Western Standard - The Cory Morgan Show with guests Jeromy Farkas and Marcel Latouche

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Cory Morgan Show. This is the post-election moving into municipal election

00:00:17.280 show. We can, you know, for those who are sick and tired of politics, I'm afraid it's not gone

00:00:22.560 yet. But for those who love politics, well, we've got plenty for you. It never just seems to stop,

00:00:28.160 but provincially Alberta is in a complete mess right now that the hospitals are overrun. Kenny

00:00:34.480 is on the run. He's got caucus members sniping at him. He's got board members being kicked off the

00:00:41.280 party board. He's got board members resigning from the party board. There's been a lot of discussion

00:00:46.320 on how long Premier Kenny is going to manage to stay at the head of the UCP. So we're always going

00:00:52.240 to be watching and reporting on that. The Western Standard, of course, constantly gets exclusives

00:00:56.880 and breaking news on what's going on in the UCP caucus. It drives the UCP quite mad at times,

00:01:03.440 but we do. If they behave themselves better, we wouldn't have things to break and report on them.

00:01:08.640 Now, as we get into this municipal campaign, I got a couple of great guests lined up today,

00:01:13.360 by the way. So Jeremy Farkas, he's a mayoral candidate. Most people have heard of him. He

00:01:18.480 was a councillor for a term there. He certainly was the thorn and ninches side throughout his time in 1.00

00:01:24.400 there. He's always been a consistent supporter of small government. He's thrown his hat in the ring

00:01:28.080 for mayor. And from the last polling, he appears to be the front runner at this time. But there's

00:01:32.480 still a lot of campaign time left. And there are, I think, 29 candidates for mayor. It's just

00:01:37.680 ridiculous. And it's insane. And many of those candidates are ridiculous and insane. But there's 0.99

00:01:42.000 about four or five of them are running some pretty serious campaigns. So we'll be talking to Jeremy and

00:01:45.680 getting an update, see how the campaign's going and what he's looking to do. He's been releasing campaign

00:01:50.240 platform aspects to the media in this last couple of days. And he's got more coming.

00:01:56.240 As well, I'm going to speak to Marcel Latouche. Some might remember listening to him. He was a

00:02:00.320 regular on the Daniel Smith show back when that radio station used to have good content. Marcel

00:02:05.200 focuses very much on municipal issues, municipal politics, again, small government politics. He's

00:02:10.800 written a number of books, and he's running the pack or third party advertisers, what they're calling

00:02:15.840 him in this elections, called Lead Calgary. Not to be confused with the hard left wing group called

00:02:21.200 Lead Now. Marcel's is quite a different organization altogether. And yeah, it's just always good to chat

00:02:28.560 with Marcel because he has a lot of common sense. He studies the bureaucracy. He studies the financing of

00:02:33.760 municipal governments and civic governments and has a lot to say. Their group is going to be

00:02:40.080 watching candidates and putting a list of who they feel is appropriate to support and who not.

00:02:45.600 Speaking of support, I do want to thank our members. You know, this is what we've

00:02:51.040 always got to remember on here. The Western Standard is an independent media outlet. We aren't

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00:03:29.920 It's cheaper than the old newspaper subscriptions used to be. And you don't have a whole pile of old

00:03:34.160 newspapers to get rid of afterwards. It's all digital. It's beautiful. And the more of you guys to get out

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00:04:03.040 spread the word. You know that we've got this kind of covered. You don't have to stick to the same old

00:04:06.960 mainstream stuff. There is an alternative. The Western Standard provides it. Subscribe on YouTube.

00:04:12.240 You'll see these things when they break. I mean, we stream live stuff. We have live specials. We

00:04:15.440 covered the federal election. We're going to cover the municipal election on election night and see

00:04:19.760 who's won in Calgary. You know, but you'll get those updates when we get things that are breaking.

00:04:25.040 And we go to events in person and broadcast live from those as well. So one thing, you know, I'll show

00:04:31.120 how this municipal election is beginning. Yeah, I don't pretend to be unbiased. This is a, you know,

00:04:37.040 but I'm not saying who to vote for yet. I will say one who not to vote for though,

00:04:41.200 because we see the same old Jodi Gondek. She was a councillor. She's sort of Ninchy's preferred 0.90

00:04:48.240 heir apparent for mayor. She's, you know, as people said, just a new version of Ninchy. Stephen Carter is

00:04:55.520 her campaign manager. He was Ninchy's prime man there. You know, Stephen Carter was also tied to

00:05:01.360 Alison Redford. Like he's really brought a lot of winners into the Alberta political sphere. Or Jan,

00:05:07.280 or what was her name again? Boy, I'm forgetting it now. That's good, probably. She was a provincial

00:05:12.960 one who crossed to the NDP, tried to run for leadership, but then backed out when she couldn't

00:05:16.720 get enough support with the PCs. Boy, her name is escaping me, but it's probably for the better.

00:05:22.480 She was quite an individual. She left Notley hanging. Either way, Stephen Carter was tied with

00:05:26.480 her as well. Well, Gondek has always been pushing hard for more lockdowns, more masking,

00:05:33.600 more vaccinations, firing unvaccinated people, that sort of thing, closing up restaurants.

