Western Standard - Should conservatives vote for Sonya Sharp？

00:00:00.000 G'day and welcome. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.

00:00:15.660 Today we're continuing our series of interviewing the major non-socialist Calgary mayoral candidates.

00:00:25.260 We've already spoken with Jeff Davison and Jeremy Farkas, and I'm pleased today to welcome

00:00:32.740 outgoing councillor for Ward 1 and Calgary mayoral candidate, Sonia Shart.

00:00:39.900 Hi.

00:00:41.120 Thanks for coming.

00:00:42.160 Thanks for having me.

00:00:43.060 I know you've been with Corey before.

00:00:44.920 Yes.

00:00:45.240 I think you've spoken to our City Hall reporter, Mike Thomas, before.

00:00:48.280 Yes, I have.

00:00:49.080 Yeah. But I just want to get on the action myself because, you know, I've been so confused

00:00:55.320 about, you know, how non-socialist or conservative Calgarians should vote.

00:01:03.860 It's a messy, it's a messy, it's a messy election.

00:01:09.540 One was supposed to be theoretically less messy because we had parties.

00:01:12.580 Parties should actually make it maybe a bit neater when you have a nomination process and

00:01:18.100 whatnot. That's not been the case here.

00:01:21.920 I do think in the end, the party system will likely provide some more predictability for

00:01:26.080 things and you don't have candidates who are broadly similar running against each other.

00:01:31.220 I always thought it was going to take a couple elections for it to kind of come out in the

00:01:33.540 wash until there's a clear kind of conservative party, clear, more leftist party, etc.

00:01:38.740 You know, for yourself, you know, maybe you make the case about conservatives who are so

00:01:42.540 split. There's so many undecided who are disproportionately conservatives too, who don't know how to vote.

00:01:46.540 And why should confused conservatives in Calgary vote for you over, say, Jeff Davison or Jeremy

00:01:52.360 Parkas?

00:01:52.960 I think what's important is just looking at my track record, especially the fact that I just

00:01:57.800 coming off of a four-year council where things that didn't matter to Calgarians or they weren't

00:02:03.800 important to Calgarians or Calgarians spoke against, crossed the finish line. I was always on the other

00:02:08.660 side of that vote. And I've listened to Calgarians. I would say I am extremely fiscally responsible when it

00:02:15.220 comes to city pool budgeting and I care and I listen. And so there are things that happened.

00:02:22.040 I think, well, Jeremy and Jeff were on council with Joe T. And I know, you know, he had mentioned

00:02:29.140 that, you know, maybe Jeff and I have similar policies, but Jeff actually voted in line with

00:02:33.100 everything Jody did when they were on council together. And Jeremy was the outlier and Jeremy

00:02:39.180 had a tough time bringing consensus. So on this council, I'm kind of the outlier with some of my

00:02:44.420 colleagues, but I've also brought consensus when it mattered. I might have lost on the things that

00:02:50.540 talked about fiscal responsibility, blanket rezoning, trying to stop that, you know, climate issues that

00:02:56.260 I tried to get an audit on. And so those are things that you would have seen me do in action.

00:03:02.000 The other thing when I look at my to-do list, because I know everyone has these aspirational

00:03:06.900 platforms. Yes, I'm running with a team and we built a team of people together to tackle city

00:03:12.700 hall issues day one, and we have a political muscle. But my to-do list is clear. Those things

00:03:16.960 that we need to do is, you know, blank, repeal blanket rezoning, make our city safer. We have

00:03:23.520 been endorsed by the Calgary Police Association to add 500 new police officers, to make our transit safe,

00:03:27.800 to add that police station downtown. But what's really making me stand out compared to all the

00:03:34.380 others, is talking about bringing senior administration to heel. Until you kind of get a

00:03:40.900 hold of the fact that senior administration reports to council, and council reports to the people.

00:03:46.960 That has to happen. And that's been lost in all of this. And I'm bringing that back. And all these

00:03:53.540 ideas about budgeting, infrastructure, growth, nothing can happen until council takes kind of over that

00:04:00.480 leadership at city hall again, because we represent you, the people. And that's important. So that's

00:04:05.780 where I would say that my argument is about me, that's very different than everybody else, that I

00:04:10.420 see city hall is a bit broken. And when I hear Calgarians want change, I know what they're talking

00:04:16.060 about. They're not talking about just repealing blanket rezoning or making our streets safer.

00:04:21.000 They're talking about the governance or talking about the culture at city hall. And that's where I come in

00:04:26.460 and say, I can fix that. So, um, well, a preface and then a question. Um, so I've moved out of the

00:04:36.580 city for a variety of reasons, crime, taxes, and just wanted a little more space. But, um, you know,

00:04:43.520 I mentioned that the first time I met you, um, I didn't vote for you, because we didn't have party

00:04:50.420 slaves. I didn't really, I didn't see no one. I had no one at least met me at my door. Maybe someone

00:04:56.160 knocked on my door, but I wasn't there. Didn't know anyone. So my, my default is if I don't know

00:05:00.380 who to vote for, I look at who the unions have endorsed and I vote for someone else. Uh, and I saw

00:05:05.240 the unions had endorsed you. So I didn't vote for you. I'd voted for the next name on the list,

