[GDT] YYC Votes 2025

[The Big Chill]

Jamieson is just such a turd. He’s got Craig Chandler running around the ward saying how great he is (and Craig is up to his usual antics, this time he’s picking fights with other candidates and telling them they’ll never run for anything again).

I go to read his introduction letter on his website, you know where a candidate has a few paragraphs to try and convince me what they’ll be like as a leader, and he spends most of it saying how the new parties are great so us dumb folks can easily know who to vote for without doing research. He even says our stupidity leads to vote splitting and “ allowed the extreme left wing Councillor Kourtney Penner to win” last time, and cost people like Craig Chandler the chance to win.

Him winning especially sucks when I thought there was a moderate left and moderate right candidate who both seemed pretty decent.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Table 5

It is kind of funny that The Calgary Party candidate was beaten by A Better Calgary Party candidate. Why stick with regular, when you can get better.

Sarah should've went with The Best Calgary Party. It would still leave her open to "Better plus infinity" of course, but still....

The band with the #1 song on college radio was Better than Ezra. Coming in at #2. Ezra.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

So only one Calgary Party candidate elected it seems. Nice! FU Stephen Carter.

Carter and Mcrae probably pocketed around $400k this election cycle between The Calgary Party, Better Edmonton (Communities First of Edmonton), and whomever paid him in Medicine Hat. I assume all of them ran campaigns as lazy as the Calgary Party was here. Fata him but his grift was hugely successful this year.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Nate Schmidt won Ward 8 which was expected.

Farkas winning was a bit surprising to me but Sharp coming a close second was even more surprising. I expected her to be a distant third.

I think Thiessen syphoned off votes from Gondek; Farkas did too. Same with Davidson from Sharp. My hot take is that had Thiessen not run, Gondek would likely still be mayor.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

(and Craig is up to his usual antics, this time he’s picking fights with other candidates and telling them they’ll never run for anything again).

That's rich, coming from a guy who never runs for anything, ever.

Warning: >1 Gbps internet plans only

Spoiler!

[RandyHolt]

Originally Posted by Muta

I think Thiessen syphoned off votes from Gondek; Farkas did too. Same with Davidson from Sharp. My hot take is that had Thiessen not run, Gondek would likely still be mayor.

Anecdotal but of the people I talked to that voted Thiessen it would have mostly been Farkas as the alternative rather than Gondek. This is just a small percentage of the 40,000 votes Thiessen got though.

I'm surprised how close Sharp was overall as I thought she'd be third behind both Farkas and Gondek.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by GGG

I don’t think any candidate was being voted “for” this election. Lots of people disliked Gondek or Farkas or Sharp. I’m not sure I talked to anyone who was passionate about any candidate like you had with Nenshi.

Nenshi good/bad had substance. None of the candidates including the incumbent had that.

Gondek has always been about finger wagging and virtue signaling. Her cery poor performance as mayor is a reflection of someone who is more about politics than results.

Nenshi was a performer too, but very smart, and could push agendas forward. So voters stuck to him. Gondek always had that lack of skill and depth. Leading to very few ready to get off the couch and spend 30 mins to vote for her.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Nenshi good/bad had substance. None of the candidates including the incumbent had that.

Gondek has always been about finger wagging and virtue signaling. Her cery poor performance as mayor is a reflection of someone who is more about politics than results.

Nenshi was a performer too, but very smart, and could push agendas forward. So voters stuck to him. Gondek always had that lack of skill and depth. Leading to very few ready to get off the couch and spend 30 mins to vote for her.

There's almost nothing she did that amounts to this.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

There's almost nothing she did that amounts to this.

She declared a climate emergency - and to some this was her whole personality

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

There's almost nothing she did that amounts to this.

Refusing to swear in Chu
Climate Emergency
Bag Ban

But ya sure if you say so.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Refusing to swear in Chu
Climate Emergency
Bag Ban

But ya sure if you say so.

Those are just things you didn't like. Refusing to swear in a sexual predator is something that should be lauded, not criticized.