00:05:38.880 You know, she was fighting, you know, taking shots at Kenny chronically when we were

00:05:42.800 open for the summer. She's always in the news for these things. Well, she had a little private

00:05:47.360 event there, or somebody was holding one for her last Friday, I believe it was. And it was

00:05:51.680 tweeted out briefly by Emma May, who's something of a social media maven, I guess you could say.

00:05:56.160 This beautiful close quarters selfie, just smiling and giggling away. Isn't that nice? But they don't

00:06:01.760 live in the same household. They're not wearing masks. They sure as hell are not two meters apart.

00:06:06.320 I was a surveyor for 20 years. You know, you can question my qualifications on many, many things,

00:06:10.800 but I do know what two meters looks like. And that's not even frigging close. Hypocrisy at its very

00:06:16.960 finest. When Gondek is on the news, if she can get beyond Nenshi on the news and telling us how

00:06:23.520 important it is that we lock down, how important it is that we stay home if we don't have to be home,

00:06:26.960 how important it is for us to stay within our cohorts, cohorts and not get out to spreader events.

00:06:32.320 And then she's at some sort of private event where she's giving out close quarters selfies with people

00:06:37.520 that aren't from her own household. When I did tweet that out to Emma May and said, you know,

00:06:42.720 asked, is this, uh, was this a mask free event? She immediately blocked me on Twitter and deleted

00:06:48.800 the tweet, but the beautiful thing with the internet is it's forever. That was screen snapped.

00:06:53.440 It went around this, this is, you know, there's all sorts of things I've put up with in politics,

00:06:57.920 but you know what I won't? Hypocrisy. Gondek is a hypocrite, nothing less. She's a pure hypocrite. 1.00

00:07:04.160 She's telling you what to do and she won't do it herself. That's a sign of her character. This is a 1.00

00:07:09.440 campaign time and she's even not just a sign of her character. She's not that bloody bright. 0.85

00:07:13.600 When you know you've been campaigning on that, why are you giving out selfies with people out 0.57

00:07:19.120 there showing you breaking the rules that you're trying to have the government impose on everybody

00:07:23.760 else? You are a hypocrite. You do not deserve to be mayor. And I really look forward to you being 1.00

00:07:29.920 defeated in October on elections day. Now, yeah, I wouldn't be too sad Jeremy Farkas becomes mayor.

00:07:37.600 There's a few others. A great deal of them would be better than Jody Gondek. I've talked to a number

00:07:42.960 of the mayoral candidates over the last few months. So I'm going to get in there and actually I'm going

00:07:47.760 to start with Marcella Touche so we can frame things up and, you know, get a feel of what's going on in

00:07:54.160 this election, what the campaigns are about. And then after that, I'm going to have a one-on-one

00:07:58.800 chat with mayoral candidate Jeremy Farkas.

00:08:15.200 Okay. Thanks for joining me, Marcel. It's always good to see you. We're finally turning the page from

00:08:20.240 the long, as it felt, federal election and now moving on into a civic election going on in Calgary,

00:08:28.720 which is quite a heated one. Now, something different this time is you were with a third-party

00:08:35.600 advertising group called Lead Calgary, right? All right. First, let me say something, Corey. Thank you

00:08:42.480 very much for having me on your show, because since we've released our platform, the media has totally

00:08:50.880 ignored us, having covered the Chamber of Commerce platform, which in my view has got a lot of conflict

00:09:01.200 of interest in it, and yet they have not contacted us at all. So I have to thank you very much for

00:09:07.200 allowing me to elaborate on Lead Calgary's platform for the municipal election.

00:09:13.360 Yeah. Well, it's a shame they aren't looking at everything that's coming out there. I mean,

00:09:17.840 there's certainly some other third-party advertisers. There's a large union one that seems to be getting

00:09:21.680 a heck of a lot of coverage. So we do want to make sure that everybody who's trying to get a message out

00:09:25.200 there can do so. So no, we're happy to have you here. So, you know, the unions have got something

00:09:33.200 like $2 million involved in there. We are a smaller pack. There are other packs out there,

00:09:39.920 but we are the only one which has actually made public a platform for what this election is supposed

00:09:48.720 to be. As usual, my previous work, I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years, and we've always said

00:09:56.400 that we have ideas. People may agree or disagree with it, but we want these ideas to be made public,

00:10:02.960 and yet the media has totally ignored our platform since we released it last week.

00:10:09.680 So I'm glad that you would ask and question me as much as you want, and I'm open.

00:10:15.680 Well, absolutely. And it's definitely a comprehensive platform you've got. So, I mean,

00:10:21.280 your first portion of it, I guess, for your key issue and value is restoring fiscal responsibility to

00:10:27.760 Calgary. So, whereas if you expand on how and in which ways that can be restored?

00:10:32.880 You see, one of the problems we have here in Calgary is that most people are not financial wizards.