00:05:09.340 essentially just that's, that's my shot in the dark. Um, you know, and I'm used to voting for

00:05:15.300 people and then being disappointed by them. Uh, you were a new experience for me where I didn't

00:05:20.620 vote for you. And then you surprised me by how well you performed. Uh, I, you know, I remember

00:05:26.060 just reading, like watching things for coming from council and you're on your, from the beginning,

00:05:31.860 um, you know, when they had the climate emergency declared, uh, you know, I thought at the time I

00:05:36.740 looked at the amount of money they at least theoretically committed to it. Calgary could have

00:05:40.340 bought an aircraft barrier and put it on the Glenmore, which I think would have been a better use

00:05:44.440 of money. But, uh, you know, you were on the right side of that from the beginning. I was like,

00:05:48.060 oh, well, that's surprising. And then, then you're pretty consistently on the right side of

00:05:52.360 things. We had blanket rezoning. Um, so I'm not used to that. Normally disappointed by people I did

00:05:57.100 vote for, not surprised, pleasantly surprised by people I didn't vote for. That was a nice change.

00:06:01.860 Um, one of the criticisms though, uh, you know, some people I know who are, uh, not voting for you

00:06:09.400 is that you're, you know, you had worked, uh, in the bureaucracy of city hall and the administration

00:06:15.740 for some time. And then on the one side hand, yes, that means, you know, you know, the ropes,

00:06:20.820 uh, Leslie Knope. And, uh, I mean, not in a good way. I love not her politics, but I love Leslie Knope,

00:06:28.560 uh, the character. Um, uh, so, you know, you know, the ropes, you know how to handle city hall,

00:06:33.420 but on the other hand would be a fear that, you know, having spent a significant part of your

00:06:38.140 career in, in city hall's administration, that you would be a creature of it, that you might be

00:06:43.040 captured by it. How would you respond to that? I would never have left if I was captured by

00:06:49.180 city hall or didn't want to fight city hall. So I've got the 16 years business experience and I

00:06:54.620 know I had the 20 years inside now, the four years as a politician, none of my opponents see that.

00:06:59.600 But if you go back and look at some of the things I've tried to, I would say bring to the surface

00:07:07.580 are some of the issues happening in senior leadership. When we talk about expenses, when

00:07:12.660 we talk about travels, when we talk about adding layers of bureaucracy where, you know, what can

00:07:17.600 you do with $2.5 million? How many police officers can you get for that? So I left for a reason. I left

00:07:23.440 knowing that you can't fight city hall from inside because you have a target on your back and you're

00:07:28.440 going to get fired. So I made the decision to leave and run for council, I was elected. But

00:07:33.580 if you can see that the knowledge I have is worth its weight in gold, to be honest, I can

00:07:40.260 navigate that whole system better even than current incumbents on council. And I see things

00:07:47.520 and sometimes I bite my tongue because you know, maybe it's not the time and place to be public

00:07:51.100 about things like that. But I have, I would say proved to people that maybe didn't vote for

00:07:55.740 me the first time because of my, my experience at city hall. But knowing the ropes, like when

00:08:03.140 you're in the city, right, you report and you have layers and I reported to the city manager

00:08:07.760 and he's the CAO now. And you know, now on the other side, I challenge his, you know, some

00:08:14.520 of his policies or what he's doing. And some of my, I would say colleagues on council don't

00:08:21.180 know how to do it or maybe don't want to do it. I have no problem because at the end

00:08:25.080 of the day, I'm a public servant. If I was in city hall or now that I'm outside city hall,

00:08:28.980 I'm still a public servant and I serve Calgarians. It's your taxpayer money and you deserve to

00:08:34.100 know exactly where it's being spent and how it's being spent. And so challenging status

00:08:38.760 quo has always been my thing. I just know that you can't do it from inside. You have to do

00:08:43.500 it from outside. So speaking of city hall, I'm not positive, but I think it may have

00:08:49.320 been second street had come out with something about the pensions of city councillors, that

00:08:55.380 there was kind of second and third pensions, the way it's, it's all very complicated. And

00:09:00.200 I don't want to get into the actuarials of it. I spent a big part of my career when I

00:09:03.500 was at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation actually studying the actuarials of MP pensions. We found

00:09:07.520 it was all this other crazy stuff. No one had known, but it's all complicated. I won't

00:09:11.560 get into it. But when Farkas was on council, he didn't take the pension. I think there's

00:09:23.600 really only one reason to do that is that's to give a politician the moral authority to

00:09:27.660 perform these things. A lot of these, our public sector pensions are almost entirely defined

00:09:34.680 benefit, not defined contribution. Those are actuarially and financially problematic.

00:09:40.060 Right. Um, the idea is then to give you the, uh, uh, the moral authority to change it. When

00:09:47.160 we succeeded in reforming, not abolishing, but performing the federal MP pension, the hope

00:09:51.540 was then that, okay, the Harper government now has the moral authority to change public

00:09:55.940 sector pensions for federal bureaucrats, but then they didn't do it. So it was actually

00:09:59.280 kind of, they did the symbolic thing to give themselves moral authority, then actually didn't

00:10:02.780 do what they were supposed to do with the authority. Um, uh, so what would you do with

00:10:10.020 city council pensions? And beyond that, is there any kind of significant reform you would

00:10:16.240 take to pensions for, uh, city of Calgary workers' pensions, which I know you're, you

00:10:22.380 want to defend them that they're there.

