Calgary Minute: Issue 380

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

📅 This Week In Calgary: 📅

• The Community Development Committee will meet tomorrow at 9:30 am, and one of the items on the agenda is a new Vision Zero Roadmap and Action Plan aimed at reducing traffic deaths and serious injuries. Administration has laid out two funding scenarios for Council to consider: roughly $10 million per year, which it estimates would cut serious collisions city-wide by about 10% over five years, or roughly $20 million per year for an estimated 20% reduction. The plan follows Council's approval in June of up to $6 million in one-time funding to pilot strategic traffic safety improvements, and the Committee is being asked to recommend that Administration bring a full funding proposal through the 2027-2030 budget process. Council had also asked Administration to study redirecting net parking enforcement revenue to traffic safety, but Administration recommends against that approach, noting that enforcement revenues have come in below budget for three straight years, including a nearly $4.8-million shortfall in 2025. The plan also includes establishing a new Office of Traffic Safety to coordinate delivery and accountability.
  
  
• Administration is also telling Council the City "absolutely should not" create a bylaw against shoplifting, in a briefing headed to the same meeting that responds to a February Council motion seeking options to regulate theft under $100. Calgary Police Service data show reported instances of shoplifting under $5,000 have risen steadily, from 2,988 in 2023 to 3,476 in 2024 and 5,051 in 2025, with beverages, food and alcohol from chain retail stores among the top items stolen. Despite the increase, officers are laying fewer charges because the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service is not pursuing most low-value shoplifting offences due to limited court system capacity. Administration's analysis found a municipal shoplifting bylaw would not withstand a constitutional challenge because it would duplicate the theft provisions of the Criminal Code, which fall under exclusive federal authority, and a scan of 20 Canadian municipalities, including Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver, found that none has enacted one. Administration says it will continue working with police, community partners and other orders of government on the issue instead.
  
  
• The Committee will also receive the City's latest Climate Progress Report at tomorrow's meeting, covering the years 2024 through 2026. Administration reports that 90% of the actions in its current climate implementation plan are complete or underway, and that since 2023 the City has used $215 million of its own funding to secure over $299 million in grants from other orders of government for climate-related projects. The report says Calgary's per-person community emissions are down 36.3% from 2019 levels. It also cites an analysis by a third-party consultant claiming that climate change could drive a 97% increase in the City's infrastructure costs by the 2050s. The next progress report is not expected until 2028, after the 2027-2030 budget process sets a new climate implementation plan.
  
  
• The City of Calgary is seeking bids from consultants to study the feasibility of a major new sports stadium, with the study estimated to cost $875,000 and a contract expected to be awarded in October. The study would assess the market, financial and operational feasibility of a proposed major sports and event facility, to help officials make decisions about the future of McMahon Stadium, which was built 66 years ago and is home to the Calgary Stampeders and the University of Calgary Dinos. The McMahon Stadium Society says it recently spent close to $1 million fixing sewage and water problems ahead of this year's Grey Cup, which the aging stadium is still set to host. Meanwhile, the University of Calgary is exploring building its own stadium, and the Calgary Stampede and the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation are seeking a separate study on adapting the 17,000-seat GMC Stadium at Stampede Park for field sports like football and soccer. The City says the work is early-stage due diligence, not a commitment to build. Mayor Jeromy Farkas says he would strongly support a replacement facility, but wants to make sure that if taxpayers are asked to contribute, it is done "in a fair way".
  
  
• Meanwhile, the Westside Recreation Centre in Signal Hill has unveiled a $180-million expansion plan that would nearly double the size of the complex, and the group behind it is hoping the City, the Province, and the federal government will fund it. The plan would add about 180,000 square feet of aquatic, sport and community space, including an expanded wave pool, four new waterslides, an indoor spray park, and a fieldhouse combining turf fields with courts for pickleball, basketball, and badminton. The project was identified in the first wave of the City's GamePlan recreation strategy but is currently unfunded, meaning it would need to be considered as part of Calgary's 2027-2030 budget discussions, with the City required to be the lead funder. The centre's CEO says an initial tranche of City funding in November would allow final design work through 2027, with construction ideally starting in early 2028. Ward 6 Councillor John Pantazopoulos supports the project, arguing Calgary has fallen behind on recreation facilities and noting the centre has operated for 26 years without taking City operating subsidies.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

We’ve got three great Pints & Politics events coming up this fall: September 10th with Ward 14 Councillor Landon Johnston, October 1st with Ward 7 Councillor Myke Atkinson, and October 28th with Mayor Jeromy Farkas.

Join us for a pint, ask the questions that matter to you, and hear directly from the people making decisions at City Hall.

Check out the details and be sure to RSVP today:

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