help. But for those who did vote, the results sent a message. In Calgary, Jeremy

00:02:28.280 Pathfinder Farkas made history. He became the first person to unseat a sitting Calgary mayor

00:02:32.980 since Ralph Klein did so back in 1980. That's 45 years, folks. And the margin, fewer than 600 votes,

00:02:39.880 separated him from Sonia Sharp of the community's first party. It's a thin win. And while Sharp has

00:02:45.100 officially called for a recount, as most candidates would in her position, it's pretty fair to assume

00:02:50.240 that it would be a long shot and fairly safe to say it won't lead to a change in the mayor's chair.

00:02:55.040 Trailing behind them were outgoing mayor Jody Gondek plus Jeff Davison and Brian Thiessen.

00:02:59.940 Respectable showings but not enough to close the gap. Up the road in Edmonton, no upheaval. The

00:03:05.880 mayor was re-elected for a third term. Clean, predictable, no major shake-up. So we have two

00:03:11.380 snapshots here in our major cities. Calgary voted for change, Edmonton chose continuity.

00:03:16.300 Now, was this election a referendum on local leadership? Certainly. But was it also a giant middle finger to the creeping party system in municipal politics? I would argue yes.

00:03:27.680 Let's talk about Bill 20. In short, it's the provincial legislation that opened the door for formal political parties at the municipal level, increased oversight of municipalities, changed donation rules, all in the name of, quote, leveling the playing field.

00:03:40.500 It was piloted this election cycle in Calgary and Edmonton.

00:03:44.700 A conservative political government wanted to create a path for conservative candidates

00:03:48.220 to keep up with more left-leaning candidates, many of whom were very well funded by the unions.

00:03:53.200 But the shakeout wasn't exactly a dream come true,

00:03:55.380 and with a majority of newly elected officials being independents,

00:03:58.620 some may call the entire experiment a total bust.

00:04:01.900 Instead of clarity, we saw fragmentation.

00:04:04.300 And where the centre-right should have coalesced, we got competing flags,

00:04:07.720 vote splitting, brand confusion, and outright mudslinging.

00:04:11.320 There is a saying that conservatives simply can't and won't unite,

00:04:14.700 and that they eat their own.

00:04:16.320 Progressives didn't completely dominate, but they quietly benefited.

00:04:19.880 But the story doesn't stop there.

00:04:21.680 On the provincial front, we now learn the government is preparing yet another bill,

00:04:25.660 this time to limit who can run in political elections.

00:04:29.120 According to recent reporting, the bill would give new rules to ensure

00:04:32.360 only those who truly care and are serious about representing the community

00:04:36.300 get on the ballot.

00:04:37.280 I'm not quite sure what that means, but the government says that it's about transparency and it's about clarity, but critics warn it can easily become a gatekeeping mechanism.

00:04:46.180 So imagine that. At the local level, we have Bill 20 stirring up the party game in our cities, and at the provincial level, the governing party is now talking about a bill to decide who can stand for election.

00:04:56.620 It's two big structural changes, two big questions, and a lot of controversy.

00:05:01.360 Does the province stick with this experiment and try to refine it?

00:05:04.720 Or does it blow the whole thing up before the next municipal cycle?

00:05:07.680 And that cycle starts today.

00:05:09.500 Because if the idea was to build a stronger, more coherent, conservative presence in Alberta cities, that just didn't happen.

00:05:15.820 Now, first time isn't always a charm, and it does take time for people to take on change.

00:05:19.580 After all, there are municipal parties in cities like Vancouver and Montreal.

00:05:23.640 But what we got this time around was instead voter fatigue, fractured campaigns and a perception that local issues are being overshadowed by partisan maneuvering.

00:05:31.640 The most important piece is that Calgarians didn't just reject incumbents, many rejected being told which team to vote for.

00:05:37.640 They're tired of ideology being measured and snow plowing schedules and pothole contracts and zoning decisions.

00:05:44.640 Excuse me. They want delivery. They want competence.

00:05:47.640 They want to believe that their vote moves something real and not just fuels another political turf war.

00:05:52.640 war. So where does this leave us? We have a brand new mayor in Calgary after decades of continuity,

00:05:59.720 a steady incumbent in Edmonton and a frustrated electorate, a provincial legislation that's

00:06:06.060 tinkering with both the local and provincial electoral machinery and a conservative movement

00:06:10.160 that must ask, have we strengthened ourselves or weakened ourselves? There is a lot to unpack out

00:06:15.860 of this election and we're going to do just that. I'm going to be joined by two guests today who

00:06:21.160 know Alberta politics inside and out. Amber Ruddy, Vice President at Council Public Affairs and

00:06:27.720 Stephen Carter of Decide Campaigns. He is the man behind campaigns for Alison Redford, Nahaid Nenshi

00:06:33.720 and Jodi Gondek. We'll hash out what this election really means for the future of Bill 20,

00:06:38.600 for the rise or fall of municipal parties and what people should expect for the next municipal cycle.

00:06:45.560 And for all of you fine folks watching today, we would like to remind you that the Western

00:06:49.640 standard needs your support please like share comment follow western standard news on all our

00:06:55.320 platforms if you're not a subscriber yet go to westernstandard.news and click on subscribe it's

00:07:00.760 just ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars for the year thank you for your support all right

00:07:06.600 john i think we are going to get right into it and we're going to move over to our guests

00:07:10.920 i don't know if they're waiting there in the rooms and they're ready to go but

00:07:14.680 i think we will get into it here so we've got amber ruddy she's a go-to strategist for 1.00

00:07:18.520 organizations seeking to navigate Canada's intricate political landscape.