00:10:23.380 No, they must say they're very different. Right. So like, so I, I wasn't, uh, I did,

00:10:28.160 so I'll be honest, I did attack Jeremy for what he said about not taking a golden pension.

00:10:32.120 I think, um,

00:10:33.340 I think, sorry, I don't want to interrupt.

00:10:35.820 No, that's okay.

00:10:36.480 I kind of am, but, um.

00:10:37.400 That's okay. Um.

00:10:38.540 Because there's a difference between not taking one and taking one.

00:10:41.660 Yeah. I was surprised by that because it, it did come with a financial cost for him.

00:10:45.080 You said, I think it almost made him more take home money. Uh,

00:10:47.980 Yeah. Yes. Because yeah, but they're not getting the other half. So no, in the end,

00:10:52.060 he left a lot of money on the table. I, I told him like, uh, when I was in politics,

00:10:57.360 I made some of these symbolic sacrifice things and you get no credit for it. And he didn't

00:11:02.520 get credit for it. And then he didn't get elected mayor. And so nothing happened with

00:11:06.400 it. But I, I mean, I, I do have to challenge you on that part. Like it did, uh, you know,

00:11:12.420 beyond the exact fiscal year over the longterm, he left a lot of money on the table with that

00:11:17.300 action. Well, I would say this is that when you don't take the pension, you get that,

00:11:21.640 you don't get a deduct from your paycheck. And we asked HR out in public because you

00:11:26.100 have a choice as an elected official. And so technically it depends on how

00:11:31.060 financially savvy you are. You could take that extra money in and invest it.

00:11:35.600 Yeah, but no one in the right mind would you, I want to, if I would give my money for a defined

00:11:41.240 benefit pension plan matched by my employer, the taxpayer, and I'm guaranteed it for life.

00:11:46.360 And it's not up to the market. Well, and I, no one in the right mind wouldn't.

00:11:49.320 And I say, I would say I'd still challenge that because our elected official pension is

00:11:53.240 based on the number of terms you serve. And so if you only do one term and you get that

00:11:58.180 and you pay into it, it comes out to 350 to $400 a month when you're 65. There's nothing

00:12:03.280 golden about that. And so when you don't take the pension and you get that extra money per

00:12:09.120 paycheck per month, if you're fiscally savvy, you're going to invest that and you can make more

00:12:13.860 money. And so I don't know how much is left on the table. I mean, I don't know people's

00:12:18.720 financial situations. Should we be looking at pensions in general? Yeah, there should be an

00:12:23.360 understanding if there's two or three different pensions. Maybe some, I would say, I called them

00:12:30.360 more like the senior, senior bureaucrats are getting. New city staff aren't getting the types

00:12:35.140 of pensions that people were getting back in the day. But what I was really focused on is the

00:12:39.060 elected official pension. And so I will, I've challenged Jeremy on that only because what

00:12:43.980 we've been given is just a little bit different than hearing, you know, what's golden about

00:12:48.720 $500 a month. Nothing. Nothing's golden. It's that it's guaranteed for life, no matter how

00:12:55.380 the investments do, which is different than a defined contract. I know a lot of people think

00:12:58.860 the difference between defined benefit. Yeah. And that's fair enough. It's all kind of,

00:13:01.880 I would just say is that if you're going to stand up and say, I didn't take this and I,

00:13:07.720 so then what? So what are you going to do about it? And like you said, like you want the credit,

00:13:12.380 right? So if you want not to take something because you don't believe in it, so put it this way,

00:13:16.780 we tried to not take our pay raises, right? And we have challenged the, I would say the process of

00:13:23.720 getting pay raises and we're turned down because always a third party. So we put a pledge out saying

00:13:27.900 that, you know, council should not be able to determine their raise and we need to figure out

00:13:34.240 if, you know, the average person isn't seeing the raise that council's seeing, then we should be able

00:13:40.360 to stop our raises, but we weren't able to. But the whole, the whole point, I think of politicians

00:13:47.100 taking a pay cut or not taking a pay increase, not taking a pension, et cetera, the purpose is to

00:13:53.780 give themselves moral authority to make tough decisions with the bureaucrats and other workers

00:13:58.360 that are under them. So, you know, if, if you are going to not take a pay increase or you're going

00:14:04.860 to put it off to an arbiter, some kind of third party, is that then saying, is that what you would

00:14:09.900 then do with city workers rather than just the regular tit for tat negotiation with the unions

00:14:14.540 and the unions normally get more? Because that's the biggest driver of costs in virtually any

00:14:20.360 municipality is the payroll. Oh yeah, for sure. And, uh, or, or, and most governments period

00:14:26.060 federally have a bunch of transfers on top, but it's mostly payroll. And we've, you know, we

00:14:31.040 politicians, when they talk about, well, we're going to get costs under control. They always talk

00:14:34.640 very vaguely middle managers and money or piece of cues. No, it's payroll. If you don't get the

00:14:41.500 payroll of city hall under control, none of that other stuff. Well, it goes back to my third point

00:14:46.160 of my to-do list. The only person that reports to council right now is the city, um, administrative

