Municipal Voters: Partisan Intervention is Coming Your Way

Did you mistakenly think that the Manning Centre's attempt to bend the 2013 Calgary municipal election to more "conservative" was an aberration?  You would be quite wrong.

The author of the Metro News article is considerably more charitable than I am about the matter - but then again, he was in Ottawa, not Calgary and didn't necessarily see the full breadth of the effort on the part of the angry right wing to twist the election.

When right-wingers from across the country huddled in Ottawa last weekend for the Manning Networking Conference, they understandably had their eye on the next federal election, but they also examined city politics and their perceived weakness there. 

One talk on the conference agenda was entitled, “How conservatives can succeed in the last bastion of the left – City Hall.” 

The title — and the talk — began from the assumption that the bicycle-riding, fancy-coffee-sipping socialist hoards by and large have a lock on city councils. ...

That's far from true, but what does happen at the civic level is that council decisions have a more direct impact on people's day to day lives than does a decision about interest rates in Ottawa, or Harper's rather naive and bellicose approach to foreign affairs.

Consequently, people tend to vote for councillors that actually do a good job of representing their local interests.  Whether that's ensuring that garbage gets picked up, or the snow is removed from the roads - political stripe doesn't usually matter to most people.

On the other side of the coin, apparently the far right thinks that they are imperilled somehow.

One might argue that as tax and spending cuts became orthodox at the other two levels of government, municipalities have had to step into the resulting gaps. And Ottawa had a right-leaning mayor not so long ago who vowed to hold the zero-means-zero line on tax increases — until reality caught up with him. 

Pantazopoulos allowed that conservative ideology as it’s articulated at the federal level may not filter down perfectly to Main Street: “What does smaller government really mean at the municipal level? Does it mean fewer roads get paved? Does it mean less snow gets cleared?” 

In city politics, he said, it’s more helpful to talk about supporting “market-oriented” candidates. That’s what the Manning Centre tried to do in Calgary’s elections last year with their Common Sense Calgary campaign.

"Market Oriented candidates"?  If you're as surprised by that mealy sounding term as I was when I first saw it, I can't blame you.  Once again, the far right is trying to sugar coat a turd.   In this case, the turd being a candidate who is on the political right wing, but madly running about trying to mask how far right wing they are, or what interest groups think they can control them.

The "Common Sense Calgary" thing was, fortunately, more or less a failure.  But it didn't fail because they weren't trying to get their message out - they spent hugely on advertising.  It failed because someone saw Cal Wenzel talking about trying to buy control over city council in the upcoming election via the Manning Centre and leaked it to the media.  People were expecting a bunch of Astroturfing to take place, and when it arrived, it mostly fell flat.

‘The idea was to really try and talk about some of the issues from a conservative perspective. And if you think that would be very harmless and that people would have no objection to that, you’re wrong,” said session moderator Monte Solberg, a former Conservative MP. “Mayor (Naheed) Nenshi was really quite outraged about all of this because it drew great scrutiny to his record.”

Well, actually the attempts to "scrutinize" Nenshi's record were not only blatantly partisan, they were full of lies to boot, and the Manning Centre's report on "council voting patterns" turned out to be a bunch of poorly analyzed statistics which really did not show what the far right claimed they did.

I don't think the Manning Centre/Developers did themselves any favours by having Jon Lord play the "angry old white guy" candidate for Mayor either.  He simply ended up looking stupid, especially when competing against incumbent Naheed Nenshi whose tireless work during the June flooding crisis had likely already won him the election entirely.  The real fight was to ensure that the developers didn't get their way with controlling the individual members of council.

But the Manningites also have some ideas about how citizens can use information technology to keep better tabs on city council. Researcher Jeromy Farkas crunched numbers from Calgary city council, from councillors’ attendance to the number of questions they ask staff to how often they vote with or against the majority. 

Some of the data’s meaning is open to interpretation. A councillor who asks a lot of questions may be keeping a skeptical eye on the bureaucracy, or just fond of the sound of his own voice. But the point is voters get more data to interpret. The Manning Centre intends to offer this analysis for other cities, including Ottawa, and that’s pretty cool.

 The problem is that these kinds of statistics aren't overly meaningful, especially the way that the Manning Centre went about the analysis.  It was clear enough that they were trying to interpret things to draw a particular picture.  As the old saying goes:  "There are 3 kinds of lies in the world:  Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics".  Like the Fraser Institute's "ranking" of schools, you have to realize that there is a political agenda being played out, and groups like the Manning Centre are pushing their agenda.  Examine their statistics very carefully, and interpret them with a healthy dose of skepticism.

