Election 2025: Campaign Roundup - Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of our Calgary 2025 Campaign Roundup!

With the 2025 municipal election underway, we'll be bringing you daily updates on all the policy proclamations, platform promises, and political point-scoring from the campaign trail.

As always, our work is entirely funded by donations from residents just like you, so if you appreciate the updates, please consider making a one-off donation or signing up as a supporter for just $10 a month - that's just 36 cents per email!

Campaign Roundup - Day 2:

• There were no last-minute nomination day filings. In total, 126 candidates submitted papers - significantly fewer than the 180+ in 2021. The race features 9 Mayoral candidates, 73 Council candidates, and several School Board Trustee races. There are 6 current Councillors not seeking re-election.
  
  
• History suggests incumbents are hard to unseat - no Calgary Mayor has lost after one term in nearly 50 years. Jyoti Gondek is running again and while her name recognition gives her an advantage, there have also been many controversies - among them the climate emergency declaration and citywide rezoning.
  
  
• A Canada Post labour dispute has suspended the delivery of unaddressed mail, leaving thousands of Calgary municipal election campaign flyers stuck in warehouses and forcing a scramble for alternative distribution. Some campaigns are seeking volunteers to hand-deliver materials, while others remain unaffected as they used different mailing services.
  
  
• Mayoral candidate Jeff Davison has unveiled a transportation plan that includes “cutting out the pet projects and getting back to basics.” His blueprint includes a new transit safety program, rapid-response pothole patrols, smarter traffic light synchronization, coordinated road construction, major interchange upgrades, and support for the Blue Line LRT to the airport. Davison says the plan will deliver immediate relief for commuters while building long-term infrastructure to keep Calgary competitive.
  
  
• Jeromy Farkas, another Mayoral candidate, unveiled his First Responder Support Plan, aimed at enhancing safety and support for the City’s police, fire, EMS, and transit workers. Key initiatives include safer transit with protective shields and improved lighting, maintaining staff levels to match city growth, expanding trauma counselling and peer support, addressing firefighter cancers through early detection and equipment upgrades, and creating a Mayor’s Task Force to involve front-line staff in decision-making.
  
  
• Meanwhile, incumbent Mayor Jyoti Gondek highlighted what she perceives as her accomplishments over the past four years, including advancing the Green Line, launching the Prairie Economic Gateway to boost jobs and investment, reopening a downtown police station, expanding housing and low-income transit access, and managing the 2024 water emergency. Gondek framed her leadership as collaborative and results-driven.

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