00:14:50.700 officer. They're the only person that city council does a performance evaluation on any,

00:14:55.940 and the auditor, which you, you leave that one on the side. But, and so when you talk about,

00:15:00.360 you know, getting a new business, you usually open up those books, you see the governance structure,

00:15:04.120 you look to see where efficiencies are. This new council will need to do the same thing,

00:15:07.980 but your only single employee, when you walk into that door, other than your staff in your office

00:15:13.560 is the city manager. So you need to have those conversations. So when I came to budget and I

00:15:19.000 talk about bringing, um, you know, amendments to lower the, the operating costs that brings up the

00:15:24.720 tax rate or not, I'm trying to focus on things that aren't going to affect your day-to-day living

00:15:29.680 in Calgary. So you're looking for those, you know, excess waste, excess, excess spending. And so that is

00:15:36.000 really important because that's where you can bring things down. Um, well, let's change gears a little

00:15:41.780 bit here. Um, crime and drugs. I didn't consider it to be particularly top of mind, even four years

00:15:51.500 ago, uh, certainly not eight years ago, 12 years ago, but now it's everywhere. Uh, you know, when I

00:15:58.380 had Jeff here, I bought, you know, the alley right behind our office where I parked my vehicle every

00:16:03.420 day, there's the drug zombies. It's everywhere. It's, uh, you know, our, our public transit have

00:16:10.880 just become crime pipelines at this point. I know you've committed to hire 500 new officers

00:16:15.340 putting a station downtown. I mean, it's bizarre that we don't have a station downtown. Um,

00:16:21.080 but I don't, I'm not sure the answer is just more officers. Um, like I was just down in Washington,

00:16:27.500 D.C. and, uh, a city not known for being particularly safe. Now I was in the generally

00:16:34.120 nicer part of it. I was not out in the more known dangerous areas. Uh, but there they brought

00:16:39.380 in the frigging national guard and maybe it was overkill, maybe not, but I've, I was safe. I've

00:16:47.000 not felt that safe in a big city, uh, since I, I can't remember. I, I didn't see a single,

00:16:52.480 uh, addict on the sidewalks. Uh, the closest I saw was one old fashioned drunk, an old fashioned

00:16:59.280 drunk, just a guy drinking a bottle of hooch, uh, and mumbling to himself and singing a song.

00:17:05.500 That was the, I forgot we even had those, the good old days when we just have a good old

00:17:09.240 fashioned drunk on a sidewalk. We don't eat, we don't have that anymore. Wholesome, wholesome

00:17:13.840 way to do it. Um, you know, it's, so it's not just officers on the streets. It's, it's the

00:17:20.100 drug problem. Are you, you know, the province is moving towards mandatory treatment. I actually

00:17:24.940 don't know if it's going to work, but I'm just really willing to try anything. I think

00:17:28.000 that's new at this point. Well, I think that's what's scary is we do need to try things.

00:17:32.380 So even Councillor McLean and I talked about adding turnstiles to some of the train stations. I know

00:17:37.180 that we get, we have had a lot of criticism about that in our past council saying it's going

00:17:40.340 to cost so much money. How can we put a money, like how can we put a cost right now to public

00:17:44.100 safety where we need to make sure our trains are safe for everybody and making sure that we

00:17:49.100 don't see the things we're seeing. The one thing about the open drug use that's happening in our

00:17:53.060 city, it's, we, we need to try something totally different. And I have called for the province

00:17:57.960 to shut down the Schumer site and say, like, figure out what you need from the city. We,

00:18:02.720 we control land. So if you need more locations, let's give you the more land, but we got to try

00:18:06.700 something. We can't continue down this path. What do you sound a mandatory treatment and

00:18:10.140 cooperating with the province on that? Sorry? The province moving towards mandatory treatment

00:18:14.380 obviously require the participation of the Calgary police service. Where do you stand? I would say

00:18:18.480 that we've got to try, see what works and what doesn't work. We've never done it yet. Right?

00:18:22.280 Like that's the thing. But it is mandatory, uh, mandatory treatment, a part of those things

00:18:27.060 that you are willing to try. I would say I'm, I would say knowing that I have to keep the streets

00:18:33.340 safe for you. If whatever they need to do to treat people, because what happens in the building

00:18:39.020 is their responsibility. And so if mandatory treatment in a compassion way is their way to go,

00:18:45.020 then that's way to try it. There's other cities around the world that have done this and it's

00:18:49.520 worked, but we can't sit back anymore and just watch this in front of us happen. But there needs

00:18:54.480 to be a, there needs to be compassion around this. And it's not just the province that has to step up.

00:18:58.700 Yeah. I don't think they're talking about like picking them up and next like dog catchers and

00:19:02.660 throwing a pen.

00:19:03.400 But I think this is, so the words that people use, and I think what happens is, um, that's,

00:19:09.840 it's like a thing, right? So when you hear word mandatory, you, it's a trigger word. And so it

00:19:15.020 needs to be compassionate intervention. And there needs to be not just the province and the city

00:19:18.680 working together, but our partners that are making sure that, you know, the, the, the population that

00:19:23.820 needs the support gets the support. And so that's, what's important here. And I have lived experience

00:19:30.880 in that world. Uh, nothing I'm going to share today, but it's there. You need to approach these

00:19:36.140 situations with a lot of sensitivity and that's critical. And not just the people that are needing

00:19:41.700 the population that needs the support, but the people that are providing the support and helping

00:19:46.060 them get on their way. That's going to be critical. It's going to be a lot of training and, uh, yeah,

00:19:50.960 I, I support whatever it needs to be for all Calgarians, including those that need the support

00:19:55.580 of mental health and addiction issues.