00:10:40.320 Most people are not accountants in the public. So they don't really understand what is going on at

00:10:48.320 City Hall because there is no transparency anymore. So therefore, there's no accountability. To restore

00:10:55.840 fiscal fiscal responsibility, we must have an open discussion of what is going on in budgets.

00:11:02.960 We need to have new ways of doing the budget. We continuously have surpluses, and yet we have huge taxes.

00:11:12.240 The problem that we have is that the public do not understand that having accounting in the public

00:11:20.080 sector is not the same as having accounting in the private sector. So therefore, there is a sort of a

00:11:28.720 cloud that the administration and members of council can use to obfuscate results. And that's what we want

00:11:38.080 to do. We want to have fiscal responsibility and transparency. And to start doing this, we must

00:11:44.400 first look at a new way of doing budgets. For years, personally, and right now I'm proposing that we use

00:11:54.480 zero-based budgeting because the zero-based review that the city is using now is a scam. True zero-based

00:12:03.280 budgeting is a process whereby you review every single service delivery right as if you're starting

00:12:14.480 all over again. This is when you are going to be able to see where you can build efficiencies due to

00:12:22.800 new technology or new ways of delivering service.

00:12:26.000 Now, let me give you an example. If NASA is now looking at private industries to put men into space,

00:12:37.760 why can't we, for instance, deliver services in collecting garbage by a private company if it is

00:12:45.120 more efficient? I am not saying and LEED Calgary is not saying that every service should be delivered

00:12:52.240 by the private sector. But we must look at it and deliver services whenever possible. Where it is more

00:13:00.560 efficient to do so by the private sector, we should look at it and do it. What we have done in the past,

00:13:08.560 talking about again as garbage collection, they implemented a service of three bins. Then down

00:13:16.720 the road they decided maybe this is not efficient, so let's have a pilot project. What we advocate is

00:13:23.280 you have pilot projects before you implement a proposal or a service delivery. I mean that's putting

00:13:32.320 the card before the horse. And this is the kind of stuff you have at City Hall. The question is for you to have

00:13:39.440 fiscal transparency, we must understand that the current way of doing things has not worked.

00:13:49.360 Because if people do not understand finance, which as an economist and a finance accountant,

00:13:57.680 I understand that it may be difficult for the ordinary person to understand the intricacies of

00:14:04.000 accounting standards and so forth. But there's one thing, there's one thing that taxpayers know,

00:14:10.720 is that when money is taken out of their pockets and flows to the government and their services do not

00:14:18.240 increase, but their taxes go up. Well that's it. There's always a lot of room for efficiency and

00:14:24.960 putting it into terms that you know a non-actuary could look into. Something that interestingly broke

00:14:29.920 into the news recently, you probably saw that, was for example a Tim Hortons that was in a hospital,

00:14:34.320 I believe in Ontario, and it managed to lose over a million dollars. I mean you have a captive

00:14:38.960 audience or customer base, I should say, going on in there. And Tim Hortons is usually almost a license

00:14:44.960 to print money, leave it to a government facility though to manage to actually make it lose money.

00:14:50.240 And that's an example that just about everybody could understand. Exactly. I mean people are not

00:14:55.600 stupid. They may not understand the intricacies of accounting, but they understand when money is

00:15:03.440 flowing out of their pockets all the time. I mean this is what LEED Calgary stands for. We keep

00:15:09.680 being, we keep hearing from councillors in the past, in the past council that we have a revenue problem.

00:15:17.680 That is not true. There is no revenue problem. We have a massive spending problem. For 20 years

00:15:27.200 in my other life as the president of the Institute of Public Sector Accountability, I have monitored and

00:15:34.880 doing research on municipal finance. Finally, finally last year, the CDO Institute has confirmed what I have

00:15:45.040 been saying for the past 20 years. Municipalities have massive, massive surpluses. In effect, the CDO Institute

00:15:56.960 confirmed that all municipalities in Canada have accumulated $11 billion, that's with a B, billion dollars

00:16:08.800 in accumulated surplus. The City of Calgary has about half a billion dollars of reserves right now. And I tell

00:16:18.880 you why don't they have a revenue problem. Have you seen lately, just because it is an election this year,

00:16:27.280 we've been able to say zero increase in property taxes. Then we've been spending money and throwing

00:16:33.760 it at all sorts of things, which include millions of dollars for the so-called revitalization of downtown.

00:16:42.240 I have asked my friends in the construction industry, there is no such thing as revitalizing

00:16:50.480 the downtown of Calgary by implementing and doing residential accommodation with those buildings.

00:17:00.320 There are only perhaps four to six buildings that can be done into residential.

00:17:06.880 are we once again throwing a lot of money to the wind and then saying, oh, we made a proposal. There are some

00:17:17.280 councillors today who are already saying, we've had 13 applicants who are coming forward to help in the

00:17:27.200 revitalization of those buildings. Let me tell you something. Calgaryans are not stupid. When you give

00:17:34.000 free money, there will be many more applicants. It's that simple.

