Jyoti Gondek Proves She Lacks The Character To Be Calgary’s Mayor

In an abnormally good move for Calgary’s Mayor, Jyoti Gondek, she approved a large budget increase for the Calgary Police Service (CPS) in partnership with the province of Alberta to get ahold of crime on the transit system. Indeed it took over a year of pressure from the public and arm-twisting by UCP and Premier Danielle Smith to get Gondek to do the right thing, but regardless the right thing was done. 

Despite this being an easy win for Gondek, she then proceeded to ruin her own moment by childishly ignoring questions about her advocacy for defunding the police back in 2020.

There was no justification or excuse for her earlier positions or some generic statement about how much she currently supports the police. Gondek simply refuses to answer a question from independent journalist Keean Bexte because it was not pleasing to her. It is the sign of a personality too petty to be the mayor of a major Canadian city.

And, let’s be clear, there have been more than just a couple of signs that Gondek is not equipped for the job she has.

While ignoring crime for well over a year, Gondek saw it as far more pressing for her to call a municipal “climate emergency,” attack the police for moving illegal homeless encampments, and of course, pass a bylaw preventing people from protesting drag queen story hour events.

The root issue is that Gondek obviously does not see Calgarians as her primary constituents. Rather, she sees the type of progressives she attends cocktail parties with as the audience she needs to please.

Because Gondek and her friends are far too fancy to care about hockey, Gondek effectively destroyed the Calgary Flames arena deal by demanding more green energy concessions from Flames’ ownership every time the deal was about to close. The mayor’s image of herself as a climate warrior took precedence over good-faith negotiations for a new arena. 

This is why, even after the recent announcement of 86 million dollars being invested to fight transit crime and drug use, so many Calgarians are beginning to call for a recall effort to be mounted against Gondek.

Even when she does the right thing, it takes so much effort and time to get to that result that many people just want her out of office. A mayor needs to be on about fundamental issues, not seem bored and annoyed that the public expects them to take transit crime seriously.

Calgarians should be able to expect that their mayor cares more about the issues of crime, taxes, and snow removal than woke public policy initiatives. Jyoti Gondek is doing as well as she ever will as Calgary’s mayor and so more people should consider if they really want to put up with another two and half years of her.

(If you live in the West Calgary area consider following my Signal Hill Facebook page for more info on recalling Mayor Jyoti Gondek and other common sense political initiatives.)