00:19:57.540 Yeah. I think we're well past the point where there's broad support for treating drug addicts

00:20:05.560 as criminals themselves. No, they're, they're victims. They're, they're patients who need

00:20:10.660 to be checked in for help.

00:20:11.920 And I think we, I think that's that around that.

00:20:14.100 Yeah. But I, I think where things are shifting is away from now enabling that sickness to curing

00:20:21.280 the sickness, at least doing our, doing something to try.

00:20:24.320 Well, and people, we all deserve dignity, right?

00:20:26.400 Yeah.

00:20:26.700 And that's, what's important is how do we do this with everyone having the dignity to

00:20:31.540 move forward with whatever treatment they need? And that's critical. Uh, and so it's new

00:20:36.500 to our city, right? Like these aren't, we're talking about something that, I mean, like you

00:20:40.520 just said, you didn't think eight years ago or 10 years, I was born and raised here too.

00:20:43.320 I did not think that we would be having these conversations, but we are, and it's reality.

00:20:47.000 And we have to figure out how we can move forward in a way that we have the compassion

00:20:51.240 around, you know, supporting all Calgarians.

00:20:55.160 All right. We mentioned it earlier, but it's one of the big issues, blanket rezoning.

00:20:59.140 Yes.

00:20:59.640 Um, you voted against it.

00:21:01.340 I did. Um, didn't vote against blanket rezoning. I tried to stop it in 2023 and I took a lot

00:21:07.880 of heat for that.

00:21:08.600 Yeah. Yeah. No, uh, it was good. Good on you. Uh, now some of your opponents, uh, have

00:21:14.180 said that you're squishy on ending blanket rezoning, that it's not just, you're not

00:21:20.040 going to, just going to end it, but that you are going to do some other, which, okay.

00:21:25.600 Tell me how it's not wishy-washy.

00:21:26.620 Okay. So it's repeal period.

00:21:28.360 You repeal blanket rezoning to go back where it needed to be prior to whatever that date

00:21:32.620 was in May of 2024.

00:21:35.400 Full stop.

00:21:35.900 Full stop.

00:21:37.520 Of course there needs to be a process for people to, if they, if you want to keep RCG,

00:21:42.220 then you're going to have to go through a process just like everyone else did last

00:21:44.980 time. You're going to have to come to council.

00:21:46.360 There's going to be a public hearing.

00:21:47.660 You're probably gonna have to pay for your permit, right?

00:21:49.580 Like those are, and then you reform the planning department to make things happen

00:21:52.980 quicker. And it's always been repeal, reinstate, reform.

00:21:57.880 Those have been the three things I've been talking about this whole time.

00:22:02.140 And so I have never been wishy-washy on repealing blanket rezoning.

00:22:06.040 I know that there was a couple of people saying that I, they said that they were the

00:22:10.720 first to say they repeal it.

00:22:13.120 I tried to stop it.

00:22:14.800 I tried to bring something forward in 2023 to say, this is a really bad idea.

00:22:20.440 And when it was a policy idea, and I think this, what you can do is cut red tape.

00:22:25.240 You could shave four months off the planning process.

00:22:27.420 I spent most of my career in the planning department.

00:22:29.120 You can use reserves to pay for permits.

00:22:32.600 So anyways, long story short, we've got, we went through those public hearings and yeah,

00:22:36.940 stood up and said, I absolutely am not supporting this.

00:22:39.700 And it'll be the first business of the regular meeting of council of this new council once

00:22:45.580 we're elected.

00:22:46.700 All right.

00:22:48.420 Taxes.

00:22:49.020 Yeah.

00:22:50.860 Jeff Davison has committed to a just flat four-year tax freeze, not a cut, but a freeze.

00:22:58.240 Yeah.

00:22:59.980 Do taxes stay flat for four years under you?

00:23:04.940 No, they like, I'm cutting taxes.

00:23:07.440 So there's a difference here.

00:23:08.660 I want to see the tax rate drop.

00:23:10.740 So 5.4% has been the guaranteed tax increase for residential homeowners for 2026.

00:23:17.420 That's too high.

00:23:18.840 We need to bring that tax rate down. 0.75

00:23:20.720 There are things in the preview of the budget that do not belong in there that can bring

00:23:25.040 those numbers lower.

00:23:26.320 Are you talking about cutting the scheduled tax increases or cutting the actual tax amount?

00:23:31.100 So this scheduled increase, this, this schedule increase is happening in November.

00:23:35.080 So if you didn't do anything, it would be 5.4% for a residential homeowner.

00:23:39.720 Yeah.

00:23:40.280 You need to go in and bring that number down.

00:23:42.540 To zero?

00:23:43.260 Whatever you can bring it down that you can still operate.

00:23:46.000 So when I say tax freeze, I mean like it's zero, zero, zero.

