William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry. This is Part 3 of his 2025 political outlook series, this time focusing on Calgary municipal politics. Links to Parts One and Two are below..MARRIOTT: Is 2025 Canada's last chance?.MARRIOTT: In Alberta, there's going to be room for a tax break.Once again the primary reference point for predictions — in this case about Calgary municipal politics — is asking the question “What do the key people really want?” Once this is understood then the likely course of action is clear.In Calgary, expect the tumult at City Hall to continue through to the civic election on October 20.Our water woes will not be solved. Yes, City Hall increased the amount we pay for it on our Enmax bill. But it will take more than that and we now finally have one member of a blue chip panel to do an independent assessment to find out “why [the pipe failure] occurred without knowledge earlier, so that something could have been done to prevent it from occurring”. The study is going to take a year or more but likely all the “smoking gun” emails have been deleted and the damning hard copy evidence long since shredded. So look forward to a big report that will likely find no answer to the “Why?” question some time in 2026! Of course the City will institute water restrictions once again this summer even though the permanent drought caused by the ever present “climate change” somehow got cancelled on account of rain.Unfortunately, the ongoing Green Line debacle is impervious to climate change. When we were last at the poker table, the province had gone all in with their proposed re-alignment, which didn’t include drilling tunnels under the Calgary Tower. “Take it or leave it” they said. It is now up to City Hall to see whether Danielle Smith is bluffing or not. Mayor Jyoti Gondek is nothing but predictable, so expect her to “leave it.”. Thus, the project will be dead. Although, it could be revived by a new City Council.This would follow Gondek’s behaviour in the past. Remember when the Flames wanted to re-negotiate the event centre? Gondek did the right thing by unilaterally shutting down the entire project. But it somehow re-emerged. Imagine that?And when the province said we won’t fund this stub of an LRT project, she — with the help of her “hateful eight” — essentially took her ball and went home. All the while declaring, quite proudly, that the Green Line was now a solely provincial project, not a city project. Except somehow she didn’t understand that you can’t win at chicken with a girl driving a tank. Again somehow, mysteriously, the project became a city project once again.But when City council votes to “leave it” sometime soon Smith will let the project go to fallow until a new council is in place. Although with long-time advocates having given up on the Green Line, it may be permanently dead. After all, these projects have been failing at an unprecedented rate.The rezoning debate will quiet down a bit with courts deciding in favour of the city. What has been missing from this debate is the fact that the re-zoning hearings and decision process is just a waste of time. These requests never get turned down. The real rubber hits the road in the Development Permit process where anyone affected by a project can show up and make objections. Sadly, NIMBY arguments just don’t cut it in these decisions. This issue could re-emerge in the election with some folks committing to reverse the blanket rezoning.The election is a long way off, but is it premature to be talking about likely winners for mayor and council, next October? Apparently the candidates don’t think so since many of them have declared and are already campaigning hard. So what do they really want?Ms. Gondek has indicated she will be running as an independent. She claims that people just don’t know her well enough and if they really tried, they would like her as much as she likes herself.But what does Jyoti Gondek really want? It’s simple really — vindication. She wants to win another term as mayor and thus show all her detractors that they are wrong, so very wrong. Her platform is simple; she is running as the anti-Smith and specifically against political parties in municipal elections. She sees her job as standing up to Smith much the same as Smith stands up to Ottawa. Sadly this is not going to work and she will likely finish dead last amongst the serious contenders.What about the others who have so far declared for mayor?Jeff Davison, also running (for now) as an independent, wants the same as Gondek, vindication. After finishing third behind Gondek and Jeromy Farkas in 2021 he is hoping to make a big comeback.Davison's platform of a four-year tax freeze is clearly a challenge to the City Hall administrators. This is because inflation and population growth have to be budgeted into our tax rates. So the only way to get to zero would be to reduce staffing while at the same time freezing union wages. A tall order. It is early yet but if he stays an independent, he will likely place next to last, just ahead of Gondek.Then there's Brian Thiessen who is running as the head of The Calgary Party. He seems to be the most organized, being the first out of the gate to declare affiliation with a political party. He has also brought on some heavy weights, notably Stephen Carter, who ran Gondek’s campaign in 2021.But what does Thiessen really want? It appears he wants to make Calgary great again by ending the “dysfunction” at City Council. He is pitching himself and his party as ‘centrist’. He also appears to be running against Smith and oddly wants to make Calgary “more inclusive” which maybe puts him a little bit left of centre. But as of today he has to be considered the frontrunner of the declared candidates.But what about the undeclared candidates?The most important of these is Jeromy Farkas. He says he learned some important lessons from his first campaign for mayor. He also now has Don Braid on side which he didn’t the first time around.The important thing to notice about the Braid article supporting Farkas, and the timing of it, is that Sonya Sharp was the main city spokesperson for the new event centre. Farkas may have wised up a bit during his four year time out as he clearly perceives Sharp as the real threat.But what does Farkas really want? The broken record says — vindication. Again. And he will likely get it. At this time, even though he has not declared, he is the clear front runner since every Calgary voter is saying to themselves “we coulda had Farkas”. With Gondek, Davis and Thiessen splitting the vote, Farkas could win without increasing his popular vote.But what about all the provincial changes introducing political parties and changing the financing rules? To predict the effects on the election you need to look at how voting usually unfolds at the municipal level.Typically, voter interest and voter turn-out is very low, less than 50%. Very often the decision in the ballot booth is made mostly by name recognition. So campaign strategy is often dominated by lawn signs, TV advertising and trying to get endorsements from newspaper columnists. Almost nobody looks at a candidate’s platforms and there are often a dozen or more names on the ballot. So the effects of changing the financing rules, effectively cutting slate/party advertising budgets in half, should lead to more balanced advertising and thus more balanced voting.The introduction of political parties will also change how people vote in the ballot booth. Previously, there were no rules against parties or slates of candidates but the party name could not show up on the physical ballot. None of the parties created thus far have put out a specific ‘party’ platform but rather are hoping to create a brand around a person, in the case of Thiessen, or a group or ‘caucus’ in the case of Communities First. This group already has a profile and a persona that has been consistent in voting against Gondek and her hateful eight. Thus, they are already rightly seen to be the ‘opposition’ ready to form a new ‘government’.Again Jeromy Farkas is the wild card in this new world of political parties. If he chooses to run as an independent then Communities First may feel they need to run a mayoral candidate.However, Sonya Sharp or Don McLean would not be wise to run against him. If he chooses to join Communities First then they and their slate will likely dominate the successful candidates and sweep the election.Very simply, in October Farkas will be the king, and possibly the king-maker as well.William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