00:17:39.520 Yeah, they will follow it. So one of your policy platform portions there then is, as you've said,

00:17:45.600 they're spending in a whole bunch of areas where they really shouldn't be spending. They've got the

00:17:49.120 spare income coming in, they don't need to tax further. So assuming you've cut away, you know,

00:17:55.440 a lot of the excess spending or gain more efficiency in other areas. I see it says focus on core services for

00:18:01.520 everyday Calgarians. So what would you call the core services? What should a civic government be providing?

00:18:08.800 Well, the core services are the security of the people, which is the police. This is why we are

00:18:13.920 totally against the defending the police. People's security comes first. There is no doubt whatsoever.

00:18:19.840 If you don't have security, you can't have a good life. That's one. Then you have the issues of

00:18:26.720 the fire department, for instance. That's another department that the city should be looking at.

00:18:33.040 Well, core services are maintaining the roads, looking after the parks. And how we do this? We

00:18:41.520 have to change the way we look after parks. The city should not be into recreation anymore. I mean,

00:18:47.680 golf courses should not be a government-managed recreation. We've got to open up to non-profit

00:18:56.000 sports organization to deliver some of those services. Not all of them, but there are many

00:19:01.760 sport organizations who can do a better job than 15 people sitting in an office tower downtown.

00:19:09.280 We've got to start looking at those things. Core services are the essential services that can be

00:19:15.200 delivered to the best knowledge and the best efficient way by the government. And once again,

00:19:23.440 we've got to look at ways to do that by saying we have zero-based budgeting, which is an examination

00:19:31.200 of every single activity which is currently being delivered by the city. Once we do this,

00:19:38.560 we can then say which one should stay, which one should go, which one we should do in partnership

00:19:45.200 with the private sector. So, one of the other aspects in your platform as well, or what you're

00:19:52.880 promoting, is to create a climate of economic growth and entrepreneurship. Now, I imagine some

00:19:57.360 of that is presumably with tax reduction with reduced or with a better efficiency within the city.

00:20:04.640 One of the areas that's a real problem, I've got some recent documents on that as well, is trying

00:20:08.880 to get new developments going. The red tape is unbelievable. It takes about eight years from

00:20:13.840 concepts to actually breaking ground on a new development in the city, just due to all of the

00:20:18.080 applications and licensing and things such as that. Is that sort of the area as well where you'd look

00:20:23.360 into to create that business climate that might draw in some new investment? No, no. I tell you what,

00:20:29.040 there is a report that just came out two days ago talking about affordable housing. The biggest problem

00:20:35.840 in Canada for not having affordable housing is supply. It is not demand, it is supply. The problem with supply

00:20:45.360 is too much regulation, too much red tape created by administration who are, you know, in the shoveling of

00:20:54.560 papers rather than looking at how we can make things easier. Having said that, let's look at the sort of red tape

00:21:03.520 that we can diminish. We've got to reduce the red tape. And what is going to happen is that council

00:21:12.800 should start taking the lead, a new council, that they make policies and administration administer and

00:21:21.040 manage. It is not the way or the other way around because there is a fact in management that administration

00:21:29.520 will always look after themselves and how they can protect their jobs and create jobs for themselves.

00:21:36.400 And council, a new council should be looking at new ways of doing things and how they communicate

00:21:43.360 with administration. How the relationship between managing and making policy should be very, very

00:21:52.880 separate. And we should be looking at this. Now, you asked me the other question. What was it? I'm sorry.

00:21:59.600 Oh, I was just speaking on bringing in efficiencies again and means to bring in more business and

00:22:05.840 entrepreneurship. But I'd like actually just to go further because you covered most of it.

00:22:10.640 This is a big election and we don't see this very often, maybe once in a generation. We're getting a new

00:22:15.360 mayor no matter what at the end of this. What is it? Nine to ten councillors are going to be replaced in this

00:22:20.720 election. This could be a real opportunity for some rejuvenation and some change coming into the City Hall. 0.96

00:22:27.120 Will you guys eventually be endorsing particular candidates or are you just a certain...

00:22:32.480 Yes. Yes, we are. We are doing it. We are doing a survey right now and we will be releasing a list

00:22:39.600 and I will make it official before the 4th of October because that's the first set of advanced polling.

00:22:47.840 The other thing I want to talk about is one of our main proposal is to ask the province to review

00:22:55.760 the taxation system because the property tax system is a major, major problem of what is happening in

00:23:03.920 the whole province. The market value assessment situation is totally wrong and we have already submitted

00:23:11.840 a paper to the municipal minister to look at this. This is at the core of the problem. While many

00:23:19.040 councillors believe that there is a tax room that is the biggest fallacy and the biggest scam that

00:23:26.160 councillors have been saying for years, there is no such thing as a tax room. The City of Calgary is a

00:23:32.880 collector of taxes for the province for the education portion. There is no tax room because if the province

00:23:40.880 takes it over, we will still have to pay for the education and any other taxes that councillors want

00:23:47.920 to burden us with. Now, the problem that we have is councillors have always been able, the past council

00:23:57.440 however, have been able to try and negotiate with the province to get more taxing powers as opposed to

00:24:03.600 reduce the amount of taxes that we pay and that's what we are going to try and see. We want councillors

00:24:10.240 in the new council to come over and start looking at the cost of doing business in Calgary and we demand

00:24:18.080 that these people are responsible for managing the the fiscal affairs of the city in a more responsible

00:24:26.720 manner. Great, so in Lead Calgary you're working not just alone, there's others working in conjunction

00:24:32.800 and collaboration with you guys on this? No, we are keeping ourselves separate actually.