00:23:49.280 So that's interesting because that's not what I'm getting out of the tax freeze.

00:23:54.420 Yeah, you know what?

00:23:54.900 Maybe I should.

00:23:55.520 Okay.

00:23:56.120 That's a zero-based review.

00:23:57.620 I might need to go back to him what he means by tax freeze because when I say tax freeze,

00:24:01.260 I don't mean, I mean it, it stays at zero.

00:24:03.380 You mean zero-based budgeting.

00:24:05.000 Yeah.

00:24:05.240 Like it just doesn't go up.

00:24:06.800 That's, that's, that's a tax freeze to me.

00:24:08.660 Okay.

00:24:08.960 So what I, what I, we are-

00:24:10.620 Maybe I need to clarify with him what he means by that.

00:24:12.120 Okay.

00:24:12.400 So what we've pledged for is basic budgeting.

00:24:14.640 When you, you know, we can bring back a finance committee that's done in public.

00:24:18.460 So the tax, so first of all, the 5.4 is too high.

00:24:21.700 That's within the last four budget cycle.

00:24:23.920 We need to bring a new budget cycle or new budget for the next four years.

00:24:28.060 And we, as a new council do that in January.

00:24:30.920 The last four years, Calgarians probably on the average would have seen on their average

00:24:34.900 home, 20, 22% increase.

00:24:36.960 That is extreme compared to what we've seen over the years.

00:24:41.480 That's one reason I got out of the city.

00:24:42.800 Well, and it's, it's, that's why we have like no affordability issues and things like that.

00:24:46.220 So what we've pledged is to have a committee that's open to public and that we are asking

00:24:51.960 our senior administration to come to council or committee with their books, open them up.

00:24:57.420 Let's talk about lined up, lined up, lined up.

00:24:59.180 That is actually not happening right now.

00:25:01.120 A lot of our conversations around finance and spending, uh, some happen in closed doors

00:25:05.880 or they're a vague presentation you will see from, you know, um, senior administration that needs to stop.

00:25:12.640 Things need to be identified.

00:25:14.320 what needs obviously your your needs and wants of a calgarian and the wasteful spending has to go 1.00

00:25:20.480 we need to get back to basic budgeting which you know helps with the potholes water uh snow

00:25:26.960 clearing those are important things if you go right down to zero you will run into some issues

00:25:32.720 in the future you can end up in an infrastructure gap and things like that but you need to make sure

00:25:37.120 that you obviously are generating a revenue but not overspending and that's what we've seen in

00:25:42.960 the last couple years um okay two questions just slightly over time okay oh your staff here is not

00:25:50.640 gonna kill me for it okay well i don't know we'll see she looks tough um so uh i was in your ward uh

00:25:58.880 i still drive through it when i come into the office here okay but um when the water feeder blew

00:26:05.600 now we're all on reduced water in my area but i at least had water um that wasn't in montgomery bone

00:26:13.120 ass but yeah uh the big problem to me was the friggin traffic from construction for an entire

00:26:19.280 friggin summer because we were not doing extremely simple basic nuts and bolts job of a municipal

00:26:26.880 government you know it's keep the streets safe yeah plowed and the parks clean and the water flowing

00:26:34.240 that's that's that's the basics that's your job and this happened you know not that long after the

00:26:39.040 city voted to spend uh the gdp of a small country on a climate emergency um so you know i think really

00:26:46.480 then there was i said the next mayor is going to be someone who just wants to make government boring

00:26:52.000 again like that could they could put it on a red hat make boring government boring again uh or blue hat 0.78

00:26:56.960 because i like blue it could be yeah this is alberta so big as blue but you know what i mean it's like

00:27:01.520 it's a good campaign slogan just like someone who's just going to mind the p's and q's of simple

00:27:07.680 municipal government not make it fancy anymore just the basic shit we expect to get done um so

00:27:15.920 you know but that stuff takes money the water uh if you want the water feeders properly maintained

00:27:20.880 you either have to not spend money on frivolous things or you've got to raise taxes you want to bring

00:27:25.920 at least tax increases down um where's the money going to come from for because those things aren't

00:27:32.480 cheap water feeders are not cheap items but that's the stuff that really matters where's the money for

00:27:38.400 getting back to basics on something like that going to come from if it's not going to be from tax

00:27:42.240 increases so i would say over the last four years myself councillor chabot and councillor mclean brought

00:27:47.760 over 170 million dollars in operating costs down uh all voted against all the four years which is fine

00:27:53.520 but you can find savings in the corporation you can find the nice to haves um and not impact one

00:28:01.760 thing that you would notice driving to work every day and so the water feeder main issue was a game

00:28:08.720 changer for me seeing what i saw every day when i went to bonus and mothers with strollers with water

00:28:13.520 bottles no babies in those strollers getting water and so this is your job your job is to be a public

00:28:19.840 servant and you know what this job is supposed to be boring it is not there's nothing glorious

00:28:25.520 about this job um a lot of people don't like you and you have to be okay with that and your job is

00:28:30.480 to get out and make sure you have running water clean streets no potholes snow clearing and these are

00:28:35.200 things that are basic budgeting and that's why i go back to like getting back to basics and making yeah

