Council Tracker: Mayoral Candidate Edition

With Mayor Nenshi confirming he won't be running for re-election, and three sitting Councillors now declared, the race to become Calgary's new Mayor has gone up several levels in the last few weeks.

As incumbent Councillors, Jeromy Farkas, Jyoti Gondek, and Jeff Davison have a significant edge, including on name recognition and media attention, and our polling from January shows that this will be hard to overcome for anyone else running or considering a run.

That means that the likely top-three candidates in the race will all have spent four years at City Hall already, and luckily for Calgarians (and our team of data nerds!), that means we have four years' worth of voting records to analyze for all three candidates as well!

While all three candidates are currently busy marketing themselves and selling their vision for Calgary's future, our team here at Common Sense Calgary believes that voting records can be just as informative when trying to choose who to support.

Without outside scrutiny and accountability, it's too easy for a candidate to promise you one thing when they knock on your door, and then do the complete opposite for four years as a candidate.

And if a candidate's values haven't aligned with yours over the last four years, what are the chances they will over the next four years, regardless of what they say in their fancy speeches or write in their glossy literature pieces?

That's why we've developed our Council Tracker project, to track exactly what's happening at City Hall.

Shortly, we will be adding complete Council voting records to our website for every sitting Calgary Councillor.

You will be able to go to their page on our site and see exactly how they voted on every single issue that has come before Council in recent years.

We're not kidding, we have literally every vote cast by every Councillor, as well as some really cool data from previous Council terms too.

Today, however, we have a special treat for you - a look at how the three Councillors running for Mayor voted on some of the biggest issues that have come before Council since the 2017 election.

So, without further ado, here is an array of Council votes from 2017-2020 that we think you might find interesting based on the extensive feedback we've received from our online community:

Vote 1 - Continue Olympic Bid

Combined Meeting of Council, November 20th, 2017, Page 44-45 of 47

Moved by Councillor Woolley, Seconded by Councillor Jones

Vote 2 - Hike Corporate Welfare

Regular Meeting of Council, December 18th, 2017, Page 5 of 20

Moved by Councillor Woolley, Seconded by Councillor Farrell

Vote 3 - Freeze Council’s Pay

Regular Meeting of Council, December 17th, 2018, Page 13 of 34

Moved by Councillor Sutherland, Seconded by Councillor Farkas

Vote 4 - Cut Councillor Expenses

Special Meeting of Council, June 10th, 2019, Pages 3 of 11

Moved by Councillor Farkas, Seconded by Councillor Demong

Vote 5 - Cut Council’s Pay & Pensions

Special Meeting of Council, June 10th, 2019, Pages 4 of 11

Moved by Councillor Farkas, Seconded by Councillor Chu

Vote 6 - Taxpayer-Funded Arena

Combined Meeting of Council, July 29th, 2019, Pages 36-39 of 57

Moved by Councillor Davison, Seconded by Councillor Sutherland

Vote 7 - Find $50 Million In Savings

Strategic Meeting of Council, November 12th, 2019, Page 12 of 31

Moved by Councillor Magliocca, Seconded by Councillor Chu

Vote 8 - Cut Corporate Welfare

Strategic Meeting of Council, November 12th, 2019, Page 13 of 31

Moved by Councillor Magliocca, Seconded by Councillor Chu

Vote 9 - Cut PR & Comms Spending

Strategic Meeting of Council, November 12th, 2019, Pages 13-14 of 31

Moved by Councillor Farkas, Seconded by Councillor Chu

Vote 10 - Cut Arts Spending

Strategic Meeting of Council November 12th, 2019, Page 14 of 31

Moved by Councillor Farkas, Seconded by Councillor Chu

Vote 11 - 7.5% Tax Shift

Strategic Meeting of Council, November 12th, 2019, Page 24 of 31

Moved by Councillor Gondek, Seconded by Councillor Colley-Urquhart

Vote 12 - Green Line LRT

Combined Meeting of Council, June 15th, 2020, Pages 6-9 of 40

Moved by Councillor Keating, Seconded by Councillor Carra

Vote 13 - Cap Golden Handshakes

Combined Meeting of Council, November 2nd, 2020, Page 46 of 57

Moved by Councillor Farkas, Seconded by Councillor Chu

Vote 14 - Defund The Police

Combined Meeting of Council, November 2nd, 2020, Page 50 of 57

Moved by Councillor Woolley, Seconded by Councillor Carra

Vote 15 - Speed Limit Reduction

Strategic Meeting of Council, February 1st, 2021, Pages 4-5 of 9

Moved by Councillor Farrell, Seconded by Councillor Davison

The 2021 Calgary municipal election is going to be incredibly important for the future of our City, and we think it's even more essential than ever to have a strong, municipally-focused advocacy group dedicated to promoting good ideas and fighting back against bad ideas at City Hall.

As a grassroots organization, our funding comes entirely from voluntary donations from Calgarians just like you, and thanks to your generosity, we're more than halfway to our goal of raising $12,000 to help fund our election coverage.

So, if you appreciate our work holding City Hall to account, and would like to help support our efforts, please consider clicking here and making a donation towards our 2021 municipal election coverage: