Licia Corbella is a Calgary journalist and a former columnist and editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald.
As the October 20 civic election approaches, many Calgarians are asking me who my choice for mayor will be and why.
I respond by telling them the following story.
Back in May 2021, in the midst of COVID-19 lockdowns, I decided to get out of the house and conduct some face-to-face (albeit masked) interviews with Calgary business owners.
Rising COVID cases forced the provincial government at the time to take indoor dining at restaurants off the table yet again, leading to despair for many restauranteurs and their staff.
But a business unit within Calgary’s city hall helped restaurants pivot by allowing patios to be set up on city-owned sidewalks and parking lots.
I popped by numerous of these outdoor patios that were springing up like tulips all over the city and would ask to speak to the manager or business owner.
Time and time again, I kept on hearing the name, Sonya Sharp.
The conversation would go something like this: “When the latest lockdown happened, we felt desperate, but then we’d talk to Sonya Sharp, and she would promise we would get all the approvals for an outdoor patio in about two or three days. She was always good on her word.”
At the time, Sharp’s name was not well known. I certainly had never heard of her before, as she had not yet entered politics.
She was a bureaucrat — the leader of the City’s Business and Local Economy team — which was part of the city manager’s office.
At that time, Jeff Jamieson, the owner of the trendy and tasty Proof Cocktail Bar and Donna Mac (which he recently sold), said even before the pandemic, Sharp was the person he called to navigate city regulations.
Reached more recently last week at Proof, Jamieson says he first connected with Sharp back in 2018 while having difficulty obtaining development permits for Donna Mac.
“It was taking forever, and Ernie Tsu (owner of Trolley 5 Brew Pub on seventeenth Avenue) said, ‘Call Sonya Sharp at City Hall; she gets things done.’ That changed everything.”
“She’d never say, ‘That’s not part of my department,’” said Jamieson. “She’d say, ‘Leave it with me,’ and she’d knock on the right door and just get it done,” marvelled Jamieson.
“Sonya Sharp gets it and, more importantly, she gets it done,” he added.
“It’s because she cares. She really does, and she works her ass off to get things pushed forward, and she makes pragmatic decisions, smart decisions. She makes decisions from the stance of a citizen, a taxpayer, a business owner. She wants what’s best for people.”
But more than that, Sharp didn’t just help one business at a time; she helped transform layers of red tape at City Hall into a red carpet.
So quick was Sharp’s team’s work to help restauranteurs open and expand patios onto city-owned land that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business awarded the City of Calgary its Golden Scissors Award.
In October 2021, Sharp jumped into politics, winning the election as Councillor for Ward 1.
Since then, I made a point of watching her stance on major issues and how she voted. Her words and actions always impressed me.
Reached last week, when Sharp was asked why she worked so fast to cut red tape and make things easier for struggling business owners, Sharp said she and her husband have run small businesses and know the challenges. Indeed, while she was a student at the University of Lethbridge studying to become a teacher, Sharp says her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was asked to come home and help run the family construction business.
During our interview, Sharp deflected praise from herself and spoke of the “team,” and named a bunch of other names during her time in the city manager’s office. In other words, she’s humble, but she also understands that she isn’t just a one-person show.
Most significantly, Sharp, 45, who has two teen children, was and is opposed to blanket rezoning, and vows to repeal it if she is elected Calgary’s next mayor. She voted against this destructive policy — that threatens the character of all of our communities — shamefully passed by current Mayor Jyoti Gondek and like-minded councillors, all of whom never ran on blanket rezoning.
More than 72% of the people who presented to council in the longest public hearings in Calgary’s history were opposed to blanket rezoning. Gondek ignored Calgarians and pushed ahead with this destructive policy that removes the power from the people and into the hands of a select few.
If Sharp and the Communities First slate wins a majority of the seats in this coming election, repealing of blanket rezoning will be sure to happen.
“Blanket rezoning removes local consultation, strips away public hearings, and puts our communities and their infrastructure at risk,” she added. “Blanket rezoning takes power away from the people who live in our neighbourhoods and hands it to city hall without any accountability.”
What’s more, as a result, the number of development appeals has spiked in Calgary, costing developers more money, not less, and increasing the cost of housing.
“When you have a public hearing and 72% show up and say they don’t want something, then you should be listening to them. So, not only did we bring something forward that isn’t working, the majority that spoke, spoke against it, and the majority of council still didn’t listen to it,” points out Sharp.
Public safety is another issue that Sharp has had success with. Working closely with Calgary Police Service, she helped lessen crime in Ward 1.
Just last week, in a rare move, the Calgary police union endorsed Sharp for mayor and the Communities First slate because of her plan to hire more police and help crack down on crime.
Sharp was also integral to getting the new event centre deal done — with a $330 million contribution from the province.
In my view, Sharp, if given a chance, will be one of the best mayors this city has ever had.
Licia Corbella is a Calgary journalist and a former columnist and editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald.