00:07:22.960 Amber transforms complex policy challenges into strategic opportunities for her

00:07:27.020 clients. She also has previously served with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

00:07:30.820 and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses.

00:07:34.280 We will also be joined by Stephen Carter.

00:07:36.520 Stephen Carter is an innovator.

00:07:38.020 He's always pushing the bounds of what is possible.

00:07:40.520 Best known as one of Canada's leading political strategists, he played a

00:07:43.960 leadership role in the rise of Mayor Nahid Nenshi, Premier Alison Redford, Mayor Jodi

00:07:49.140 Gondek, National Post, CBC and other political commentators have always

00:07:52.980 described Stephen as a political mastermind and this time around Stephen

00:07:57.400 was involved with the Calgary party. So folks let's get into it. Thank you so

00:08:01.120 much for joining me. Amber, thank you. I appreciate you coming out and taking

00:08:05.500 part in this today and Stephen thank you very much. So I think we'll open it up

00:08:09.520 and i think i think we'll just start with um amber what how was your involvement with this municipal

00:08:16.160 cycle um and maybe compared to other municipal cycles and then we'll take the same question over

00:08:20.880 to you stephen oh i think we can't quite hear you amber or is it just me john

00:08:31.280 oh you're on i think you're on mute amber can you hear me now yes i can hear you now

00:08:40.480 excellent thank you lindsay um this election i uh do admit i've been more of an observer

00:08:47.920 having followed quite closely the municipal scenes of calgary and edmonton for some time

00:08:53.120 it was a little bit refreshing to uh take a back seat on the municipal election coming fresh off

00:08:57.920 of a federal campaign which i was quite involved with um my observations look this is the first

00:09:03.680 time this system has been in place in alberta so of course there's going to be growing pains

00:09:10.000 of course there's going to be some kinks to work out but i think frankly the whole reason the

00:09:15.120 system was put in place is to give voters a bit more transparency in terms of the candidates that

00:09:21.520 they have to look for. And having that branding of organization, you know, I think brings value

00:09:31.120 to the municipal scene. And of course, there's not a sweep of any one candidate or slate across

00:09:38.400 Edmonton or Calgary, but this is democracy. And the incumbency factor is strong. You see a lot

00:09:45.120 of folks that have been in the role were either running as independent because they didn't attach

00:09:49.520 themselves to any one particular party um they fared quite well and so i don't think that this

00:09:55.440 system is going anywhere maybe there will be some tweaks to refine it uh but this is democracy and

00:10:01.120 i frankly think it's a little bit messy but it works okay thank you amber and stephen over to

00:10:06.400 you stephen just tell us a little bit about about your role in in this municipal election and and

00:10:11.120 then let's get into your thoughts and how everything uh kind of fell out yeah i mean i i was uh the

00:10:17.440 creator of two parties one in calgary and one in edmonton um you know so the the calgary party and

00:10:23.840 better edmonton parties uh we created we took advantage of the system that danielle smith

00:10:29.440 created um i think that she wanted to elect some of her own people uh under under conservative

00:10:36.160 banners uh we tried to put in place a our own people in in more progressive uh centrist banners

00:10:43.440 And I think that overall, the system itself worked fairly well.

00:10:48.380 I like the party structure.

00:10:50.000 I think I agree with Amber.

00:10:51.160 I think it gives us an opportunity to know who it is that we're voting for, what it is that we're voting for.

00:10:56.940 All too often, I think people get elected.

00:10:59.840 For example, Sonia Sharp ran as a progressive in 2021 and then turned into a very strong conservative.

00:11:06.880 And ran as a conservative today in this municipal election.

00:11:11.040 this gives people a better opportunity to know what it is that they're you know who it is they're

00:11:15.920 voting for and what their principles are what their values are what their ideology is

00:11:21.360 so I think that it worked out fairly well the fundraising rules are a disaster they need to

00:11:29.020 be rewritten immediately the hand counting disastrous needs to be rewritten immediately

00:11:35.840 but you know I mean I'm sure it worked really well in rural community

00:11:40.160 municipalities where they were only dealing with small portions of votes but

00:11:45.600 we have you know we have upwards of a million voters in Calgary and 700,000 in

00:11:51.520 Edmonton and counting is just it was a gong show and disappointing to see the 0.87

00:12:01.100 new rules but I'm hopeful that the new rules will be taking advantage of

00:12:05.460 property you know and I don't I don't doubt that elections Alberta and elections Calgary is just

00:12:11.060 flooded with complaints I mean you know transparency of course I most people watching

00:12:15.440 this will know that I worked very closely on the Jeff Davison campaign and Jeff ran for mayor and

00:12:19.380 came in fourth and we had an outpouring of supporters who were reaching out to the campaign

00:12:25.120 and you know they were cold they were standing outside they were waiting two and three hours

00:12:29.140 particularly heard a lot of reports in around downtown polling station as well as polling

00:12:33.740 stations as well as in the deep south i'm sure it was just luck of the draw wherever people were

00:12:39.100 throughout the city but some people said it was a good experience but we we definitely i would say

00:12:44.060 in my experience with elections this there was an outpouring of complaints and people just simply

00:12:48.460 walking away from polling stations which i know for those of us who are really engaged in municipal

00:12:53.580 politics that's really frustrating um we're always trying to get people to buy into municipal

00:12:59.180 politics after all it is the level of politics that affects you the most on the day-to-day this

00:13:03.740 is what affects you know the snow plowing and your garbage pickup and your property taxes

