Nenshi's Win Heard Around the World

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by NiklasSundblad

I'm curious if you have any specific non-profits in mind. I happen to work for the largest arts organization (by budget) in the province, and all these practices you mention have been a vital part in the financial health of that organization for years.

I think my point is that there are certain measures that for-profit businesses can take increase the black side of the balance sheet, that are completely unavailable to non-profits, such as a municipality.

I think there is no reason to doubt that things like cost controls, and budgeting are areas that fall well within in realm of the experience and expertise Nenshi has garnered prior to even considering a run for mayor. His proposal for snow removal (podcast no 4, @ about 1'30")
should settle the worries of most people who are worried the elected a raging communist.

Yep, I get lots of NGOs are quite successful and use a lot of good business practices. Governments and city administrations specifically are really the problem, well, most bureaucracies really (we've had way way too many budget and cost overruns, etc). Though same issues exist in some poorly run for-profit businesses. Mostly I was pointing out good processes and solutions exist and the city being an NGO has something to learn.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

Good question, and I don't know that answer. My point was more that he knows the system, the people and the red tape that will have to be cut to get it done.

I'm more interested in someone with a vision of what "it" is that must get done rather than someone who knows the system. Otherwise, city clerks and adminstrators are the only qualified candidates.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Slava

One being that if my quadrant had private sector service and I still had to sort everything while the others got the blue bins I would be totally choked!

Obviously when putting it out to bid, you would specify what type of service was to be provided. In this case, trucks with arms that pick up blue bins. I'm sure a private company could buy them from wherever the city got them.

I'm not saying this necessarily should have been done, but it should have been at least looked at.

[algernon]

I envision some sort of crime-run waste/recycling program, where we are forced to provide cinder blocks along with the garbage and blue bins.

I don't think I'm that much of a Lefty, but the idea of the City running everything is comforting.

Missed garbage collection/water main ruptured/street snowed in? 311
Grafitti on the _________/vagrants harassing old ladies/burnt out street light? 311
Question about polling stations, transit, permits,parking,attractions,health,etc? 311
Fotze's Illegal Trick Pad next door? 311

If the guy running the show can take the intended efficiency of business and provide one-stop reliable service, why fragment?
Don't Enmax customers each save $100 bucks a year by combining electricity and gas?

[Jets4Life]

It's funny how suprised everyone is around Canada that it was Calgary that elected Canada's first Muslim mayor. I can tell you for a fact that many Winnipeggers still have this preconceived notion that Calgary is some inbred hick town where racism and intolerance is commonplace.

The irony is, of all the cities I have lived, Calgary was the most multicultural and accepting place. With the exception of Brooks, Winnipeg seemed to have the most problems with ethnic and cultural predjudice.

[puckluck]

Originally Posted by Ducay

(also I could have sworn he was Indian though, his family looks straight out of Delhi)

He is Indian. I don't know if he considers himself Indian, but Ismaili muslims mostly are Indians who were driven out of their country a while ago.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Jets4Life

It's funny how suprised everyone is around Canada that it was Calgary that elected Canada's first Muslim mayor. I can tell you for a fact that many Winnipeggers still have this preconceived notion that Calgary is some inbred hick town where racism and intolerance is commonplace.

The irony is, of all the cities I have lived, Calgary was the most multicultural and accepting place. With the exception of Brooks, Winnipeg seemed to have the most problems with ethnic and cultural predjudice.

Probably has to do with the number or educated people in the city.

Pretty sure I recall a report a while ago where Calgary was #1 in the country for degrees / capita. The more edu-macated, the more socially and culturally tolerant.

[MelBridgeman]

meh, our greatest sports hero is a man of color.
no surprise about a Muslim mayor.
this city rules

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by fotze

Bah, I would rather have a translucent mayor.

....wearing nothing but the minimum amount of red tape....

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Jets4Life

It's funny how suprised everyone is around Canada that it was Calgary that elected Canada's first Muslim mayor. I can tell you for a fact that many Winnipeggers still have this preconceived notion that Calgary is some inbred hick town where racism and intolerance is commonplace.

The irony is, of all the cities I have lived, Calgary was the most multicultural and accepting place. With the exception of Brooks, Winnipeg seemed to have the most problems with ethnic and cultural predjudice.

Yeah, sure is annoying when people have misconceptions about other cities in Canada having never lived in them.

Signed,

Someone who lives in a '1980s time capsule'.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Pinner

Like this ?

woahhhhh there. that's a little bit more NSFW than I was expecting in a civic politics thread.

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Yeah, sure is annoying when people have misconceptions about other cities in Canada having never lived in them.

Signed,

Someone who lives in a '1980s time capsule'.

Woah! When did they get the internet in Edmonton?!

[MoneyGuy]

I'm not a Calgarian but good job electing a young guy from a racial minority. It's a very progressive move to set aside the other issues and elect this dynamic individual. It's raising a lot of heads and looks good on you.

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I'm not a Calgarian but good job electing a young guy from a racial minority. It's a very progressive move to set aside the other issues and elect this dynamic individual. It's raising a lot of heads and looks good on you.

That's the mistake that outsiders (including many in the eastern media) keep making again and again.

His election had nothing to do with "progressive" or "electing a ... racial minority". There may have been progressives who voted for him but there were conservatives who did so as well; his vote percentage was higher in white, rich, old Calgary than it was in the areas that tend to have more new Canadians.

Nenshi had an actual platform with ideas that were new, made sense and were well articulated. He answered every question that was posed to him in such a way that you knew he had thought about the issue from all sides and already had an answer before it was posed. He was compelling in the mayoral forums and debates and presented an obvious departure from previous leaders.