One last reminder about the creeping partisanship in Canada's municipal politics:  The Fords in Toronto are very well connected to the federal CPC.  It is no big secret, or surprise, that Rob Ford received significant help from the CPC campaign machinery when he was last elected.  Further it is no surprise that we keep seeing the Fords using the same rhetorical practices that Harper has used.

This isn't healthy, it is ultimately undermining Canada's democracy at all levels.

Cal Wenzel Hasn't Got A Leg To Stand On

I didn't think much of Wenzel's allegations when he filed his lawsuit.  After reading the statement of defence filed by Naheed Nenshi today, I don't think Wenzel has much to work with.

Perhaps the most damaging to Wenzel's case is a series of tweets by Wenzel's supporters referring to him as "The Godfather" - before the interview in which Nenshi allegedly defamed Wenzel by referring to him as "The Godfather".

I think more concerning than the lawsuit itself (which is truly "pass the popcorn" political theatre) is the response of Alberta Justice regarding alleged funding irregularities in the 2010 election:

"Sometime later, Alberta Justice advised Mayor Nenshi that while there appeared to have been a violation of campaign finance law during the 2010 Calgary municipal election, based on Wenzel's statements in the Wenzel secret video, Alberta Justice had no authority under the applicable legislation to investigate the allegations and enforce the law."

If Alberta Justice doesn't have the authority to investigate and enforce the laws in Alberta, then who does, and why haven't they been tasked with investigating the irregularities and enforcing the laws?

Perhaps Alberta Justice doesn't have the direct authority to enforce the laws in question, but surely they could have passed the case along to the appropriate body for further investigation and enforcement.  That they did not suggests that the watchers over our elections are ineffective and worse than useless.

There is a serious problem here - and it is politicians undermining the very machinery of democracy. 

So ... Wenzel Is Suing Nenshi?

It came out in the news yesterday that Shane Homes' president Cal Wenzel has decided to sue Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi over statements made during this year's election campaign.

At first, I found myself scratching my head over this lawsuit.  Why bother?  It was one sentence in one interview in the middle of an election campaign.  Big deal.

Then it occurred to me - the move is consistent with a SLAPP lawsuit.  In the short term, it has little to do with actual defamation of Cal Wenzel - I think that the leaked video that he was so angry about did far more damage to Cal Wenzel's reputation than any statement that Naheed Nenshi had made in an interview.

But, looking at it going forward, the implications of Wenzel's lawsuit are significant.  It sends out a message to candidates that during an election, you better not tread on toes of the rich and powerful, for they will sue you after the fact.

Consider the impact of this lawsuit on future campaigns.  Suddenly, you have a situation where candidates will be unwilling to speak out on significant issues in the campaign (and the developers themselves became an issue in the 2013 campaign) for fear of being sued after the fact.

Pay to Go Politics in YYC

So, yesterday there was an "all candidates forum" sponsored by The Calgary Chamber of Commerce, the Urban Development Institute - Calgary and The Canadian Homebuilders Association - Calgary Region.

I did not attend this forum - for several reasons.  We already know that the developer community (or at least notable cabal within that group) have a "bone to pick" with the incumbent city council, and would dearly like to make things more "developer friendly" in the future.  They are entitled to that opinion and to advocate for it.  I have enormous problems with the obvious attempt to sponsor a slate of candidates trained by the right-wing Manning Centre - but that is because I object on general principals to the obvious play of partisan politics that smacks of.

However, there is a little nugget about last night's forum that I want to bring to your attention:

That's right - they are charging $25+GST / head ($26.25) for people to hear what candidates have to say.  If there is one thing that makes me angry, it is this notion that during an election, voters should have to fork out money to hear what the Candidates running to represent them have to say.

I'm sure that the sponsors would all wring their hands and talk about "cost recovery" and so on.  I have news for you - what you did by making that a "pay to attend" event is you immediately placed a price on information during an election.  Screw you.

The manufactured outrage that you have been fostering in this election campaign is revolting, and it is clear that you are only interested in talking to those willing to let you influence them with your propaganda.  Ever since the 2010 election, the right wing in this city has been on an anger-fest over Mayor Nenshi.  Big money lost that election, and they are trying to manufacture outrage to overturn Nenshi - or at least get enough of "their people" on council to make Nenshi's life hell for the next four years.