00:13:09.180 mostly that's provincial as well but these are these are all the things that affect you the most

00:13:13.740 and yet people have the least amount of engagement uh amber over to you uh you were very involved

00:13:19.420 with the federal election uh campaign in the spring uh and you know i know over on on on

00:13:25.740 our side we felt very much that voter fatigue was was had a had a part to play in this and it was a

00:13:32.460 very slow uptick into people even being engaged or interested i mean i don't know steven you you

00:13:37.500 might agree with me like i feel like nobody was really paying attention to who was running for

00:13:41.420 mayor and didn't even have any idea who was running for council in calgary and you can probably chime

00:13:46.620 in a little bit more about how that was in edmonton they didn't even pay attention until maybe

00:13:51.260 the last seven to ten days so amber we'll just how much do you think that voter fatigue played

00:13:56.940 into it and then stephen will go over to you on your thoughts on engagement you know i think it

00:14:02.380 is important going back to the conversation about um the voting and the lines and the new system

00:14:08.620 it is important to do a process that instills confidence because when you have um systems that

00:14:15.020 aren't working for folks and are driving uh a reluctance to vote because they feel like it

00:14:19.820 might not count and the way it's processed is not fair there's different iterations of how that has

00:14:25.180 played out um i know some folks wanted to write it in pen or you know there's different uh

00:14:31.100 considerations i think we do need to take seriously people's concerns so that they have confidence in

00:14:35.900 the system uh when they do spend an hour or whatever it is that they had to take and go

00:14:40.700 in line and do that so first of all just want to say that that there's got to be a pendulum there's

00:14:45.180 maybe some things they can do to improve it. But I think it is important to take those concerns of

00:14:51.100 voters seriously. When you look at overall, there is a fatigue. And again, if you follow the news,

00:14:58.300 you might be hearing rumors that a federal election could be imminent. I think, you know,

00:15:03.820 it is a layering on of issues. The municipal level is, of course, closest to the people.

00:15:08.460 You're most likely to, you know, drive down the street with potholes,

00:15:13.740 need to book swimming lessons for your kids, you know, want to go to a public library and use

00:15:19.100 those services. So it is important. And I'm glad we've had this kind of participation in Calgary,

00:15:26.940 for example. The incumbency factor is strong, but our incumbent mayor, you know, she's moving on. 1.00

00:15:34.220 And it is important to have choices in the system so that people can make those decisions.

00:15:41.180 So I think that overall, you know, there are probably a bit more reflecting and lessons we

00:15:48.800 can learn as the sort of ink dries on the voting results and we see who are in these roles. But

00:15:55.100 yeah, I'm very confident that the system will be improved and continue to work for Albertans going

00:16:02.280 forward. And then Stephen, you know, voter fatigue from the federal election. And then like, let's

00:16:07.800 throwing this teacher strike i mean this is this has been this has been wild right the last couple

00:16:12.560 of weeks and and how do you think that that impacted the election i know some of the candidates

00:16:17.100 including brian teeson had a lot to say about the teacher strike certainly so over to you stephen

00:16:21.100 yeah i mean i think that we had a significant uh uh number of headwinds if you will the federal

00:16:28.400 election was certainly a headwind uh it was hard to get people's attention uh during the during the

00:16:33.440 campaign, I agree with you, pushing through and trying to get people to actually pay attention

00:16:39.460 on this campaign. We certainly noticed an uptick in attention in the last week and a half,

00:16:44.820 the last 10 days, but we'd already done half of advanced polling before people had even started

00:16:50.620 to pay attention. I mean, yes, it is the most difficult level of government to get people out

00:16:56.780 to vote for, but let's take a look at the actual statistics. Voter turnout was down in Edmonton

00:17:02.460 on advanced polls down in calgary in advance polls down in edmonton and on voting day down in calgary

00:17:09.500 on voting day why well in part it was the teacher strike in part it was the blue jays game in part

00:17:16.060 it was uh people not really caring about municipal government but in part it was rumors of long

00:17:21.660 lineups people not wanting to give up an hour and a half we have a world standard elections

00:17:27.260 organization in elections canada and we can't seem to figure out how to run a municipal election in

00:17:32.620 alberta and that just makes me crazy um the rules changing the way that they did um was a significant

00:17:40.860 impediment to people being able to actually vote in the election um this time and uh i think that

00:17:48.940 that the provincial government needs to take a look at that and say what role did we play

00:17:53.660 and how are we going to make it better uh so far what they're indicating is that they're going to

00:17:58.060 make it harder to run uh which on some levels i support i think that we do have a lot of candidates

00:18:04.140 who who are a little bit uh junkie if you will if you're you know you're running for a stunt

00:18:10.140 um i'd like the candidates that run to be legitimate candidates that have uh the resources

00:18:17.580 volunteer and otherwise to to actually run a campaign um but that's not our primary problem

00:18:23.580 our primary problem is how do we get people out to vote uh i'd like to see more provincial support

00:18:29.420 uh in terms of advertising that the municipal election is happening we could have used a lot

00:18:34.860 of that uh elections canada does so much advertising to make sure that people know

00:18:38.860 that the vote is occurring and we had none of that really in calgary edmonton or the balance of all

00:18:43.580 and certainly the province was really busy there was a lot of announcements over the last month

00:18:49.180 uh from new license plates to a war with uh with uh the ata and and certainly that did overshadow

00:18:55.920 things what about the conservative predicament and and steven i really am somebody's a little

00:19:01.840 bit more on the other side of things i'm really interested in your perspective about this

00:19:05.280 there was a lot of mudslinging and and and that was between certainly the uh sharpen communities 0.99

00:19:10.340 first campaign jeff davison campaign there was a lot there's there was some bad blood that was

00:19:14.740 created there and i'm sure everybody can um you know sow these seeds of division right as as we

00:19:20.020 come to a close with this election but are there changes that could happen structurally do you

00:19:25.700 guys think where uh to prevent to say two conservative parties or two more progressive

00:19:31.780 parties from coming up that would prevent this you know quote vote split we've heard this term

00:19:36.020 vote split over and over and over right some people say you know we love democracy we love

00:19:39.780 the choice and others say well no this is vote splitting and you're stopping this person from

00:19:43.380 getting in and we all just need to get behind a candidate so there's so many different ways

00:19:48.420 to unpack what that really means and i know one of the one of one of the thoughts is that you

00:19:54.260 make it harder you make it so a party has to go out and get x amount of signatures make that a

00:19:58.820 really hard high threshold so you're not going to have a bunch of different parties and groups

00:20:02.660 running around and doing that so i mean what are your thoughts on that amber i'll let you start

00:20:07.220 with that one yeah and just to layer on another issue the canada post strike not having your

00:20:12.740 voter cards and information that's a very obvious thing to be advertised and added another step in

00:20:18.180 the voting booth where you had to go and you don't have a card to present right you had to go through

00:20:22.260 an extra step so that slowed things down as well so almost a perfect storm of issues i just wanted

00:20:26.900 to touch upon briefly this issue about um having legitimate candidates in elections and i think

00:20:32.500 The impetus of this, of course, if you've been following federal with the last by-election

00:20:37.940 in Battle River Crowfoot with the longest ballot, there are some provisions I think you can do to

00:20:43.220 tighten it up. I think over 100 of those candidates, for example, had the same CFO,

00:20:50.340 like the person that's signing off on the document was the same person for 100 of those candidates.

00:20:54.980 We could add a bit more heft to make it so that this is a serious exercise and that it's not

00:21:01.220 becoming a way to make a statement so i'm a firm believer of that um but yeah overall i think um

00:21:10.180 it is just an interesting time and i i like that there's choice i don't think um you know it would

00:21:17.780 be great i in my opinion to have a bit of a higher threshold and if you could bring along with it

00:21:23.140 um maybe if you are a serious party that you would get access to a voters list because that's

00:21:28.820 That's something that happens provincially and federally.

00:21:30.800 So that could perhaps weed out having too many parties that are all trying to act in an interest of the signature level of what you needed to create that party was higher.

00:21:42.900 So maybe there could be a approach of if the voters list was, you know, a certain higher threshold, being able to offer that to the serious parties, I think would be an improvement.

00:21:53.000 Okay, Stephen, over to you. I mean, some thoughts on this quote vote split and what's your advice

00:21:58.680 maybe to conservatives or, and we can take it far more generally than that. What do we do

00:22:03.300 and not have just all these quote competing parties? Well, I think that competition is

00:22:08.900 essential in politics and I don't like the term vote split. You earn the votes. We all started

00:22:13.260 at zero. Davison started at zero. We started at zero, right? That's just the nature of the game.

00:22:17.960 I think you earn your votes. But if you really are concerned about votes, let's take that premise

00:22:23.880 and just take it through. My recommendation would be to put a preferential ballot in place. 0.88

00:22:28.920 Why not put a preferential ballot in place for municipal politics? It would be fascinating to

00:22:33.800 see who would actually get over the 50% threshold. Would it be progressives? Would it be conservatives?

00:22:40.120 Would it be centrists? I don't know. I actually wouldn't be able to tell you with 100% accuracy

00:22:45.320 where the Brian Thiessen vote would have gone after the first ballot. I don't think it would

00:22:50.360 have gone en masse to Jeremy Farkas, Josie Gondek. I think that it would have gone,

00:22:57.000 it would have split into four or five, you know, four different directions for sure.

00:23:01.640 The same would be held with Jeff Davison. I don't think that Jeff Davison is the same type

00:23:06.840 of roaring conservative that Tonya Shark was trying to present herself as. I would have loved 0.54

00:23:11.000 to have seen a preferential ballot. I also would have loved to have seen a voters list. Amber is 0.85

00:23:17.560 completely right. Not having a voting list was just that and the postal strike. Amber, I'm glad

00:23:23.320 you brought both of those up. They were devastating to these campaigns. I had 500,000 pieces of mail

00:23:30.120 and they were supposed to land the day that the postal strike started. We had to essentially send

00:23:36.600 trucks to go and get them back so we can try and hand deliver 500,000 pieces of mail, which is

00:23:42.040 impossible. Amber's come up with two great ideas, but I think bottom line, all of this needs to be

00:23:49.880 looked at in the future so that we wind up with the right type of civic government. If the

00:23:54.760 provincial government thinks that most of the voters are conservative, then bring in preferential

00:23:59.960 ballot. Go for it. It is an opportunity to change our voter system in a way that doesn't impact

00:24:08.360 the provincial election. It doesn't impact the federal election. Give it a go. See if it works.

00:24:13.880 See if we like it as Albertans. If you're going to be messing around with the election anyways,

00:24:18.500 mess around with the election in such a fashion that it actually makes it look.

00:24:22.200 Yeah, you know, and this was a pilot project, right? And the province had put it forward. Hey,

00:24:25.280 this is a pilot project. We're going to try it in Calgary. We're going to try it in Edmonton. So,

00:24:28.060 I mean we have to you know have a little bit of grace for that right it's everything is a pilot

00:24:32.380 project you look at it you're like okay what went wrong and clearly a lot of things went wrong but

00:24:36.260 some things went right I think a lot of people could look at this election objectively certainly

00:24:41.500 in Calgary I mean in Edmonton you definitely got a lot more of the same it's more continuity up there

00:24:46.120 but I think certainly in Calgary there seems to be I think I feel like things were dialed a little

00:24:51.280 bit more to the middle I mean I'm I'm very optimistic that you know a good group can be

00:24:56.520 put together and people will bring a little bit more balance back to City Hall and you know

00:25:01.900 because it's not healthy for democracy when we have things like a recall Gondek petition and we

00:25:06.520 have such an unhappy electorate right we we just it's not healthy for us as you know as a city to

00:25:13.920 have people just pitted against one another and like this this extreme division in politics I

00:25:19.080 mean I've always been one for multi-partisanship and bringing things a little bit more to to the

00:25:24.080 centre and and maybe this maybe this path will help us get there so um Stephen you you uh you

00:25:30.740 you folks over at the Calgary party ran um I'd say you'd ran a very polite campaign and I think

00:25:37.180 there was a lot of people that were expecting a little bit more you know you've you definitely

00:25:41.520 you're one of the most creative people in uh in politics and you definitely sometimes can drop a

00:25:46.900 few bombs but you I mean your folks ran ran a very polite campaign so any thoughts on kind of

00:25:53.440 your candidates and how it all kind of laid out for you and Brian Thiessen himself. And what's

00:25:58.300 next for Brian Thiessen? Because I think there's a lot of us that thought, huh, I think that Brian

00:26:03.340 Thiessen is getting ready to do something maybe at a provincial level. And I know you can't probably

00:26:07.220 say too much to that, but just wanted your thoughts. Well, I think that the challenge for

00:26:13.100 us was who to attack. You know, we knew that we were definitely coming for fifth place. So

00:26:19.040 who do we attack? We attacked Sonia quite a bit in the debates. I called her Sonia Smith-Sharp.

00:26:26.720 That was the level that we wanted to go to. We didn't want to go to anything too personal or

00:26:34.080 pushing too hard. And we just felt like our best bet was to run a positive campaign,

00:26:41.680 especially with the Davison and Sharp campaigns taking such nasty smacks at one another. It just

00:26:47.920 felt like it wasn't necessary for us and attacking Jeremy Farkas we tried a couple of times but it

00:26:54.880 just didn't have the legs so we wound up actually going after Danielle Smith which did have legs 0.91

00:27:00.960 we did very well with that that part of the campaign obviously not well enough to win

00:27:05.760 so the Western Standard viewer may be turning over and getting a little bit more angry about

00:27:12.240 that but for our voters it worked quite well and one of the I think challenges that Tim

00:27:17.600 Cartmill had in Edmonton was not running a more negative campaign against the conservative,

00:27:25.840 the UCP and the government there. Tim was pegged as the UCP candidate and I think that was an

00:27:33.520 unfair positioning but nothing to un-push that narrative. So this is the challenge with campaigns

00:27:41.520 is when do you go negative uh people who were running against uh nenshi remember that he was

00:27:48.000 one of the most negative campaigners we'd ever seen in canadian municipal politics um but brian

00:27:53.680 wasn't that guy brian just did not want to attack unless it was uh uh 100 required and it just

00:28:02.000 wasn't in this campaign it just didn't work it didn't require uh us to open up the bag of dirty

00:28:08.720 tricks and i'm glad we did it was uh it was a good campaign yeah absolutely and before we go

00:28:14.720 over to you amber i just john do we have some uh do we have anybody questions on the on the live

00:28:20.000 stream feed happy to read out a couple of these questions so uh okay jocelyn says post office

00:28:28.240 strike had nothing to do with apathy just pull out your driver's license fair jocelyn i mean

00:28:34.000 obviously you're a dedicated voter but i guess some people aren't um let's see what do we have

00:28:38.960 here we got paul paul says electronics can be manipulated marks on paper so simple simple

00:28:46.560 marks manipulation makes manipulation more difficult use a pen not a pencil yeah we did hear

00:28:52.080 a lot of people that were complaining about uh about that um i think there's a little bit of

00:28:56.960 there's a little bit of lack of understanding around that like because when you make the pencil

00:29:00.000 market can't be erased and and amber maybe you can just kind of answer that question for somebody

00:29:04.600 who's concerned about not using a pen and uh and using a pencil instead i mean i think what the

00:29:09.800 election authorities often say is that the pens like if they order in bulk dry out so they have

00:29:14.480 pencils on hand because then you can reuse them and they have uh they're standing by but you know

00:29:19.700 like i have confidence in our voting system that the ballot boxes are sealed that the appropriate

00:29:25.040 scrutineers are available for each um candidate to observe and so i have confidence in the system but

00:29:31.040 i i know some folks have reluctance um i i just wanted to go back and comment a little bit about

00:29:37.200 um i agree with stephen that nobody's voters belong to somebody else so if you look at the

00:29:42.960 edmonton example you can't just simply take the conservative leaning candidates add them together

00:29:48.400 and assume that the top vote getter would have got those votes naturally. I think we're at a

00:29:56.320 bit of a crosshairs in terms of what is the conservative position because blanket rezoning

00:30:02.320 happened to be a top municipal topic and you don't really see consistency. There's not like

00:30:08.400 a conservative position on that. And frankly, you see different people coming at it,

