“Mayor of the Year?” Calgarians Know Otherwise.

Calgarians identify their mayor, Jyoti Gondek, as the most unpopular mayor in the history of the city. Indeed, sixty percent of Calgary voters polled have said as much. Yet, Mayor Gondek is now trying to re-invent herself in preparation for the next municipal election. She has announced that she will be running. Most Calgarians can't typically name a worthwhile thing the mayor has accomplished in office.

As her campaign works to reinvent her, there is no more talk about the Climate Emergency Gondek declared in the first few hours of her mandate, a fantasy that would cost Calgarians hundreds of billions of dollars over time. There will be no talk from her about electric buses, for example, and the debacle that caused the city to spend hundreds of millions on electric buses that don't work. The city is unlikely to receive the buses that don’t work since the manufacturer they gave the money to is out of business. There will be no talk from her about her position to defund police at a time when crime has shot up in Calgary and the tent cities only metres away from her office keep growing. There will be no talk from her about her snubbing of the Jewish community at a time in which the community being assailed needed support. Gondek defied the will of the electors upon being installed by rejecting a duly elected representative in Ward 4 because she disapproved of him. There will be no word of that either.

Instead, Gondek is presenting herself as the fiscally responsible candidate. Her new website says so. She is also presenting herself as the mayor who can bring people together. Ironically, the pictures in her blog are pictures of her alone, posing as a model in extravagant clothes and expensive boots, showing off her material wealth only steps away from the highest concentration of homeless people in Calgary. The only picture of the site with other human beings is one with city workers, who probably had no choice but to be in the frame when the picture was taken.

Days after she announced her candidacy for re-election, an Ottawa-funded Ontario magazine, Municipal World, surprisingly declared Gondek Mayor of the Year. The news seems to have left Calgarians, who have experienced her decisions first-hand, scratching their heads.