Municipal Party System Gets Failing Grade...

From Communities

With Bill 20 introduced in the fall of last year in Alberta, introducing the Municipal Party System, some were seemingly onboard with the idea, myself included.

It seemed a good way to balance out the playfield from having candidates or slates sponsored by Third Party Advertisers - buying seats on city council, including the Mayor - Jyoti Gondek.

Ironically…the TPA who controls Calgary City Council - or at least a majority vote - through $1.7 Million worth of promoting their slate in 2021, is against the party system:

This, I’m guessing is largely in part due to the fact that parties can raise additional funds through branding, removing anonymity from their individual selections and make the election a little more transparent…

However, up until now, this has been an abysmal failure and really doesn’t seem to be supported by Calgarians.

The party system by way of Provincial and Federal representation is what has shone the glaring light on this idea of failure. MLAs and MPs beholden to party instead of constituents.

While this may not be the case with all of them…it’s hard to remember a time when a Party Member was willing to cross the aisle to support their constituents and Not Be Removed from the Party.

We’ve seen this most recently with the UCP in Alberta after Lesser Slave Lake MLA - Scott Sinclair - was removed from the UCP Caucus for expressing his discontent with the Provincial Budget put forward:

It’s no secret that the budget delivered was absolutely not what Albertans wanted to see…and Scott wasn’t the only one to point this out. Others that have commented - not publicly - saying that the budget is hard to defend.

But they went ahead with it anyways, only punting Sinclair because he was more vocal about it.

On the Municipal Party side of things…with an Election due on October 20th, 2025…Parties are already lining up on issues in the same way that’s caused trust issues with voters.

One of the most contentious issues plaguing the City of Calgary, brought on by City Council is Blanket Rezoning and while this should have been a plebiscite issue prior to being introduced and then defended in Court, will become a Ballot Box Question.

Communities First - cool kids on city council selecting their own slate for their party, says that they will represent each Ward based on the needs of them - is pitching the idea reversing this new bylaw.

The Calgary Party - has statements floating that they would take 18 Months to look for improvements to the policy, through community engagement and then look to make revisions.

Having been approved in May of 2024 and with an election not until October of 2025…this is already 17 months of what Calgarians had disapproved of, in large masses at City Hall and through Presentations.

So far, there has been an almost 300% increase in development permits for multiplexes…what would this look like by the election?

What would it look like 18 months after the election?

What policy improvements would be acceptable?

This is absolutely a Ballot Box issue and has already created party lines…

However…while you may agree with one of these positions over the other and choose to vote for a councillor or mayor based on their position with this issue, what you may come to realize is that this emanates the same trust issues with Party Politics that so many already have.

It’s the old bait and switcheroo!

We’re going to give you individual choice and hear you out through individual Ward Representation…but all choices will be promoted and voted on based on the Party Lines - not necessarily because they represent you or your community.

Tribalism was amusing when put on stage, back in the days of “Tastes Great”, “Less Filling”, Miller Light commercials in the Early 70s, played into the late 80s…

But when tribalism right now comes along with Cancel Culture, people vandalizing private property, as in the current case of Tesla:

This promoted through party politics…

Pro-Palestinian Protests - attended by end encouraged by political parties or their representatives:

Which started immediately after the massacre of 1,195 Israeli’s, 736 of them being civilians including 36 children…has No Place on Canadian Soil to begin with…but has not only been encouraged and promoted through these protests, has seen this tribalism extend into chants of “Death to Canada”, a decline in community safety, bomb threats towards schools, LTC facilities and Hospitals, public vandalism…

And of course, how can we forget the last federal election that divided the country based on medical status through Vaccinations.

The Liberal Party calling a Snap Election based on how insane they could get in tribalizing an issue where they controlled the flow of information, promoted messaging through Taxpayer Funded Media and eeked out another win…where 8 million Canadians lost liberties afforded through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The current election - dividing parties by how insane they can get over the President of the United States and the proposed Canadian Tariffs…

These issues can be important to Calgarians, for a wide variety of personal reasons…but do absolutely NOTHING when comes to the wants and needs of Calgarians and their communities:

• Safer Streets;

• Balancing Budgets;

• Necessary Maintenance on Infrastructure; and especially not,

• Transparency!

Calgary, like the most of Canada, isn’t the “Melting Pot”, we may have learned about in school, growing up. It’s a Mosaic of individual communities needing to support the majority of their populations.

City Centre will have a lot different set of values than in my community…

My community a lot different that that of the other quadrants of the city - even in clashing with other neighboring communities - noting differences between family values in the makeup of the community vs affordable living concerns by those who need to live closer to the University.

In my opinion, after culminating some information of people in my community, this is why the Party System, applied to City Council is getting a failing grade.

With only a 46.38% voter turn out in the last municipal election:

Calgarians are already caught in voter apathy…

With the party system on board…who even knows what this will look like or what it will bring by uniting parties instead of communities.

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