00:24:38.960 So because otherwise we are going to be influenced by other issues. I mean we are not saying that we

00:24:45.600 have all the answers but right at this moment we have a platform, we are going to work with this

00:24:51.840 platform. People who agree with us or disagree with us can contact us at leadcalgary.ca. We have no

00:24:59.120 problems answering questions but there is one big issue that we've got to talk about, is this so-called

00:25:05.360 collaboration at City Hall. Many candidates are running on the fact that there is no collaboration at City

00:25:13.280 Hall. I will tell you the truth, collaboration existed but it existed among 12 of them

00:25:21.840 in council against three others who apparently didn't agree with their ideas that's why they

00:25:30.240 said there was no collaboration. People who have ideas which are different from council should never be

00:25:37.840 labeled as not being able to collaborate just because they stand by their principles. So what we want to

00:25:45.360 say is there is a group of people right now including Shane Keating who's going to leave and retire who's running

00:25:55.680 a PAC on his own himself and they are backing existing councillors. Our point is if you want change

00:26:04.640 why would you stick with the past? This PAC from Keating and backing other councillors including one who had

00:26:12.240 retired completely. Putman's in Ward 6 to come back because he used to to support taxation and so on and so

00:26:21.680 forth under Braun Kanye and and and um and Nancy. The problem we have is we have a group of people who would

00:26:31.600 like to see the status quo and these are the old god of council. This is why they are supporting each other

00:26:41.520 and saying we are putting our executive assistant to replace us. We are putting all names back into

00:26:49.360 the into the fray to support our legacies but these as far as I'm concerned are failed policies so you

00:26:58.560 don't want the same people or people supported by the old council to be elected because otherwise we are not going to

00:27:07.360 have change. So this is what LEED Calgary is putting forward. Change means change. Change of people, change of policies so that we get fiscal responsibility,

00:27:20.000 transparency and real collaboration. Not obfuscation and ostracizing people would have different ideas.

00:27:32.640 Yeah no it's been a terrible hornet's nest in there for quite some years now and we'd be wasting an

00:27:37.440 opportunity for rejuvenation if we just bring back a bunch more of the the ones who are determined to

00:27:43.600 be the heirs of the positions. I really I don't care for that when I see somebody I'm leaving my spot but

00:27:48.640 this is who should replace me. Leave that to the voters. They'll pick somebody good to replace you and 0.78

00:27:53.440 perhaps it's the one you prefer perhaps not but for them to kind of try and mold their replacements is in my

00:27:59.200 view kind of odious uh with regards to democracy in general. Absolutely and this is why we've always

00:28:05.200 advocated that no retiring councillor should be appointed uh on on any committees after after their

00:28:14.160 retirement because that perpetuates what they've put into place. I mean how would you like to go in

00:28:21.360 there and say oh what I proposed before is incorrect and I'm going to destroy it now under a new council.

00:28:29.200 This is what this is all about is to perpetrate their failed policies and I think there's a huge

00:28:35.680 conflict of interest with somebody still on council going out and creating a pact. I mean you know you

00:28:43.520 you know they they are out there Sutherland is supporting uh uh Davison as mayor Keating is he's

00:28:51.200 going to have a pact supporting uh Collier-Arcourt, Dimon, uh Pootmansu's coming back and some of his people

00:28:59.760 and it is very very strange that they would do this if there was no nefarious uh intention why would you be

00:29:08.960 doing it? Oh absolutely well I appreciate you bringing that to light and bringing some good small government

00:29:15.360 issues to the table because not enough uh packs or candidates in general are doing so so one more

00:29:20.080 time before I let you go and I'm sure we'll check in again before the uh end of the election here where

00:29:24.720 can we find information on what you guys are doing? Uh you can go on www.leedcalgary.ca is our website or you

00:29:33.520 can follow us on on facebook at Lead Calgary and by the way if the western standard wants to publish our

00:29:39.840 platform or do anything to comment on it please feel free to do so. Excellent thank you Marcel it's

00:29:46.720 always good talking with you and I'm sure we'll talk again soon. My pleasure Corey have a nice day.

00:29:55.280 All right thanks for joining me today Jeremy this uh we've talked a few times since you first announced

00:30:11.200 you're going to throw your hat in on the ring I think it was last spring was the last time we had a

00:30:14.720 really extended interview that was a long one but uh we'll just uh I know you're busy now campaigning

00:30:20.000 you got a lot to do a lot to cover but it'd be uh it's great to have you on to get up to date

00:30:24.880 on how things are going so how are you doing today? Oh living the dream it's been pretty much non-stop

00:30:30.400 it warned me that uh running for office is a marathon and not a sprint but I think it's a

00:30:35.360 marathon and then a sprint and we're in the home stretch. Yeah well and you've really got to start

00:30:41.280 pounding on it now so you started to release your campaign plan so yeah you see a 10-point plan going

00:30:46.320 on your most recent one was on defending the police uh can you expand on where you're going with that?