The UDI put out the following in a brochure at the start of the election:

UDI - Calgary calls on all 2013 municipal candidates to:
1. ACKNOWLEDGE the ongoing need for a strategic, innovative, and collaborative approach to managing growth in Calgary.
2. RECOGNIZE Calgary for what it is, as well as for what it was designed for - a UniCity with room for growth within City boundaries.
3. DEMONSTRATE leadership in putting Calgarians first when working to balance municipal fiscal capacity and control with business certainty and consumer demand. 

What this boils down to is that the developers in this city want to keep their business model as it is.  Why?  Simply because it is easy for them.  They know they can make money developing this way.  The rest of us have to live with the results.

If I were running any of those firms, I would be looking at changing the business model to adapt to the inevitable changes that are coming.  Calgary cannot be allowed to sprawl indefinitely for the next fifty years.  Doing so is unsustainable on so many levels it isn't funny.

We saw that when the initial builds for Douglasdale, Mackenzie, Mackenzie Towne caused traffic lights to be installed on Deerfoot Trail.  Possibly the dumbest decision ever made, but one made out of expediency.  Deerfoot is already running over capacity, even with all the lights removed, after a decade of construction projects to replace controlled intersections with interchanges.  ... and that is just the infrastructure that we can see.  The miles of water, wastewater, gas and electrical infrastructure that have to be installed in subdivisions is huge, and that means upgrades to sewage treatment facilities, the pipelines that feed them, new reservoirs for water (anybody else notice that Calgary is fairly arid most of the time?), generation capacity for electricity and so on.  We can't seem to keep up with the infrastructure problems we have now (there are roads in my home community that are crumbling and should have been replaced years ago)  Public transit in Calgary is a bad joke.  If you live east of the Deerfoot in south Calgary, it's even worse.

Calgary is growing.  There can be no mistake about that.  We need to find ways to grow that are more practical than simply spreading out indefinitely.  I may live in a suburb today, but I have long since recognized that the psychology of the suburb is rapidly becoming non-viable.  We need to change how we build this city.  Continuing to do what we are doing today will simply exacerbate the problems that are already brewing.

The developers are trying to protect their business model - and they don't give a damn about the long term problems that they are creating.  As a Calgarian, I want something better than that for the generations to come.  More of the same isn't it.

Calgary Sun Plays The Racist Card ...

It's never been a big secret that lurking just underneath the surface of Canada's right wing politics is a religiously-inspired vein of racism.  It reared its head back in the late 1980s when the debate over turbans in the RCMP was at full volume, and the Reform Party voted to ban turbans as part of the RCMP uniform, and frankly has never really gone away.

In the Calgary Sun today, we find a column decrying the alleged silence over various attacks on Christians in the Muslim world.

More or less, the reasoning in the column seems to be that the world community is being "silent" about these attacks, and is somehow being hypocritical about it.

A church is bombed in Pakistan and 85 people are killed while more than 140 more are maimed. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. 

Violence and civil unrest rocks Damascus and Aleppo, forcing Syrian churches to close their doors, possibly forever. 

Thousands of elite Philippine troops battle Muslim guerrillas of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who raze churches before they occupy the key port of Zamboanga. 

Christians in the southern Egyptian town of Dalga are forced to watch as a Muslim mob set fire to an ancient monastery and steal its contents. 

All played out against the backdrop of a shopping mall terror attack in Kenya where Muslims are asked to leave before hostages are taken.

The implicit message underlying all of this is that Islam is a "violent religion" bent on erasing Christianity from the face of the earth ... and why, oh why, isn't the world's political leadership speaking out on this?

According to the column's writer, it's because they are afraid of the Muslims:

As long as our ruling elites remain terrified of offending Islam, the self-proclaimed religion of peace that claims sole ownership of the term ‘persecuted minority,’ the fundamentalists will do as they please.

But, it is not so simple as that in reality.  Yes, as the article points out Canada has spoken out on such matters.  What the article fails to recognize is that such statements will have no effect whatsoever.  The radicals which carry out these acts are not themselves governments, and do not care one whit what governments have to say about it.

