It was bound to happen and on Wednesday, it did. The two leading Conservative-leaning candidates (by my measure) for the job of Calgary’s mayor got into a back-and-forth after a letter surfaced from Sharp’s campaign team that was sent to her supporters.
The letter reads, in part, “Sonya’s campaign has been the target of a relentless smear campaign by Jeff Davison and his team for months. This effort, led by Brent Pearce and backed by individuals like Craig Chandler, has become increasingly malicious. We have collected hundreds of screenshots of their handiwork, and we are preparing a sample of ‘Jeff’s Sleaziest Smears’ for distribution.”
The letter goes on to say the Sharp team followed Pearce’s creation of a parody Sonya Sharp X account by tracing it back to his email account.
The Western Standard reached out to both camps, each of which declined to comment.
That’s good. Hopefully they will maintain their silence. Hopefully Sharp’s campaign will not follow through with ‘Jeff’s Sleaziest Smears.’ Hopefully, they will reach out to each other and bury the hatchet.
It is a conservative trait during elections, or even outside of them, to disagree with each other and fight among themselves. It is a damaging trait.
Permission to use an analogy, please.
Imagine you’re at a dance, with a nice band playing. You notice there is a group of people who are dancing in a single line; a conga dance. When the leader of the line throws out his left arm, everyone behind him throws out their left arms. When the leader throws out his right arm, the others throw out their right arms. And so they go around the dance hall. Those are the Liberals. Liberals live to have a leader. They need a leader. Can't function on their own without one.
Then you notice a number of couples dancing. None of the couples is doing the same dance. A lot of the couples are not even dancing to the band’s music, but rather to the music in their heads. Conservatives are more independent than Liberals. In their heads, they each fashion themselves as the leader.
So, my message to the Davison and Sharp campaign teams: You are in the middle of an election battle, but you are not each other’s foe. Your foe, for both of you, is Mayor Gondek, who, no doubt, is loving the division between you. It guarantees a split of conservative votes, with the mayor coming up the middle to victory.
Find a way for you two to come to the dance and dance the same dance, which is cleaning up the messes made by this outgoing council that include the climate emergency, the bag bylaw, blanket rezoning, the disasters in Marda Loop, the Viscount Bennett School site, Springbank, etc.
Sit down, have a coffee, talk about how you can both contribute to the success of Calgary, with only one of you being the mayor. You can meet on neutral territory. The Western Standard boardroom perhaps. I haven’t asked my editor for permission for this, but I usually ask permission after I’ve done what I’m asking permission to do.
The election is not all about you two.
The election is about what is good for Calgarians and for Calgary. Calgarians have little interest in squabbles. Calgarians want to know what you’re going to do differently and better than did Gondek. They don’t want DEI or woke ideology. They want common sense. They don’t want anyone who is trying to reform how they think and live. They want a council that makes life easier by supplying the services they want and need.
But, in truth, the mayor’s chair isn’t necessarily where Calgarians can engineer improvements with their votes this year.
Gondek officially opened her campaign on Tuesday, saying she is going to run on her great record. There weren’t a lot of great accomplishments. She was the captain of a woke ship that faced a lot of headwinds but was kept afloat with the help of her lieutenants, most of whom have abandoned ship, out of exhaustion or fear of the electorate throwing them overboard.
They are Gian-Carlo Carra (Ward 9), Courtney Walcott (Ward 8), Evan Spencer (Ward 12), Richard Pootsman (who resigned last year - Ward 6), Peter Demong (mostly a part-time lieutenant - Ward 14), and Jennifer Mian (Ward 3). Also not returning is Sean Chu (Ward 4), and there will be a new councillor in Ward 1 (Sonya Sharp’s ward - she'll be mayor or be gone).
That’s eight fresh faces coming to city council, so it’s vitally important for Calgarians to do their homework and elect commonsense councillor candidates who don’t put woke or DEI at the top of their to-do lists.
Yes, it takes some extra work. You can get started and see all the nominated candidates for council and the wards in which they're at electionscalgary.ca
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