00:30:14.640 progressives and conservatives coming at it from similar angles. So I think it's not so

00:30:21.760 cut and dry in terms of what is a conservative position on X municipal issue. So the creativity

00:30:28.480 that those candidates have to come up with to brand themselves and showcase what type of

00:30:34.480 positions they would take is, you know, a new kind of way to look at it. And there's no monolithic,

00:30:42.960 i'm a conservative i'm voting for this person right you you have to be able to offer ideas

00:30:47.840 that resonate and if you can't do that then sorry your your vote doesn't necessarily belong to

00:30:53.040 somebody else so i think that's something that we have to get past and if you want to um enhance

00:30:58.800 perhaps there's ways we can enhance those parties that you think might be the best option going

00:31:03.680 forward for a specific voter to park their vote yeah and i like some of what we're talking about

00:31:09.200 today right i like i like a higher threshold maybe not so so high i mean there's a lot of thought

00:31:13.920 around that i like a higher threshold i really like the voter list stephen it's um you know

00:31:18.160 that's that's really important and i think all of us really suffered from that certainly so those

00:31:22.400 are things that i i really like but yeah i mean i i i personally don't don't like the term vote

00:31:27.360 split because you know if this is democracy and this is democracy in action then may the best

00:31:31.360 candidate win right so i don't like that and it was definitely a driving force in the narrative

00:31:36.960 um and and certainly i think that that that won the community's first party and their candidate

00:31:41.920 sonia sharp uh now speaking of that no that was a very close mayor's race and i think some of us

00:31:47.760 were very surprised i know certainly on our camp we were very surprised uh but that it happened

00:31:52.720 and it's a margin of almost 600 votes that separated a new mayor elect jeremy farkas from

00:31:58.160 sonia sharp of the community's first uh team and and you know i think any good campaign manager

00:32:03.680 would would absolutely say yeah you know call for a recount i think i it would be it's fair to say

00:32:09.200 it would be very surprising if um if the results were anything different than having uh mayor elect

00:32:14.640 become the mayor jeremy farkas but uh jeremy farkas you know that's uh i'm i have a history

00:32:20.320 with jeremy i i worked for him in the ward 11 office when he was a counselor before i worked

00:32:24.160 for him for almost two and a half years and you know i felt that there was a change in his position

00:32:28.160 I think most of us did. But, you know, he ran a very smart campaign and he catered to everybody.

00:32:35.180 So he catered to the left, he catered to the right. It was confusing for some.

00:32:39.480 And I'm interested to see how that will play out, how that will play out in his office, if it will be a very centrist office or if it'll be if it'll revert back to more conservative people behind him or if it'll stay on the left side.

00:32:51.240 So, Stephen, I really want to hear your thoughts on the new mayor-elect Jeremy Farkas, who certainly with, I think it was a 26%, correct me if I'm wrong, that's not a strong mandate.

00:33:00.840 So that's, I think, Jeremy being, you know, the very dedicated campaigner.

00:33:05.880 And I know he's taking this very seriously.

00:33:07.900 I think, you know, he's got a, his mandate is, hey, guys, I'm here for you, Calgary, I'm here for all Calgarians.

00:33:13.840 So, Stephen, we'll let you start with that and then we'll carry over to Amber on that.

00:33:17.280 Yeah, I mean, it's a real challenge to suggest he even has a mandate, right?

00:33:21.240 like he's been elected by less than 100 000 people of a 1.6 million person uh city uh he has

00:33:29.640 um a lot of work to do um his vote total dropped significantly from 2021. 2021 he was a much more

00:33:37.080 popular politician than he was in 2025 but he won and you know this is where the the challenge is

00:33:44.680 how does he create a cohesive council when frankly he's got you know some really

00:33:52.840 rabid progressives i mean uh i know that conservatives sometimes dislike conservatives

00:33:57.560 but i'll tell you there's no there's no feud like the inter-progressive war i'll tell you that

00:34:01.800 um blood blood tests all around just to make sure that you're the right level of progressive

00:34:07.320 um but this you know he's got some people who are just rabbit uh rabbit also on the right

00:34:13.320 you know landon johnson not really a conciliatory type of fellow i mean he ran the uh recall gand

00:34:19.640 gondek campaign he's going to be a big voice in in municipal government um how does he work with

00:34:27.400 jeremy i think he would have worked really well with jeremy 1.0 jeremy 2.0 i'm not sure he works

00:34:34.040 well with at all so i'm just dying to see how jeremy takes this extremely small mandate both

00:34:41.080 in terms of a level of victory and overall number of votes and turns it into something

00:34:47.640 that Calgarians rally behind. The way that we rallied behind Dave Brown-Kanye, the way that

00:34:52.840 we rallied behind Nenshi, Ralph Klein. This is fascinating. This is the first time that an

00:34:59.880 incumbent mayor has lost in Calgary since Ralph Klein beat Rod Sykes in 1980. So this is a

00:35:07.160 a significant election from that point of view as well I think we're all interested Amber you

00:35:13.420 know we'll go over to you here we're all interested you know we all remember and that's

00:35:16.900 who I used to work for was he was Jeremy 1.0 and that was you know he was the bravo rouser and he

00:35:21.640 stood on the soapbox and he was you know the man of the people right and from in his term from

00:35:27.180 2017 to 2021 I guess and we're seeing a different version of Jeremy is this a more mature Jeremy

00:35:33.880 is this a more collaborative Jeremy? Because I would argue that whoever is leading the city,

00:35:38.940 you have to be collaborative. It's one of the number one skill sets. For me, that's why I got

00:35:43.640 behind Jeff Davison. I saw that he had that ability to bridge the left and the right.