The only "threat" that we can make to them is a full scale invasion to eradicate the extremists.  Except that anyone with their head out of the sand will have long ago recognized that such approaches don't work.  Western powers have spent the last decade and a bit cleaning up the mess made in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as many had predicted prior to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, the radicals had simply gone to ground at the height of the hostilities, and are now quietly re-emerging from the shadows to assert their claims to power again.

But, underlying the column is the usual line of xenophobia about a religion and culture that frankly most people in the western countries simply do not understand.  We're supposed to be afraid of these people because of their religion, instead of the fact that they have organized themselves into what amount to paramilitary gangs like al-Shabab.

Canada is a uniquely peaceable country.  I'm not sure what it would take to provoke the kind of rioting that we have witnessed in Egypt, nor do I particularly want to find out.   That makes it all the more puzzling when we see the kinds of rioting on TV news that has resulted in churches being burned down.  We have space here - lots of it.  What provokes a mob to attack a monastery?  Who knows - perhaps when this land has been occupied by competing powers for a few millennia we will have a more direct understanding.  Many of those religious sites in the Middle East have belonged to different faith communities multiple times, and there are competing claims for the same location.

So ... why is the Sun publishing columns which simply repeat tired, old arguments about the "evils" of a particular faith?  Largely because they can.  It's easy, and it plays to the fears that the Reform/Alliance/Conservative parties have used to build up their base.  There's no secret that the Sun has become the unofficial mouthpiece of the CPC in Canada, saying the things which the base wants to hear, but that Harper doesn't dare allow to be uttered by his politicians.  There is a good reason for this. Fear is a powerful weapon in politics.  Bush II demonstrated that in spades.  The poorly understood, like cultures in far off lands, are prime targets for "othering" - painting in a particular light that seems reasonable until you start asking prickly questions about things.

Why now?   That's a bit more of a puzzle.  It's not like there's anything going on in Canada that justifies this kind of ignorance based attack ... or is there?  In Calgary right now, we are in the throes of a municipal election, and the incumbent mayor is a Muslim.  Make no mistake about it, the Sun and their far right power masters, have been supremely angry ever since Naheed Nenshi was elected in 2010.  They have made no secret of their desire to get rid of him.  If they can chisel away at his support a little bit by calling into question him by way of their characterization of his faith, they will.

Canada's Far Right Next Attack On Nenshi

It's no big secret that the Conservative power base in Calgary was profoundly pissed off when Naheed Nenshi won the Mayoral race in 2010.  The amount of vitriol seen in the Sun's pages after election day was astonishing, and since then, they have taken every opportunity to snipe at Nenshi.

This is no surprise.  They were also suspiciously silent when it came out that Cal Wenzel and a bunch of his pals had ponied up over a million dollars to the Manning Centre to build a slate of candidates that would be "friendly" to their interests in the next city council.

Their most recent attack on Nenshi began this week, with the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation publishing an "exposé" of how the City of Calgary had spent money with the Pembina Institute.  According to the CTF, the City spent somewhere on the order of $113,552  (which, frankly, is barely one professional consultant salary) annually with the Pembina Institute.  Apparently, this is a big bad thing.  I will note that CTF says nothing of whether the city has spent money with other "think tank" consultancy organizations or not, but they are certainly vocal about complaining that money was spent with the Pembina Institute.

The funny part about the whole thing is that CTF tips their hand in their interview with the CBC:

But Fildebrandt said it’s hard to imagine the city hiring the right-leaning Fraser Institute to consult on something such as property tax reform.

In short, whether Fildebrandt admits it or not, he's really complaining because he doesn't like the political stripe of the Pembina Institute's positions.

A closer look at the documents that the CTF recovered from the city reveals something much more significant about the spending with Pembina that calls into question the CTF's complaint:

1)  The documents retrieved show spending with the Pembina Institute starting in 2007 through 2012.

2)  Over half of the spending took place before the October 2010 civic election put Nenshi into the Mayor's chair ... which means that the process started under developer darling Dave Bronconnier's tenure as Mayor.

Take a close look at the following summary of invoices from CTF's FOIP documents:

Year	Total Invoices
2007	$10,504.64
2008	$25,196.58
2009	$13,701.92
2010	$178,446.55
2011	$131,384.32
2012	$787.50

If we take a raw average across the full five years, the annual average spend with Pembina was $60,003.59; If we chop off 2007 and 2012 as the outlier times the average spend jumps to $87,182.34.

Going a step or two further, prior to Mayor Nenshi being elected in 2010, the city spent $212,998.53 with the Pembina Institute, and $147,022.98 since.  