Professional Calgarians (i.e. the folks that work in the Oil Industry, including my peer group, the younger professionals, who overwhelmingly supported Nenshi) care about competence more than any other thing. What school you went to, what your degree is in if any, who you know, where you came from all take a back seat to what you know and whether you can communicate it.

[puckluck]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

That's the mistake that outsiders (including many in the eastern media) keep making again and again.

His election had nothing to do with "progressive" or "electing a ... racial minority". There may have been progressives who voted for him but there were conservatives who did so as well; his vote percentage was higher in white, rich, old Calgary than it was in the areas that tend to have more new Canadians.

Nenshi had an actual platform with ideas that were new, made sense and were well articulated. He answered every question that was posed to him in such a way that you knew he had thought about the issue from all sides and already had an answer before it was posed. He was compelling in the mayoral forums and debates and presented an obvious departure from previous leaders.

Professional Calgarians (i.e. the folks that work in the Oil Industry, including my peer group, the younger professionals, who overwhelmingly supported Nenshi) care about competence more than any other thing. What school you went to, what your degree is in if any, who you know, where you came from all take a back seat to what you know and whether you can communicate it.

I think he meant that it's a good thing people over looked the color of his skin. This is Calgary's FIRST mayor part of a visible minority. I don't think the media or anyone is saying that people voted for him because he is a visible minority but that Calgarians overlooked that fact which isn't always the case.

[frege64]

Bownesian, my partner was on NN's executive team and if you don't think the "progressive" aspect of NN's campaign and campaigning didn't help explain his election you are seriously deluded. Yes, he got conservative support but he also represented and played up a very progressive set of policies- transit, Plan-It, campaigning at the Bow River Flow and Folk Fest and Gay Pride, being resolutely in favour of density and *shudder* mixed-income neighbourhoods. His support was highest- through the roof- in Wards 7 and 8.

If cons want to make themselves feel better by insisting, as they are falling over themselves to do, that NN was a conservative candidate, have at it, but you're completely, utterly mistaken. He never could have accomplished what he did without mobilizing young, previously jaded progressive and indeed LIBERAL voters who never felt enfranchised before because they never felt as if they could elect a candidate they liked. This time they did.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by frege64

Bownesian, my partner was on NN's executive team and if you don't think the "progressive" aspect of NN's campaign and campaigning didn't help explain his election you are seriously deluded. Yes, he got conservative support but he also represented and played up a very progressive set of policies- transit, Plan-It, campaigning at the Bow River Flow and Folk Fest and Gay Pride, being resolutely in favour of density and *shudder* mixed-income neighbourhoods. His support was highest- through the roof- in Wards 7 and 8.

If cons want to make themselves feel better by insisting, as they are falling over themselves to do, that NN was a conservative candidate, have at it, but you're completely, utterly mistaken. He never could have accomplished what he did without mobilizing young, previously jaded progressive and indeed LIBERAL voters who never felt enfranchised before because they never felt as if they could elect a candidate they liked. This time they did.

Whoa, take a pill there buddy, you're reading wayyy too deep into Bowness' post (who I think you're in agreement with).

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by yads

What are you basing this on? The name isn't specifically Jewish.

I am basing it on the fact that he is Jewish.
It has been mentioned on the news as well, not often, and that his wife is aboriginal too.

Non practising but Jewish.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by frege64

Bownesian, my partner was on NN's executive team and if you don't think the "progressive" aspect of NN's campaign and campaigning didn't help explain his election you are seriously deluded. Yes, he got conservative support but he also represented and played up a very progressive set of policies- transit, Plan-It, campaigning at the Bow River Flow and Folk Fest and Gay Pride, being resolutely in favour of density and *shudder* mixed-income neighbourhoods. His support was highest- through the roof- in Wards 7 and 8.

If cons want to make themselves feel better by insisting, as they are falling over themselves to do, that NN was a conservative candidate, have at it, but you're completely, utterly mistaken. He never could have accomplished what he did without mobilizing young, previously jaded progressive and indeed LIBERAL voters who never felt enfranchised before because they never felt as if they could elect a candidate they liked. This time they did.

I don't think Bownesian was using "progressive" the way you are. That said, I don't know exactly what Bownesian meant so I'll let him speak for himself. I guess what I'm saying though is that yes we elected a progressive candidate who campaigned as such, but no, we did not elect him because electing a Muslim would be progressive, and that was never an angle used by his campaign.

However, one thing I want to clarify is that a huge part of Nenshi's campaign was that he was able to outflank some of the so-called conservatives on fiscal policy, much like the Martin/Chretien Liberals did. He was able to do so because subsidizing developers isn't really fiscally conservative (and is in fact massively fiscally irresponsible). Nenshi even calls himself a fiscal conservative, as well as a progressive. They are not mutually exclusive.

I don't really like the term "fiscal conservative" the way it's often used today though. "Fiscally responsible" works better for me: conservatives don't have a monopoly on fiscally responsible policy.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by frege64

Bownesian, my partner was on NN's executive team and if you don't think the "progressive" aspect of NN's campaign and campaigning didn't help explain his election you are seriously deluded. Yes, he got conservative support but he also represented and played up a very progressive set of policies- transit, Plan-It, campaigning at the Bow River Flow and Folk Fest and Gay Pride, being resolutely in favour of density and *shudder* mixed-income neighbourhoods. His support was highest- through the roof- in Wards 7 and 8.

If cons want to make themselves feel better by insisting, as they are falling over themselves to do, that NN was a conservative candidate, have at it, but you're completely, utterly mistaken. He never could have accomplished what he did without mobilizing young, previously jaded progressive and indeed LIBERAL voters who never felt enfranchised before because they never felt as if they could elect a candidate they liked. This time they did.

what an utterly terrible post. Get off the conservative=ignorant and bad bandwagon.

Take a pill and get over yourself.