Calgarians Needs to Reject the Big Union Funded Mayor and Council Candidates

A lot of Calgarians have taken it for granted that just because Naheed Nenshi is not running for reelection as mayor that the city is moving away from trends of yearly increases in property taxes. It seems unthinkable that anyone in the year 2021 would be foolish enough to continue making it more expensive to live in Calgary while downtown is facing an office vacancy rate of 30 percent, but to politicians supported by Big Union money, it’s a no-brainer. 

The largest spender in the Calgary municipal election this year is the PAC and third-party advertiser Calgary’s Future.

On the surface, it seems like a community organization that is dedicated to change at city hall saying things in their advertisements like “if we want this city to thrive we need to elect the right leaders,” which is hilarious when you find out Calgary’s Future is running primarily due to $1.7 million in union donations.

Calgary’s Future has endorsed Jyoti Gondek in the mayor’s race, who has been fronting a fiscally responsible attitude, despite voting in favour of every single property tax increase since she became the councillor for Ward 3 in 2017. 

The current Ward 11 councillor Jeromy Farkas is Gondek’s main opponent and has been rightfully indignant about the way Gondek is playing the role of a fiscal moderate while having the backing of Big Union money. Farkas is an actual fiscally responsible candidate, frequently opposing tax increases in council and even refusing to receive his pension right after being elected in 2017. 

It is not even just the mayor’s race that is being corrupted with heavy spending by Calgary’s Future, the third party advertiser is also trying to influence every council election race except for Ward 14. 

Here are some examples.

In Ward 10 the fiscally conservative organization Save Calgary documented that Calgary’s Future has run 6 separate digital advertising campaigns on behalf of the Big Union candidate Abed Harb. His main fiscally responsible opponent is former Ward 10 councillor Andre Chabot, who is running again after having previously run for mayor in 2017. 

In Ward 12 Calgary’s Future is backing Evan Spencer, who is just a former assistant to the retiring Ward 12 councillor Shane Keating, but in spite of that the PAC has dumped several thousand dollars in digital ads for Spencer. 

Just one of the three ad sets that Calgary’s Future ran for Spencer cost anywhere between $3,000 and $3,500; all this just to try and beat Craig Chandler, the main fiscally conservative council candidate in Ward 12 who supports city government departments being audited so wasteful spending can be cut. 

The massive spending on Spencer is not the exception among all the candidates supported by Calgary’s Future, it is the baseline rule. 

The problem of Big Union influence is not limited just to the activities of Calgary’s Future. The ATU Local 583 even released flyers that referred to all the same councillor candidates that Calgary’s Future endorsed as “Our Pro-Transit Councilor Candidates,” based on some vague notion that their members voted in favour of endorsing all of them. 

Seems odd that union members, who as individuals do not reflect the political views and priorities of union bosses, apparently voted in line with the candidates that Big Union money had been behind for months. Union members are basically having their dues payments stolen from them and blown on left-wing politicians their bosses think will make them more powerful.

Calgary’s problem during the Nenshi years was the extremely heavy influence of unions who got most of the benefits council handed out while the majority of regular Calgarians are stuck paying for all of it, and likely were not even getting the snow on their streets plowed in the winter. 

Gondek supposedly used to care about elections becoming all about PACs but since she started receiving indirect campaign contributions from the largest third-party adviser in the 2021 elections she no longer cares. 

Calgarians should unite this municipal election and reject the Jyoti Gondek and 13 of the Calgary City Council candidates supported by Big Union money. 

Union bosses should not be able to control who represents Calgarians and continue to gut the local economy for their own benefits. It will ruin Calgary, in the long run, to let just one interest group have influence over city hall. 

Below is a list of all the candidates propped up by Big Union money.

• Mayor: Jyoti Gondek

• Ward 1: Sonya Sharp

• Ward 2: Jennifer Wyness

• Ward 3: Jasmine Mian

• Ward 4: DJ Kelly

• Ward 5: Raj Dhaliwal

• Ward 6: Lana Bentley

• Ward 7: Erin Waite

• Ward 8: Courtney Walcott

• Ward 9: Gian-Carlo Carra

• Ward 10: Abed Harb

• Ward 11: Kourtney Branagan

• Ward 12: Evan Spencer

• Ward 13: Jay Unsworth

• Ward 14: (No Big Union Candidate)