Mayor unsatisfied with party responses to issues facing Calgary

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — With less than two weeks to go until Alberta’s next premier is elected, Calgary’s mayor is concerned with their ideas on local concerns.

In March, the City of Calgary issued a survey, called YYC Matters, to get responses from the province’s political parties on how they would address issues ranging from the downtown vacancy rate, business taxes, infrastructure, and promoting economic recovery.

“Over the course of the last few weeks, we’ve used YYC Matters as an opportunity to really get into great conversations with Calgarians about things that really matter — and particularly in this election, where there’s been so much policy but people seem to be talking about other things — it’s really important to get specific,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

The NDP, UCP, Liberals, Alberta Party and Green Party all provided their answers, which are available on the YYC Matters website as well.

But Nenshi is not too happy.

“I was really, really disappointed to see that none of the parties — none of them — had a real plan for economic growth in Calgary,” he said.

Nenshi split the responses into good, bad and ugly.

Starting with the good, the Mayor is encouraged that all the parties firmly committed to supporting projects such as the Green Line LRT and flood mitigation — particularly the Springbank Dam.

But that was where the positivity stopped.

“On the bad,” Nenshi continued, “it seemed clear that a lot of the parties — including the one in government now — hadn’t really thought about very many issues that are important to Calgarians. We got a lot of ‘oh, we’d be willing to consider that after the election, why don’t we learn more about that, why don’t we get some more information on that.'”

On that list of bad responses included a lack of ideas on dealing with recycling costs and giving out cannabis revenues to municipalities.

The most concerning piece of the responses, though, were around the top issues that Calgarians are focused on — downtown vacancy rates and business taxes.

“Lowering the corporate tax rate doesn’t fill the downtown office buildings. Figuring out better ways to invest the carbon tax doesn’t fill those downtown office buildings,” said Nenshi. “Not one of the parties committed to doing anything for those businesses outside the downtown that have been badly hurt by the downtown assessment drop. Not one of the parties committed to assisting us in our economic development fund to try and bring new business and new investment into downtown Calgary.”

He also feels there’s a lot of misconceptions about the city as a whole.

Citing the United Conservative Party, Nenshi said they have a good platform for the most part, but doesn’t understand the somewhat adversarial approach they are proposing.

“When your biggest promise to municipalities is we’re going to publish a report card on you, that pretty much shows a real lack of respect for how local government works.”

However, it is not just the UCP, as Nenshi is worried even the incumbent NDP are not fully prepared to face issues in Calgary.

“There’s a real lack of understanding of how cities work and a real lack of understanding of Calgary in particular. And I would expect anyone who wants to premier needs to understand the city really well.”

Worst of all, Nenshi said magical promises from the parties are unrealistic and do not help them get any closer to finding solutions.

“You know I hear from the UCP that if they are elected miraculously the economy will be better and the deficit will go away. But I don’t really, even after reading their 140-something page platform don’t really know how they’re going to do that. Same with the New Democrats, you elect them and we’re going to have a perfect economy and a perfect environment at the same time. I don’t really know how that’s happening,” Nenshi added.

Overall, with the clock ticking closer to the big day on April 16, Nenshi wants real plans and for the leaders to move away from their scripted talking points.

“Ultimately we need strong plans for our economy. Not just platitudes. Not just slogans. Not just promises that if I’m premier, everything will be better automatically.”

Nenshi hopes Calgarians will read the responses to become better informed — and he urges all citizens to get out and cast a ballot for the betterment of the city.