00:30:51.680 Yeah so I hate that it's even a controversial issue these days but I think you can be for the

00:30:58.160 good cops and against the bad cops and I'm advocating to defend our police officers and

00:31:03.600 these are the folks who do the work on the front lines every single day to keep us safe

00:31:07.840 so it doesn't mean that I'm against uh say providing mental health supports a lot of those

00:31:12.240 preventative measures we've got to make sure that we're addressing issues uh in a preventative way but

00:31:18.000 I think this current approach to basically throw our front line under the bus has been absolutely

00:31:23.040 ridiculous so it's gone so bad that some politicians think that the very foundation of policing is racist 0.97

00:31:29.760 which is just uh such garbage so I'm for the good cops against the bad cops and I want to make sure 0.98

00:31:35.200 that they have the resources that they need to be able to do their jobs on it. Yeah well and it's good 0.91

00:31:40.800 and refreshing to hear I mean there's certainly problems with police forces there's uh things we

00:31:46.960 need to look at reforming I mean there have been some definite cases where they have abused their role

00:31:51.680 of power individuals have not the whole forces and it's worth examining but when they're constantly

00:31:56.240 getting put down demonized told they're all racists I I could see it as being demoralizing to the

00:32:02.560 point where they would actually make the problem worse if they stay on they're they're on with a bad attitude

00:32:07.680 well I'm running to try to get city all back to basics right and when you think about why we have

00:32:12.720 a local government it's around safety it's around security uh services right so when we think about

00:32:19.200 this defund the police agenda it's actually gotten so bad that Calgary is now the only major North

00:32:24.400 American city without a downtown police station and it's really compounded a lot of the issues that

00:32:28.960 we've seen around crime vacancy particularly in the downtown so there's a social element to why

00:32:35.280 we need to keep Calgary safe but there's also an economic reason so having that safety presence

00:32:41.600 that security presence will actually allow us to be able to fill these empty office towers quicker

00:32:46.720 so there's a return on investment there uh not just on the human side but also the financial one

00:32:52.960 yeah well I've been working downtown lately you know when I come in for the Western Standard

00:32:56.560 at our offices here and uh it's been an eye-opener for me I hadn't really spent a lot of time

00:33:01.600 downtown until this last year when I came back from the standard I mean when I first moved to Calgary I

00:33:05.200 lived in an apartment downtown you'd always have a occasional rougher element and crack max already

00:33:10.240 was beginning to get its reputation but but now it is really something else I mean for people who

00:33:15.120 haven't been downtown lately uh and and it's it's saddening I mean we need to look somewhere broader

00:33:20.800 than just policing the the amount of addicts and troubled people downtown is is uh you know

00:33:26.160 unbelievable until you see it for yourself uh but people have to feel safe we're not going to draw

00:33:30.800 business or citizens if we can't make people feel safe walking downtown me as a you know middle-aged

00:33:36.400 guy in reasonable shape I get a little uncomfortable even sometimes downtown and on the train yeah

00:33:41.760 our downtown station was actually closed at about the same time as the safe injection site opened

00:33:46.640 which has actually compounded the issues so yeah and to be clear though I support proactive

00:33:51.440 preventative measures that help reduce the burden on the police I'm also really in favor of say

00:33:57.120 adequately funding mental health addiction supports diversity training and other accountability measures

00:34:03.440 like say the body-worn camera program so I really like the body-worn cameras because they help keep

00:34:08.240 our police officers safe but also the public safe by having more accurate evidence in the event of

00:34:15.040 conflicts but I think it's just so ridiculous to see these ideological calls to basically look at crime and

00:34:22.720 safety and security as if there were some ideological experiments and look properly resourced essential

00:34:28.880 services like police and fire they benefit absolutely everybody and I think at the end of the day of

00:34:34.240 course our first responders are always the first to run in when everybody else is running out and I just

00:34:40.240 wanted to send a clear signal strong and clear that I'm always going to have our front lines backs yeah that's

00:34:46.720 good because I mean there's unfortunately a a vindictive element almost I saw in this I mean you guys kind

00:34:52.640 of batted around back and forth uh got to the point saying well look we can fund all the programs that

00:34:57.200 you were talking about defunding the police in order to fund and then we can maintain the full funding for

00:35:01.680 the police and the defund the police elements were furious with that I mean clearly their goal wasn't to fund

00:35:07.680 other community programs they just wanted to take a swipe at the police and that's very counterproductive to say the least

00:35:12.720 yeah look the problem is that this defund the police movement it means different things to different

00:35:17.440 people uh I'm the first one to say you know there's some issues that we just cannot police our way out

00:35:23.120 of so it's not a case of throwing more money at the police uh per se it's about making sure that they

00:35:28.480 have uh the resources that they need to be able to succeed and uh putting them into certain situations

00:35:35.040 and asking them to be the be all agency it sets the police up for failure but it also sets the community

