Calgary Election: Where's the Political Line?

The long weekend brought a number of opinions on the municipal electoral races happening in Calgary.  The Canadian Taxpayer Federation released the responses to their questionnaire on October 3 and as near as I can tell, the responses they agree with are coloured green. Danielle Smith, former leader of the Wildrose Party and current host of QR770's mid-morning show in Calgary released a list of "Pro-taxpayer, conservative candidates as identified by listeners" and "Pro-union, progressive candidates as identified by the Calgary District Labour Council" on October 7.  To be honest, I find
the term "pro-taxpayer" misleading: taxpayer dollars have been wasted by conservatives.  To be fair, progressives have also wasted taxpayer dollars.

Credit:City of Calgary Twitter account
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That week was topped off with a report of an email from a Calgary developer who encouraged his employees to vote for the "conservative" choices.  The article notes that Nenshi is attempting to lessen the urban sprawl due to the increased costs for the city (aka taxpayers) associated with outward development; which is not good for a single-family residential developer.  Like too many complaints I hear about change, many want things to stay the same and seem to be unwilling to flex their innovation muscles.  If Nenshi wins, will this developer fold his business or will he look to become competitive in multi-family developments?  It's not as if he truly doesn't have an option.

What if you are interested in trying to keep provincial or federal politics out of municipal decision-making?  Do you believe provincial politicians are concerned about how often your garbage is picked up or whether there should be increased transit routes or fees?  That's not their job and it's not the concern of provincial political parties either.  Just like your candidate for school trustee would like to "fix math" but has zero opportunity to do that unless they are also an experienced educator and working on curriculum; in Edmonton.  However, the conservative students count slate has received a lot of press.  Should Calgarians pay less taxes or should they be assured their tax dollars are benefiting their communities?  Conservatives have misused tax dollars and so have progressives but do you know who doesn't?  Good people.

Municipal elections offer citizens the one opportunity within our levels of government to vote for the best person; the opportunity to choose a person who will represent your needs at the community level.  How are your taxes spent?  What types of developments do you want in your community?  Can you purchase your first home in the community?  How about your first family home?  What about aging within your home community?  What recreation, transit and community gathering options are available?  These are the concerns addressed by city councilors.

Credit: Sam Hester @calgaryhester

So what are the options if you were hoping to vote for a good representative for your ward who didn't have any provincial/federal party-affiliated endorsements?  The list below outlines candidates who you might want to look closely at if you are not seeking to stack your municipal council seats with people who may be more susceptible to provincial/federal influence over community members.

(Note: I just read a lot and write about politics, the choice is yours. This list is solely my opinion based on the candidate platforms and provincial/federal party-affiliated endorsements. I also ignored platforms claiming one would fight for lower taxes but keep or increase service levels; it's an unrealistic proposal and I was annoyed at having my time wasted reading it.)

Mayor: Andre Chabot, Naheed Nenshi
Ward 1: Coral Bliss Taylor, Cole Christensen
Ward 2: Christopher Maitland, Jennifer Wyness
Ward 3: Connie Hamilton, Ian McAnerin
Ward 4: Blair Berdusco, Srinivas Ganti
Ward 5: George Chalal, Tudor Dinca, Hirde Paul Jassal, Balraj (Raj) Nijjar, Aryan Sadat
Ward 6: Alex Columbos, Esmahan Rasavi, Sanjeev Kad, Grace Nelson
Ward 7: Margot Aftergood, Dean Brawn, Druh Farrell
Ward 8: Carter Thomson, Evan Woolley
Ward 9: Gian-Carlo Carra, Boss Madimba
Ward 10: Ray Jones, Salimah Kassam, Issa Mossa, Michelle Robinson
Ward 11: Robert Dickinson, Janet Eremenko, Linda Johnson, Keith Simmons
Ward 12: Shane Keating, Mackenzie Quigley
Ward 13: Kay Adeniyi, Adam Boechler, Mark Dyrholm
Ward 14: Sorry to hear about your lack of options.