00:35:47.740 Will Jeremy be able to do that? Amber, what do you think?

00:35:51.940 I mean, it's a first past the post system, and he won. And I think that we have to get behind him.

00:35:58.360 as our mayor you know we're facing a lot of different um things that are going on in the

00:36:03.880 in the context and we need a strong voice for calgary and i think we need to give him the room

00:36:08.680 to create that collaborative culture he's been signaling i've seen in his social media posts

00:36:13.800 he's already been meeting with some of the folks that are coming forward and have been elected as

00:36:20.040 we sort of hear all the results coming in and things are finalized um and i you know i have

00:36:26.840 confidence that he's going to put his best foot forward. I think he might surround himself with

00:36:31.960 some folks in his advisory capacity to the right of him and some to the left of him.

00:36:36.600 And that's probably where you need a mayor to be. This isn't partisan politics anymore. You know,

00:36:41.960 there's some major projects that we need to get forward. We need to have some discussions with

00:36:46.760 the federal government on some very important projects. And frankly, let's just give him the

00:36:53.560 space to see what he's able to do he's one vote on a council and the more that he can try to

00:36:58.840 collaborate with his colleagues and set a better tone uh we've had some toxic councils we've had

00:37:04.920 some toxic councils that maybe they got more votes uh for a certain thing but look how sideways

00:37:11.160 things have gone um and the fact that gondak didn't come in second i think speaks volume

00:37:17.560 to a change uh type of election and um i'm hopeful i'm just going to be optimistic that he uh

00:37:24.840 he puts his best foot forward and um let's give him the space to do that and and see how he lands

00:37:30.600 you know and i think we have to do that right we have to be positive and we have to build bridges

00:37:34.520 not walls so i i too wish jeremy parkas all the best and i hope he surrounds himself with some

00:37:40.120 really excellent people and uh governs with uh with collaboration as he moves forward as the next

00:37:46.760 mayor so i guess we'll kind of wind down the show with going into just a little bit about what's

00:37:51.320 happening in some of these uh in some of the councillor positions so landon johnson's very

00:37:55.600 interesting he won he won he had very strong numbers um so you know all the best to him with

00:38:01.540 that but certainly there are a lot of there's a lot of buzz that he is jeremy 1.0 and that he's

00:38:06.960 going to be quote the new jeremy so i too am interested to see how that'll play out um that

00:38:13.280 it will be really interesting. I do feel there's a lot of people that kind of hover around the

00:38:17.220 centre, kind of both ways. I'm trying to think if there's any other really, really big personalities

00:38:22.420 in there. I know we've got a couple of recounts coming. So I think it's just the mayor recount

00:38:28.760 coming, which I don't know that we'll see any really different results. But Ward 12. Now that,

00:38:34.600 Stephen, correct me if I'm wrong, I think that differentiation is 29. So that would be the

00:38:39.660 Alberta Calgary party or the ABC party that would be their their one seat in in this election which

00:38:47.020 would be Mike Jameson and Ward 12 and then that's the Calgary party candidate Sarah Ferguson who 0.98

00:38:53.260 who's up against him there so tell me a little bit about that and what you think about some of these

00:38:57.820 some of where these councillors landed.

00:38:59.500 counted by machine election i think it would be uh much less optimism on our side um but because

00:39:11.100 it is hand counted and the process uh does have a little bit more room for error so i'm we're

00:39:17.260 we're cautiously optimistic obviously when you do a recount it can go either way right you don't know

00:39:23.420 if there's mistakes number one and number two you don't know the direction that the mistakes are

00:39:27.580 made. When there was a recount in 2021 with DJ Kelly versus Sean Chu, Sean Chu wound up getting

00:39:33.980 a larger number. So we'll see how things go in 2025 for Ward 12. I think that the number's too

00:39:41.340 big for the mayor's chair, 500 plus strikes me as too big of an error rate. But 29 in Ward 12,

00:39:52.780 Like I say, it could go either way, but we are cautiously optimistic that we'll find Sarah Ferguson in council instead of Mike Jamison.

00:40:02.780 Yeah, very interesting. I think, John, we'll go to some of the comments here.

00:40:06.640 What do we got here? We've got Wayne Lustill.

00:40:09.900 We need to get rid of municipal politics. Nobody shows up to vote.

00:40:15.580 Amber, can you take that question on?

00:40:17.340 when people there is there is a little bit of that idea out there and what do you say to those folks

00:40:22.540 who are just like ah get rid of it let the province just take it all over or whatever what

00:40:26.620 what do you say to that well i mean when you look at the federal and provincial system we do go

00:40:31.100 through redistribution uh after every census because you do want to have some representatives

00:40:36.700 um that can speak for you and that are accessible because they have a fair number of voters that they

00:40:42.540 would deal with and i think uh municipally you're sort of the closest to people and in fact there

00:40:48.940 could probably be a case made you know fair representation would add a few councillors 1.00

00:40:54.540 over time but i'll leave that conversation for another another chat certainly do we have any

00:41:01.100 more questions in there john all right guys well i think we're gonna bring it to just some final

00:41:06.780 closes i mean uh stephen like your overall like what's your takeaway from this election and and

00:41:14.060 what do you want the what do you want everybody who's watching this to know about what went down

00:41:18.620 and what you want to see moving forward well first let me address the importance of municipal politics

00:41:24.940 the ability to reach your representative and and get your pothole fills and your and the ability

00:41:30.940 for water to go uphill and poop to go downhill uh are super important uh we can't be uh pretending

00:41:39.340 that the provincial government is going to step in and do any better job um that just frustrates

00:41:44.060 the heck out of me uh the the overall election um you know edmonton said they want to change

00:41:51.500 and they kept the same uh calgary got a massive change uh we'll see how uh these two governments

00:41:58.460 approach the provincial government uh how they approach the federal government and how things

00:42:03.180 change in the next four years uh our cities are in in the big in the midst of a huge change

00:42:11.340 especially calgary with our population growth but these changes are going to need to be met by

00:42:18.700 really quality municipal government and i wish the best to all those who want all right amber over

00:42:25.740 to you what are what are your some thoughts and you know i said in my opening monologue today

00:42:29.580 uh was this election with in as far as calgary is concerned was this election like a giant middle

00:42:34.940 finger to the party system because you know as of right now as of today we have one from abc we have

00:42:42.620 one from the calgary party carter is that correct there's there's one and then yep and then we have

00:42:49.500 two from communities first technically four although i think most of us would argue that

00:42:55.100 wards 10 with uh war 10 with andre chabot and ward 13 with dan mclean they would have been elected

00:43:01.180 regardless of the the party system was was really uh a complete wash for either one of them so you

00:43:07.740 know you technically have four with communities first but really only two of those would have been

00:43:11.980 viewed as as part of the party system so what do you think about that amber again i think the party

00:43:17.660 system is in its infancy i think we're going to see it grow and um i thought that it added a

00:43:24.780 transparency i thought that it added that level of uh branding and organization and perhaps that

00:43:31.180 helped like you say um each party got at least one candidate through right so i think that shows that

00:43:39.180 you know that's democracy i don't think you necessarily would expect to have an entire

00:43:44.620 sweep of uh one party taking over the whole system and there's differences in how the

00:43:49.900 parties operated right like some were more like slates while others were more like parties right

00:43:55.020 so like if you look at how um a better calgary had members and tried to do votes and tried to

00:44:02.300 you know hold their a grassroots type of style well the communities first was more like a slate

00:44:09.020 it was like who is the candidate that they can field for a specific seat so i think these things

00:44:15.580 are going to evolve and I look forward to what the next iteration does and I hope it brings us even

00:44:21.580 higher quality folks that continue to want to step forward given the context of how tough it

00:44:27.260 is to be an elected official. I think we should commend everybody that did put their name forward

00:44:32.300 and thank those that will be serving us for the next term here as they face some challenging

00:44:38.140 discussions with Ottawa, with the provincial government and with other municipalities in

00:44:43.500 in the region so i'm hopeful that it will you know we'll see better things the next iteration

00:44:49.100 and i think i think i just want to add that i think it is interesting just very quickly it is

00:44:53.020 really interesting how the party versus slate right and and so and um you know maybe it's fair

00:44:58.700 to say calgary party was a little bit of both but calgary party was very clear we are a party we're

00:45:02.220 running together and it was very clear on their branding and signage abc was very clear we're a

00:45:05.980 party and that was very clear on their branding and their signage and it wasn't as clear with

00:45:09.420 communities first so i'll be interested to see if there's going to be more rules that come around

00:45:12.940 that that people hey better or worse they want to know are you with the party or not and not be able

00:45:18.140 to not tell that from the signage um yes stephen i feel like you just want to jump in for like a

00:45:23.500 really quick comment on that listen i mean they wanted the best of both worlds they wanted to run

00:45:27.900 his independence and terry wong was a member of communities first too um people forget it because

00:45:34.300 he never ever acknowledged that he was part of it so he wants the benefit of being part of a party

00:45:40.460 and the benefit was fundraising the benefit was the capacity uh on a lot of different things and uh

00:45:47.900 you know he they want the benefit but he doesn't want to take the the hit if you will i don't know

00:45:53.660 anything about it i mean we we went to the debates and it was like chameleon's first i don't know

00:45:59.100 what that is you know i mean first of all very pleased that terry wong lost nonetheless we move

00:46:06.940 long and and fair enough but you know what very interesting that's very good i think i think folks

00:46:11.260 you can't have your cake and eat it too so you either you take a stand right and you stand and

00:46:15.340 you're with the party or you're not and either way but i think a little bit of clarity in the

00:46:18.940 next election wouldn't hurt all of us so thank you is best always yeah absolutely i would agree

00:46:25.500 with you i just want to thank you guys so much stephen carter from decide campaigns and amber

00:46:29.500 ruddy from council public affairs thank you so much for joining us today uh folks just thank you

00:46:34.620 thank you for tuning in i hope you found this valuable um thank you for joining us thank you

00:46:39.260 for your comments and you know for all of you watching today just want to remind you western

00:46:43.820 standard needs your support like share comment follow western standard news follow on all the

00:46:49.260 platforms and if you are not a subscriber yet you can head on over to westernstandard.news

00:46:55.020 and you can subscribe it's just ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars for the year

00:46:59.340 And we'll just one more time, John, we'll bring up my friend Corey Morgan's photo back up here.

00:47:04.700 You are going to see this handsome guy. He's going to return. This is his show. This is not my show.

00:47:09.440 I am not Cora Morgan. I am Lindsay Wilson of Link Strategies. Thank you all. Thank you to all of

00:47:14.940 you voters, all of you listeners. Like and share and subscribe to independent media and always get

00:47:20.720 out there to vote. Thank you.

00:47:29.340 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - October 23, 2025

Is This Municipal Election Really About the Candidates or About Control？

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