While Ezra Levant and the rest of the Sun Media crowd has dutifully jumped all over this faux issue, the reality is that very little, if any, of the spending was initiated under Nenshi.  More to the point, there is no evidence presented that there is any wrongdoing taking place.  

The CTF is busy trying to politicize a non-issue that they likely wouldn't be complaining about if the recipient of this spend was the Fraser Institute or other group that they found to be "ideologically acceptable".  

One can just imagine the outcry if the City of Calgary paid the Fraser Institute to write a report on building a competitive business environment or property tax reform. The contents of the report might contain excellent data and recommendations, but that is to miss the point. Groups engaged in political debate – even the non-partisan – should never receive a penny of taxpayer’s cash.

As we all know, these organizations can structure themselves in such a way that it never appears that the "lobbying part of things" intersects directly with the "consulting" division.  It is no secret that the "Manning Centre for Building Democracy" is built up of at least two divisions:

The Manning Centre is a non-profit corporation that focuses on political, conservative-oriented activities. As such, it is not a registered charity and donations are not eligible for tax receipts. Activities such as research and education, which are classified as charitable, are undertaken by the Manning Foundation – a registered charity.

Note the division of responsibilities?  So, if the City was to hire the Manning Centre for some kind of consultancy would ultimately be hiring what is obviously a partisan organization.  They could create a division called "Manning Competitive Institute" to engage in economic competitive consultation.  On the surface, it would appear to be independent of the other parts of the Manning Centre, but it still ends up as a division of the same organization.

The CTF moaning about the Pembina institute and trying to cover their partisan bias by saying that "no think tank" should get public funds is a very flimsy fig leaf cover.

I might have more respect for the CTF if they had done a survey of how much money is being spent on think tanks in general, instead of attempting to go on a partisan muck-raking expedition and then lying and distorting the results.  

Calgary's Angry Old Guy Crowd Speaks Out

Calgary's conservative power brokers are lining up to put their money behind conservative radio show host Dave Rutherford.

I will note that after the last civic election, the Sun became the outlet for the right wing's rage that their man, Ric McIver, didn't get elected to the mayor's chair.  They've been fairly hostile towards Naheed Nenshi ever since.

Of course, we now see Rutherford starting to unveil his thinking in terms of how to attack Nenshi:

Tax hikes of 30% over three years. This year a 13.1% jump in taxes on the city side of the property tax bill if the city takes your $126 provincial tax break.

It is the biggest increase in three decades.

“Do we need a tighter rein on finances? Absolutely we do. Maybe a fiscally conservative candidate could do that and get Calgarians interested in what they’re seeing on their tax bill,” says Rutherford.

Oh yes.  The standard bitching about taxes.  We won't bother to mention that the reason for the bulk of the tax increases was the mess that conservative predecessor Bronconnier left as he handed the developers everything they wanted on a silver platter - and left Calgary with an enormous deficit in terms of infrastructure and sustainability.  Calgary cannot be allowed to sprawl across the prairie indefinitely.

Where the problem lies for Rutherford is twofold.  First, playing the "cranky old man" card doesn't exactly engage voters.  Bitching and moaning about taxes is a popular activity among Calgarians, but most recognize that we have an enormous amount of infrastructure to support - has anybody else noticed the number of severe potholes in our existing roads lately?

Second, much of Nenshi's vote came from younger voters who see things through very different lenses than Rutherford and his crowd.  Nenshi remains highly popular among those voters for good reason - he engages with them directly and in terms that they understand.  

Margaret Wente on Calgary's Mayoral Election

To be honest, I never expected to see Naheed Nenshi's name plastered all over media across Canada and around the world.

However, in today's Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente's column is particularly amusing as she contrasts Calgary's recent election with Toronto's mayoral race.

Torontonians have a bad case of election deficit disorder, and no wonder. We’re having temper tantrums as we try to figure out who’s the least worst choice to be mayor. Is it Rob Ford, the charmless blockhead whose single idea is to cut every dollar of wasteful spending? Or is it Furious George Smitherman, who rammed through the worst energy policy that Ontario’s ever seen? It’s a tough call. Things are so bad, people are longing for the halcyon age of Mel Lastman.

Then she comes around to Naheed Nenshi's run in Calgary:

What’s great about Naheed Nenshi isn’t that he’s brown and Muslim – although he is a powerful symbol for a city that has become surprisingly diverse. What’s great is that he loves his city and has actual plans to make it better.

