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Originally Posted by TorqueDog
I disagree with Cliff ...
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Fair enough. I wouldn't take much issue with someone saying their annoyance came from her proposal of using municipal taxes to fight a federal lawsuit. That post was only in response to the assertion that it wasn't about the money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TorqueDog
Just because other municipalities are misappropriating their citizens' funds however they like doesn't mean Calgary should follow suit, even if it aligns with our ideology.
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Does it though? We're Texas of the North. The city of racist rednecks and professional greed. Or at least I'm sure that's something we've all heard and had to rebuke at one point. The City will be granting Tourism Calgary 9M this year (at least pre-covid budget), 3M or so of which will be spent on marketing, promoting and public relations.
Calgary's mayor hoping to fund an anti-discrimination lawsuit was a nice change of pace from headlines like "Calgary firefighter speaks out against prevalent racism" or "Calgary racist graffiti being investigated" or "Calgary mayor identifies anti-mandate protests as thinly veiled white nationalist rally" or "Calgary racialized municipal candidates targeted with hate-filled messages and vandalism" or "Calgary police of chief not sure systemic racism exists" or "Calgary's Black population paid less than non-Black counterparts" or "Calgary's planned BLM mural scrapped after numerous threats" or "Indigenous man racially profiled as another "drunk native" by Calgary healthcare workers" or "Students suspended after recording Calgary teacher using racial slur" or "Video shows woman spat and called racial slur in unprovoked attack in Calgary park" or "Video shows racist tirade during road rage incident in Calgary" we have seen too often make national and the occasional international news in these last couple years.
Having organizations like the World Sikh Organization of Canada express gratitude to Calgary for passing the resolutions is probably worth the return we will get from $100,000 spent on a couple marketing initiatives that we will be doing this year without anyone ever blinking an eye. And we didn't even have to spend that $100,000 afterall. Gondek playing 4-d chess there lol.
Then there's all the time, money and resources that went into the formation of the Anti-Racism Action Committee and grandstanding of how Calgary's going to look at systemic racism and overall commit to be better these last couple years...and then we have
outrage that we might spend some money on something that actually has a potential tangible benefit.
And it's not just showing support for people in Quebec
but those in Calgary who fear similar laws being passed in Alberta and have expressed mental impacts as a result of the bill. Calgary's hate crime jumped 50 per cent last year, Caylan Ford was a UCP star candidate and would have been a Calgary MLA had she not had to drop out when her white nationalist views went public. There's very rational reasons for minorities and marginalized people in Calgary to feel fear or undervalued. Helping to fund the lawsuit could be a way of communicating to them that we do recognize their concerns, that we do have their back, that we will try to stop what's happening in Quebec to ensure you don't have to worry about it happening here.
Toronto council within a day after Brampton's mayor made the plea had already unanimously voted in favour of funding $100,000. (
Though a lawsuit was filed which could be an interesting case). So it shouldn't come as a surprise why Calgary has a stark difference in reputation, warranted or not, because we haven't been exactly going out of our way to try and change it.
Despite the above, I wouldn't have been super fussed one way or the other, I get both sides, I could probably be convinced that using public money to fund a private lawsuit against a different province is not the right course of action. I just think the "it's not in Calgary so it doesn't matter to Calgary" is a bit narrow of a view.