00:28:40.640 making city hall boring again whatever slogan you want to call i i like to roll up my sleeves and get to

00:28:45.440 work i am one of those people and so it can be done and there are a lot of things we can flatten

00:28:51.440 right out in the corporation that nobody would know and it would not impact your everyday i would call

00:28:55.920 it drive into calgary or you being here at work it would not impact but if you don't if you turn on

00:29:01.440 your water tap one morning not knowing there's a water main break and there's no water coming out

00:29:06.560 first thing you're going to think is did i pay my bill yeah second thing or you turn your water out and

00:29:12.000 it's gross brown water coming out how do you even know what's happening right and so these are things

00:29:18.400 that like we can never be there ever again that is you can never be a city at in our age because our

00:29:23.520 city's not old where a some a catastrophic failure like this impacts the whole city things happen we

00:29:30.800 get it um but i am looking forward to reading this report that's coming at the end of this year

00:29:35.840 on the water main to talk a little bit about how we even got to the point where a catastrophic failure

00:29:41.200 it's great that that'll come out long after all the votes are counted isn't it yeah it's too bad

00:29:46.320 because i was really hoping to see that before election day okay uh so crime and drugs was a

00:29:52.320 question that you might have got you at least come up in a mystical election before my next one is one

00:29:58.080 that i would have never conceived of would come up but is now because it's just become such a big issue

00:30:02.880 okay and it's mass migration it's not municipal jurisdiction at all but the effects of it are certainly

00:30:09.040 felt yes on our infrastructure on our housing it's not politically correct to say but it does affect

00:30:15.840 crime statistics a lot of things um it's under the control of the feds the province is at least musing

00:30:22.880 about taking control of it we'll see what happens um so i know you can't control the immigration rate

00:30:28.160 that's no that's that's ottawa no but um you know we do have uh the province has the ability to take

00:30:36.800 some control over it uh and and just it's one of the big things is driving the housing crisis

00:30:42.960 in calgary uh it's just filtered down into so much um understanding that yeah i know you can't control

00:30:50.160 it you're not the minister of immigration you're running for for mayor um but if you're talking to the

00:30:55.600 the federal minister of immigration you know what what is your message to them when you're

00:31:00.240 you know they're saying okay well how many uh immigrants would you like us to uh you know

00:31:05.440 migrants of various kinds you know we'd like to settle you know x amount in calgary what's your 0.60

00:31:11.040 message to them around that issue understanding i know you don't have the power to but if they're

00:31:15.280 listening to you i would say well first of all my my family came here from a different country too so

00:31:19.360 i'm a child of immigrants and so i understand people move to canada for a better life and i think

00:31:23.520 that's great we love our city you love the city like i love calgary and and culture is what just

00:31:30.320 changes the landscape of so many things and i think what's important is when i when i hear about

00:31:35.440 people coming to calgary and they have nowhere to live or we don't have you know enough schools

00:31:40.800 or hospitals to support the amount of people that moved here or are moving here the one thing we do have

00:31:47.840 as a city is land so i would look at the premier and the government of alberta and say if you need

00:31:54.560 support to build new schools to build more hospitals to build affordable housing we have land and we can

00:32:01.440 be cutting red tape to make sure those permits get processed fast and we actually do have a role to

00:32:06.720 play to support i mean it's hard to say um you know you don't ever want to be like no we don't want

00:32:12.240 anybody that that's not that's not okay you you have to you need to build a city that's going to

00:32:18.160 grow and not just that it helps with our you know obviously economic fight uh the economic growth in

00:32:23.760 the city it helps with the vibrancy but we have the land so when i look at the fact that we need to

00:32:30.080 like support what's been going on because we can't stop anything but we need to make sure the land is

00:32:36.480 available for people to build we have land we can give up and sell right like and people don't know

00:32:44.560 this right we we have land like in my where you used to live in in ward one and we have a lot of

00:32:49.520 land up there the city owns that land let's bring it to market sell as developers the most affordable

00:32:53.920 communities in calgary actually in the suburbs of our city let's get that land up to market let's get

00:32:58.800 houses built on it so to some extent i agree um you know migration i don't know we're gonna

00:33:05.120 get into a bigger topic i guess but keep it keep it simple jerek simple remember you just told me

00:33:09.920 keep applying um knowing our role and responsibility but i mean migration for the vast majority of

00:33:16.480 canadian history has generally been an economic plus uh has generally maybe made things more vibrant

00:33:21.680 but it's not that way right now uh you know the the way they've opened it up temporary foreign

00:33:28.240 workers and essentially phony student visas that has not helped the economy it's completely driven the

00:33:34.560 bottom out of it for uh low-income people to be competitive to work themselves uh it's created

00:33:40.320 some i'd say anti-vibrancy issues in some cases because we're not just bringing the best anymore

00:33:46.880 it's not way it was a decade ago we're in a very different system now and yeah you can we can build

00:33:53.280 some more that's that's definitely a part of the answer but then the taxpayer who's already here has

00:33:58.480 to bear the cost of building that new school for people who have not paid into the tax base we have

00:34:03.120 to pay the cost of building that new fire hall for people who have not uh been in the tax base yet

00:34:08.480 we can only absorb so much at a time so is the answer just new building well i would say if you're

00:34:14.880 looking at the municipality that's the only thing we can control is the land and the regulatory system

