Calgary Minute: Issue 368

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

📅 This Week In Calgary: 📅

• The Executive Committee meets tomorrow at 9:30 am. One of the items on the agenda is a notice of motion from Mayor Jeromy Farkas and Ward 14 Councillor Landon Johnston that would require Council to publish an annual public accounting of its closed-door meetings. For every closed, or in-camera, session held by Council and its committees in the prior calendar year, the summary would list the date, the meeting body, the title, and the specific legal reason given for shutting out the public. The motion notes that while provincial law and the City's own procedure rules already require Council to state a legal justification before going behind closed doors, no process currently compiles a consolidated picture of how often this happens. The City Clerk's Office already posts a tracker of closed-session documents, but the motion argues Calgarians still lack a clear, accessible view of how frequently these sessions occur. The summary would be folded into the Chief Administrative Officer's first-quarter report to Council each year. 
  
  
• Also on tomorrow's agenda is a notice of motion from Ward 8 Councillor Nathaniel Schmidt that would direct Administration to spend up to $6 million on a traffic safety pilot. The motion cites almost 9,000 vehicle collisions in Calgary so far in 2026 as of the end of April, including 900 with injuries and 10 fatalities, five of them pedestrians, and warns the City is on track for another year-over-year increase despite a plan targeting a 25% cut in major-injury and fatal collisions by 2028. The money would expand community-based measures such as flashing crosswalk beacons, marked crosswalks, speed humps, bump-outs, and curb extensions, funded at equal levels across all 14 wards. The motion also asks Administration to study redirecting the equivalent of net parking enforcement revenue into the program and to report back by September 2026. 
  
  
• Following a lengthy closed-door discussion, Council directed Administration to study changing how the City calculates its natural gas franchise fee in a bid to collect millions more from utility providers. The same direction targets raising ATCO franchise fee revenue by $25 million in 2027. Franchise fees, also called local access fees, appear as a charge on monthly utility bills and are paid by providers such as Enmax and ATCO in lieu of property taxes. Administration is being asked to analyze switching from the City's quantity-only method to a "distribution tariff" method, used by most Alberta municipalities, and to report back by Council's final regular meeting in December. Mayor Jeromy Farkas said Council is opting to pursue more from franchise fees in keeping with population growth, and noted Calgary would still sit below Edmonton's rate. Ward 10 Councillor Andre Chabot framed the higher fees as a way to address the City's infrastructure deficit without raising taxes.
  
  
• Just two months after voting to repeal citywide blanket rezoning, Council voted 10-5 against a motion to expand local area plans, leaving it unclear how the City intends to add housing density without the repealed policy. Mayor Jeromy Farkas campaigned on repealing and replacing blanket rezoning and had pointed to more aggressive local area planning as the replacement, but Councillors who opposed the motion cited the nearly $15-million cost of doubling local area plan capacity and noted several plan-compliant applications had failed anyway. Ward 7 Councillor Myke Atkinson, who voted against the original repeal, said local area plans cannot automatically rezone land and that none of the councillors who backed the repeal have presented a viable replacement. During the spring debate, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation warned Calgary it may withhold a final Housing Accelerator Fund payment of roughly $65 million if most lots are not zoned for up to four units. Farkas said he would not bend over backwards to comply with Ottawa's conditions, while Ward 5 Councillor Raj Dhaliwal argued any available funding should be welcomed.
  
  
• Administration is recommending Council delay Calgary's civic census from 2027 to 2028, citing an evaluation that found no contractor available to deliver a count at the scale the City requires. The previous Council voted in October 2024 to reinstate the door-to-door census on a two-year cycle starting in 2027, approving a budget of $10.7 million spread between 2025 and 2030. Calgary's last municipal census was in 2019, and the City discontinued its formerly annual count in 2020 as a pandemic cost-cutting measure. Administration currently estimates the population at roughly 1.6 million, but is relying on 2021 federal census data, which pegged the city at 1.3 million before a period of rapid growth. Ward 2 Councillor Jennifer Wyness called the proposed delay disappointing, saying police and fire departments are responding to an estimated 1.6 million people without concrete data, while Ward 8 Councillor Nathaniel Schmidt said he wants more information before deciding. 

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

RSVP now to join us for our next Pints & Politics events.

Ward 4 with DJ Kelly

Where: Triwood Community Association, 2244 Chicoutimi Dr NW

When: Friday, June 12th, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

🪙 This Week’s Sponsor: 🪙

This week's sponsor is you! We don't have big corporate backers, so if you like what you're reading, please consider making a donation or signing up as a monthly member.

Having said that, if you are a local business and are interested in being a sponsor, send us an email and we'll talk!