The Main—July 13: It's All Going Off in Calgary
But that's nothing new
Candidates suddenly dropping out of ward races to work on mayoral campaigns. Other mayoral candidates in custody and pleading guilty to criminal charges in the midst of the election. Groups offering their tacit endorsements for a slate of candidates. Voting location rollbacks as compared to the 2017 vote. Oh, and a guy who's no stranger to municipal politics in the city absolutely ruining — checks notes — Radiohead’s ‘Creep’?
Calgary, you’re never boring, are you?
Today’s post was supposed to be a snarky list of things candidates inaccurately promise to potential voters thanks, in part, to many not understanding how municipal politics works or what you do if you become a councillor or mayor. But no.
No, I had to pull up stakes and write about Calgary.
The big one is that Ward Sutherland, who was running for re-election in Ward 1 in Calgary, has decided that’s a bad idea, with three months to go, and that it’d now be a better idea if he worked on Jeff Davison’s mayoral campaign.
If you’re keeping track, the number of current Calgary city councillors seeking re-election in their wards in 2021 has now dropped to just four — Sean Chu, Gian-Carlo Carra, Peter Demong and Diane Colley-Urquhart. Three current councillors are running for the mayor’s job — Jyoti Gondek, Jeff Davison and Jeromy Farkas. For comparison, in Edmonton there are 12 council seats (two less than in Calgary) and there are seven incumbents seeking re-election.
For those who were either not in Calgary or don’t remember back to the Aughts, Calgary’s recent municipal-election history is coloured with somewhat bizarre events. What’s happening now pales compared to those.
In 2007, David Aftergood was sentenced to 14 days in jail for supplying a ballot to another person. Aftergood was the husband of the Ward 10 candidate in the 2004 election, Margot Aftergood. The drama and scandal saw Margot Aftergood elected in 2004, but resign a month later and the City of Calgary pay 60 per cent of her legal costs.
For those who want to read a tale of high drama in city politics, the Aftergood story — which became known as ‘Aftergate’ — is wild reading.
From one CBC story in 2007:
[David] Aftergood rented a mailbox in the city's northeast, picked up mail-in ballots from the mailbox and gave them to his brother, Ron, who was his wife's campaign manager, according to the judge.During the trial, Aftergood testified that when he picked up the mail, he didn't know he was handling mail-in ballots.
We don’t mind when Calgary does a Calgary. It’s entertaining. We just hope voters aren’t forgotten in the drama.
*This story has been updated to reflect that George Chahal is now running for the Liberal Party in Calgary Skyview. We regret the error.
Chahal isn't running for council anymore. He announced last week he was running for federal liberals, not council.