Which pretty much summarizes why I voted for Nenshi. After the last nine years of "Build Another Road Bronconnier" and one of the most divided, dysfunctional councils I have ever seen, I wanted someone with a vision and some ideas about how to realize that vision. Nenshi provided both - in spades.

Torontonians have always thought of Calgary as a hick town, full of rednecks in cowboy hats and oil guys chowing down on range-fed beef at the Petroleum Club. Their idea of “change” was to elect Ralph Klein. Their idea of “the arts” was horse paintings and their idea of “diversity” was a spaghetti restaurant. We were supposed to be the progressive, diverse, cosmopolitan city that the whole world held up as a model for the future. But now we’re likely to get a mayor who’ll make Ralph Klein look like a world-class sophisticate.

Ouch! Nice shot, Ms. Wente - perhaps after breaking the mold and electing Nenshi, maybe Calgarians will consider voting for something other than "the same old, same old" in other elections? One can only hope.

Starting on Monday, the hard work begins. Naheed Nenshi has put forth a bold vision for Calgary, and I suspect it will be a long time to make it all happen. However, if he can start laying the groundwork over the course of 2011 (after cleaning up the dreadful state of Calgary's budget - which the previous council left in a complete mess), he'll have done well. I wish him luck.

Calgary's Mayoralty Race

I think I've made my decision about who I will be voting for on October 18.

We have an interesting, if somewhat bewildering array of candidates for the mayor's chair this year.

At the moment, there are really three that seem to matter - Ric McIver, Barb Higgins and Naheed Nenshi.

I've read all of their respective websites, listened to the soundbites on various news sources and so on.

Where McIver is concerned, I simply don't have any confidence in the man. He has been a force of division and polarization on a council that desperately needed unification and leadership. I simply cannot see how a man who made his mark by being "Doctor No" for the last nine years is suddenly going to be able to lead that same body without falling into the politics of division.

In a similar vein, I remember well his first two election campaigns - managed by none other than this man. The campaign against former Alderman Sue Higgins was filled with disrespect for both Ms. Higgins as well as the simple rules of good conduct in a campaign. How much access/influence McIver's former campaign manager might have on McIver is unknown to me - any is far too much given some of his antics in the years since that first campaign. (Yes, I remember him playing "audience plant" and trying to trap Higgins with leading, loaded (and irrelevant) questions ... even when he had been standing at the door passing out McIver's literature as a campaign worker)

Ms. Higgins I simply cannot fathom why she's running. So far she has gone out of her way to avoid saying anything meaningful. She's a pretty face, but frankly doesn't seem to have any opinions of her own. It seems to me that she's running on her public profile, and does not represent any new ideas or concepts in government. Sure, she's not from the current council, but I'm not in the least bit convinced that she would be any different in how she handled council and policy.

Naheed Nenshi represents just about everything that the other two front runners do not.

He has actual ideas about what needs to change, and how to change it reasonably. He's clearly paid attention to both the way the current council has been working (or not working, as the case may be), and has some pretty sensible ideas about how it should be approached.

On top of all that, he's actually managed to reach out to the disengaged voters in this city. He's not just doing the usual beat of forums, fundraisers and debates. He has used social media tools effectively (and honestly - it's actually him that answers on twitter, not an aide).

I had the opportunity to attend a "Coffee Meeting" with Nenshi at a friend's place this past week. It was a smallish group - only about 8 of us. But Nenshi still showed up, and we all had a very engaging time talking about the politics and policy. Nenshi might not be as slick as Bronconnier was, or as polished as McIver tries to be, but he's clear and articulate ... and more importantly he has ideas that show that he's actually thought about things and is aware of the realities of the extent of city council's authority.

Above all, he comes across as pragmatic. Nenshi doesn't label himself as a "conservative" or a "liberal" ... or any other stripe. He seems to be willing to draw from the valuable ideas of any perspective and use to solve problems. We've had too much of people confining themselves to a particular notion of a given political ideology in this province - a pragmatist would be good for Calgary.

I'm sold. Calgary's city council needs a change. That isn't going to come from someone who has been on council for the last ten years; nor is it going to come from any of the former councillors who have come forward as candidates for the mayor's chair. As for the rest of the candidates - as usual, they remain complete unknowns for most of Calgary's citizens and their share of the vote will no doubt reflect that.