00:34:20.000 that's that's where we land that's our responsibility right there and you know i would say as you know a

00:34:27.200 future mayor to the city you need to support anything that's coming your way and if it's here

00:34:34.400 in front of you what's the solution to move forward on it you can't go backwards and so if the the

00:34:40.640 province says we need to build more schools great where do you want to put these more schools do we

00:34:44.880 have land if the province says we need to build more um seniors homes right because senior like we

00:34:50.400 have a we have a seniors population and you know they put money into our tax base but you know

00:34:55.440 i'll say one thing is our seniors probably need a little bit more relief when it comes to

00:35:00.320 affordability than a lot of things they built these cities for us and so you know we need to know what

00:35:06.400 our role and responsibility is and so it's funny because um to end on that question to talk about

00:35:11.200 you know staying in our lane i know exactly as a mayor what my lane looks like and where i'm going

00:35:17.360 to play a supporting role or i'm going to play a partnership to the province and say this is what i

00:35:23.360 need for calgary and calgarians will always come first and i think you know as soon as we can move

00:35:29.200 people into some of these buildings they pay into the taxes it's kind of that we generate that revenue

00:35:34.080 and you know you run for a city to create a place where it's affordable where it's safe and you know at

00:35:40.400 the end of the day derek what's been lost at city hall is trust and so you know i'm running on those three

00:35:48.080 things of making sure calgarians can trust city hall again so the decisions we make impact your

00:35:53.360 everyday life and that we're playing a supporting or advocating role to those other orders of

00:35:58.320 government for issues that we know we can't control i'm just one tiny one okay quickly because you're

00:36:04.880 going to get in so much trouble yeah uh yeah she she's looking scary um uh it's kind of an unpopular

00:36:13.200 thing to create more politicians but i i think and you you you are you are currently an outgoing

00:36:19.280 i am currently and these words are huge yes they are they have significantly more people than a

00:36:25.360 provincial constituency they're yeah approaching the size of a federal constituency but you have a

00:36:30.480 you have a fraction of the budget and in in many ways like i say this for me on the light you're

00:36:35.760 actually have a way more involved job and then like most mlas sit on the back bench they read some 0.95

00:36:40.640 talking points they're handed to them by some staff who don't even work for them and they're in

00:36:44.160 their leader's office and they voters are told and they go home and they answer some phone calls

00:36:49.120 not much some do a lot more um but for the most part a city councilor's job is a hell of a lot more

00:36:54.720 involved you're dealing with all these issues on the ground you're dealing with potholes and this

00:36:59.280 issue when the park and a million things these wards i think are too big now more city councilors makes

00:37:05.040 for maybe a more unwieldy council probably don't want it to be the size of a small parliament like toronto 0.75

00:37:10.480 but um although they're smaller i guess they used to be but uh what do you what do you think about

00:37:19.200 at least considering the idea of maybe shrinking down the size of the wards a bit to make them a

00:37:23.840 bit more manageable and therefore more representative of the people in them because it's it's yeah i i know

00:37:30.560 you probably don't want this no one likes the idea theoretically more politicians but i think the

00:37:34.720 wards got to get smaller they're too damn big well i think okay so i come out of this from a different

00:37:38.800 angle so i think there was about 120 000 people living ward one i also took over half of ward six

00:37:44.720 and i managed and i'll be honest um what i liked about the the compensation committee did is they

00:37:52.080 also disagreed with more councils or counselors because i thought it would be like too much they

00:37:56.720 gave us ability to hire more staff and when you have the right staff in your area work gets done so i kind

00:38:04.320 so i kind of had a award and a half my last year of council and you just manage and again getting

00:38:11.520 into this job you need to know your role and responsibility you are the closest to the people

00:38:16.640 you have to like that it's a public service job and i would say you know at this point right now i think

00:38:23.920 the 14 plus the mayor is good should it be reevaluated again absolutely and it will be because

00:38:29.600 they're going to look at that but smaller wards doesn't mean more efficient not necessarily so and

00:38:36.000 smaller wards doesn't mean lower taxes you need to elect the right people to represent your community and

00:38:42.240 represent you so that it doesn't matter how many people are in that horseshoe calgarians are getting

00:38:47.520 what they deserve all right okay uh i'm over time so i apologize thank you derek counselor and

00:38:55.520 candidate uh sonia sharp thank you very much thank you for being with us today great uh thank you all

00:39:00.640 of you for joining us today remember to go to westernstandard.news click on subscribe we're only

00:39:05.200 ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to all western standard content

00:39:09.360 and get past the pesky paywall uh normally we do an election night uh coverage of things but

00:39:14.800 i guess the balloting is going to be a bit slower this time i want to be here till 3 a.m so we're

00:39:18.640 going to be here uh first thing tuesday morning next week with the election results it'll be probably

00:39:24.880 a little anticlimactic uh we won't be able to do our pretend uh both blitzer with a big screen with

00:39:30.880 the votes coming in it's not going to be like that but we'll we'll break down the results and discuss them

00:39:35.360 and uh well maybe my guest will be uh having a good night thank you thank you very much for joining us and

00:39:41.840 do you

Western Standard - October 18, 2025

Should conservatives vote for Sonya Sharp？

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