Single use plastic reduction is also a reasonable goal that many other jurisdictions had done or were working on at the time.

[GullFoss]

In the far right sphere of Twitter, people seem most upset she didn't want to attend the Israeli Hanukkah event that may have been providing implicit support for the conflict in Gaza and a rabbi with a history of supporting the IDF and/or it's soldiers. I'm not trying to criticize the rabbi or the event, but that was a lose-lose situation and she was probably right not to attend.

[puckedoff]

Pretty sure the bag ban wasn't just for single use plastic though, as I recall fast food drive throughs handing me loose fries and not providing the usual paper bag.

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Pretty sure the bag ban wasn't just for single use plastic though, as I recall fast food drive throughs handing me loose fries and not providing the usual paper bag.

This infuriated me to no end - they actually just went out of their way to make my life more difficult. The paper straws still irritate me as do the paper grocery bags. But I see more and more venues are moving back to plastic.

[MarchHare]

Question:

When petrosexual conservatives make their entire personality and public image how much they love oil and how much they hate both Trudeaus, is that also "virtue signaling" (albeit to a different audience), and if so, is it to be looked down on equally?

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Single use plastic reduction is also a reasonable goal that many other jurisdictions had done or were working on at the time.

Gondek's way of plastic/single use reduction via the policy implemented was absolutely stupid though as evidenced by the sudden repeal a couple months later.

[woob]

They Had Dan "Golf is better than meetings" McLean on CBC this morning, talking about how he'll give the new councillors their into tour and have dinner etc. Puke.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Gondek's way of plastic/single use reduction via the policy implemented was absolutely stupid though as evidenced by the sudden repeal a couple months later.

You know it passed with a 10-4 majority, of which Gondek was only one vote, right? And I'm pretty sure city administration worked on the details.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

There's almost nothing she did that amounts to this.

Not only that but the key issue she had which former campaign managers and political analysts have acknowledged is that “politics” is the one thing she’s actually very bad at.

How good she was at achieving results is dependent on what you thought of those results, but it was really 95% of her focus, and the 5% when she was chasing politics more than results are the things people point at as gaffes.

But it’s funny that people mad she didn’t respect someone who sexually assaulted a teenager think the one thing she was about was the one thing she did the least to her own detriment and was totally bad at when she attempted it anyway.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

There's almost nothing she did that amounts to this.

At the very least, one could say there were things she made a lot of noise about that were performative nonsense at best, and wasteful idiocy at worst.

Aside from the already mentioned "climate emergency", she leapt at the chance to commit $100,000 of Calgary taxpayer money -- an issue she certainly didn’t campaign on -- to pick a fight over a Quebec law we had no business nor legal standing in contesting. You can argue that $100k is noise in the budget and there's lot of lacklustre items that run $100k at this level, but at least there's value being delivered for that spend; it's not going to play well if you're declaring your intent to effectively set the money on fire.

When downtown transit safety issues were raised, she travelled three blocks on it with an entourage of police, transit officials, and media, and basically said 'look how safe transit is!'.

And supporting the (mercifully short-lived) Single-Use Items bylaw, which pulled off a trifecta of ineffective policy by increasing costs on Calgarians at a time when costs were already rising, put that money in the pockets of large businesses instead of directing it toward municipal environmental programs, and did nothing legitimately impactful for the environment it purported to be in service of. If anything, it likely ended up creating more non-recyclable / non-biodegradable waste. But when you look at everything through the lens of a "climate emergency" without considering the real impact and return, this is the sort of weak policy outcome you get.

Originally Posted by GullFoss

In the far right sphere of Twitter, people seem most upset she didn't want to attend the Israeli Hanukkah event that may have been providing implicit support for the conflict in Gaza and a rabbi with a history of supporting the IDF and/or it's soldiers. I'm not trying to criticize the rabbi or the event, but that was a lose-lose situation and she was probably right not to attend.

100%. The organizers changing the event to specifically enshrine "supporting Israel" in its purpose was significant, and if you want to avoid taking a position on a highly volatile situation, you simply cannot attend under that condition.