00:35:40.400 for failure so there's a lot of room for reform improvement uh revising say the police act to be

00:35:46.400 able to address some of those accountability pieces but radical calls to massively defund the police in

00:35:52.400 a single year it's sort of like scrapping an airplane in mid-flight for parts it might make

00:35:57.600 sense on a theoretical level but the plane is just going to crash yeah well I've got concerns about

00:36:03.280 education but I think if I started to rally and cry to defund the teachers it wouldn't lead to better

00:36:07.920 teaching or better attitudes or a better classroom environment I don't see why people would say that

00:36:11.840 would apply yeah with police yeah so I'm against this defund the police but uh that's promise number

00:36:17.840 two uh uh tomorrow promise number three uh is going to be defund city council's golden pension so we'll

00:36:23.920 see how that's received at the city hall establishment yeah that's a big one and you've always stood up and

00:36:29.760 said you're not going to take that gold-plated pension or uh they took an umbrage with gold

00:36:34.160 plate when you're talking about before wasn't a platinum plate that you had to shift to

00:36:39.120 well you know what whatever you want to call it uh it seems like calgarian taxpayers are

00:36:43.760 responsible for about five dollars for every one dollar that the elected official puts in and

00:36:49.440 whatever you want to call it uh golden platinum vibranium all the rest it has to change and I believe

00:36:55.680 so much in leading by example how can the politicians be accepting these platinum perks at the same time as

00:37:02.960 uh we're asking city staff to be able to do more of the same or more with less you know it just doesn't

00:37:07.920 compute that's not how leadership works yeah well and I appreciate that like it is a challenging time

00:37:14.400 and we've seen this done before I mean in the 90s yeah you're a little young to really remember

00:37:18.240 directly but I do and it was tough I mean when people have their jobs and there's feeling of security

00:37:23.760 and you're asking them to take a haircut and reduce their wages that they're not going to be happy with it nobody

00:37:28.960 ever is uh but the one thing I think you know Ralph Klein did right and I know people have some pretty

00:37:33.440 mixed views on his history but the first thing he did was cut his own pension cut their own salary by

00:37:39.200 a degree and then at least they could say okay we've done it now we can ask you to do it because

00:37:43.520 if you won't do it first you you have no no real moral basis to do so yeah look uh I'm not asking

00:37:49.680 anybody to do anything that uh I'm not willing to do myself and when I was elected the first thing that

00:37:55.360 I did that I did was to turn down the pension and man it was probably the most financially costly

00:38:00.160 decision I've made but it was also the most politically costly because I said I would say

00:38:05.040 that it really set me on a collision course with an out-of-touch establishment that's just not

00:38:10.400 used to being challenged in that way and so many of these politicians the say for example the other

00:38:16.000 councillors running for mayor they campaigned on reform but the moment that they're elected they they

00:38:20.640 take the perks just like everybody else you know it's ridiculous it just it feeds into the

00:38:24.720 cynicism that uh everyday folks have about politicians these days well it's something so

00:38:30.960 we're gonna have no matter what happens a a turnover of council and in the mayor's office like we haven't

00:38:36.240 seen in a generation um one of the areas that's been a critique with you is is you well you stand

00:38:42.480 your ground you speak your mind but it also has made it uh difficult sometimes I guess when when you've

00:38:47.280 got a council's determined for groupthink but assuming you become mayor you're just one vote as people like

00:38:52.960 to point out but it is a role of leadership it's a role of example it's kind of a role of trying to

00:38:58.480 keep a productive council going trying to keep those meetings moving in a fluid way I mean there's going

00:39:03.200 to be some fireworks and such but what sort of planning have you got to make sure it's as you know

00:39:07.840 fluid and productive as possible well I'm very fortunate that uh say the four or five people who

00:39:13.200 are still running are some of the people have been my strongest allies and supporters people like

00:39:17.600 councillor sean chu peter demong and uh others so if I am fortunate enough to be mayor I'd be

00:39:23.600 inheriting a core team of people who feel the same way uh not in support of this defund ideology not

00:39:30.400 in support of the runaway spending so I'd be inheriting that core team another thing though is

00:39:35.840 that the mayor is one vote but the mayor has such strong control over the agenda how things get voted on

00:39:41.680 when uh say for a good example would be say us getting together a quarter with a few friends

00:39:47.520 and deciding well should we order pizza or should we order chinese food maybe we elect you mayor and

00:39:54.000 then you uh as mayor you put it up to a vote you'd say well let's vote on this what kind of pizza would

00:40:00.400 you like pizza 73 or pizza hut so still your one vote but uh your control over the agenda sets a lot of

00:40:07.040 things but otherwise I think the mayor is going to have to be three things he's going to he or she is going to

00:40:11.120 have to be uh cheerleader coach and quarterback but not necessarily all three things and it's a bit

00:40:18.720 of a cliche but they say of aldour and dave bronconye that they could count to eight but it was always a

00:40:24.240 different eight votes that they got uh spreading around the glory giving credit where it's due allowing

00:40:30.000 other city councillors to take ownership and to really just generate buy-in and I think that that's

00:40:35.120 something that our next mayor is going to have to do and then lastly just really going on the road

00:40:40.160 telling our story going on the hunt for investment economic development that is just going to be so

00:40:45.440 crucial to getting calgarians back to work yeah well and a large part of it yeah I guess it's it's 1.00

00:40:51.920 beyond the control of city council it's beyond just about anybody's control you guys will touch on I

00:40:55.760 mean it's the dominant issue right now we have a pandemic going on uh what do you feel the city can

00:41:02.000 do to help get this under control help make people feel safer uh help us feel more you know just

00:41:06.880 secure in general as much as you can so I I'm vaccinated I encourage uh others to be vaccinated

00:41:13.440 if they're able to there's a lot we can do around just education uh providing more opportunities for

00:41:18.960 that and then otherwise I think the city hall needs to focus on areas within its legal jurisdiction

00:41:24.160 we have so many issues around our capital budgets spending crime security transparency that we have to

00:41:30.880 address these things so at the end of the day city hall can't be making the situation worse for folks

00:41:36.320 and that's what we've seen by city council embracing this defund police ideology massive tax increases

00:41:43.760 say for example uh last year during the the first wave when calgarians were forced out of work calgary

00:41:51.200 city council passed a seven and a half percent increase it's astounding seven and a half percent

00:41:55.520 increase on the typical homeowner and now we have some other councillors who are running for mayor

00:42:00.240 and they're trying to run away from the record well they can run but they can't hide

00:42:04.640 so what I'm advocating for actually is a four-year property tax freeze to be able to give the

00:42:10.000 certainty for both residents and businesses to be able to get back on their feet and I think that

00:42:14.720 four-year property tax freeze until 2025 that is going to be essential to opening up Calgary for

00:42:23.520 investment and throwing a lifeline to struggling families seniors and residents

00:42:28.080 well it's a nice change to here as opposed to the once every four years tax freeze that we used to

00:42:33.840 have when it would always be election year and suddenly the city could find enough money to not

00:42:37.840 hike your taxes uh but then they they make up for it in the subsequent three years afterwards so uh

00:42:44.240 coming into things right off the bat looking at a four-year freeze is a nice I mean we are looking at

00:42:48.480 some tough times economically probably in the very near future and then a little relief on the the property

00:42:53.440 taxes in in general would certainly go a long ways to helping people out yeah I was just chatting with

00:42:58.400 a local small business owner and uh the way they described it to me is they felt like they had hit

00:43:03.440 rock bottom and now they're uh climbing their way up a ladder and the ladder has been greased they they

00:43:10.400 think they got it but they just need the people at the top to stop shaking and they're going to be able

00:43:14.320 to get out of the hole so I think that's really what City Hall needs to be is stop compounding

00:43:18.880 these issues stop defunding the police stop raising the budgets uh needlessly so that we can actually

00:43:24.960 bring back some stability some certainty some predictability back to this town great well it's

00:43:31.520 a good check in the time goes quickly when I've got you on but uh there'll be more to talk about

00:43:36.480 as the campaign unfolds uh is there anything else you'd like to add and where can people find more

00:43:41.200 information about your campaign if they want to know more about you or uh to lend you a hand yeah over the

00:43:46.080 the next uh week or so we're going to be releasing the rest of my 10-point plan it's really a blueprint

00:43:51.520 for change this election is the most important Calgarians uh we'll ever see I think in our lifetimes

00:43:57.280 if not uh in the history of our city like this is very much about change versus more of the same

00:44:03.040 I think Calgarians have been clear we cannot continue to tax and spend our way that we have uh for

00:44:09.200 the past 10 years uh taxes have skyrocketed and they've really eroded our competitive advantage not just

00:44:15.200 for businesses but to be an attractive place for people to wanna to live and to raise their families

00:44:20.640 so I would say reach out to us anytime our website's j-e-r-o-m-y.ca we're releasing a new

00:44:27.760 campaign platform commitment every single day for the next 10 days or so just very very excited uh for

00:44:34.080 this opportunity and again I believe that I'm the only candidates with a proven record every candidate

00:44:40.240 for mayor is basically going to be telling you the same things but as a city councillor currently I

00:44:44.960 know enough about the city hall bureaucracy the system to be able to hit the ground running and

00:44:49.440 I have a proven record of actually standing up for my constituents not just when it's been easy but

00:44:53.920 also when it's been really tough and at great personal expense uh like turning down the pension so

00:44:59.280 again I think I'm the only one with the credibility and the plan to be able to get this done

00:45:04.560 great well thank you very much for joining me today we'll certainly be watching the rest of your

00:45:07.840 platform unfolding with great interest and uh the rest of the campaign it's gonna go fast it's

00:45:13.120 coming up on us quickly here so uh don't forget to vote don't forget to vote it starts on october 4th

00:45:20.080 in just a couple of days we have the opportunity to beat the lineups okay thanks jeremy and uh good luck

00:45:28.160 okay thank you

Western Standard - September 29, 2021

The Cory Morgan Show with guests Jeromy Farkas and Marcel Latouche

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