In Calgary's Ward 11, hopefuls are concerned about council secrecy, voter apathy

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They may be competing for the same council seat, but when candidates running in Ward 11 met at Wednesday night’s debate, they seemed to agree about two key topics: the need for less council secrecy and apathy in city politics.

The forum at the Cliff Bungalow-Mission Community Association was attended by members of the Mission community who are voting in their first city election as members of Ward 11. Their neighbourhood was previously part of Ward 8.

Attendees met four of the five Ward 11 candidates — Robert Dickinson, Janet Eremenko, Linda Johnson, and Keith Simmons. According to CBMCA president Bob Lang, candidate Jeromy Farkas had accepted the original invitation to the forum but took his name off the list of participants Sept 18.

Among the topics debated was the lack of openness surrounding campaign donations. Johnson said she believes candidates need to “take the consequences as to who your friends are.” She has yet to publish her own donor list but says she will before the campaign ends.

Similarly, Eremenko believes “Calgarians deserve to know who is supporting campaigns from a fiscal perspective,” noting she will release her own list of donors before the end of the election.

Simmons stressed that voters need to know where support is coming from “not only financially, but ideologically as well.”

Voters already know where that support is coming from in the case of Dickinson. He’s already published a list of donors “for better or for worse,” and will update it every Friday until the election.

Under Alberta’s Local Authorities Election Act, all current civic candidates — who did not self-fund a campaign up to a maximum amount of $10,000 — will have to file a campaign disclosure and financial statement before March 1, 2018. 

Moderator Greg Hart also posed a question from the audience about political apathy and how the candidates would deal with the problem.

For his part, Simmons said curbing apathy is simply a matter of including citizens in the process of making and executing decisions. He said many people would like to be involved in their community, but get exhausted by the process and lack of results.

Similarly, Eremenko said, “There’s no such thing as voter apathy. It’s just politicians who don’t do a particularly good job about speaking to the things that matter to folks.”

She says the best thing about municipal politics is the idea that candidates don’t have to walk party lines, and can truly engage citizens in a dialogue about their needs and desires.

Dickinson believes in a youth-centric approach to political engagement. He noted that the increased push by Calgary universities and their student unions to get younger people involved in the election have been great steps toward eliminating apathy. He also said the earlier kids are taught about politics, the more invested they become in the process.

Nevertheless, Johnson said “we have to be realistic about the complexity and the challenge of communicating with everybody in today’s society.” She said that so long as council representatives show respect for everyone in their ward who comes to them with a problem, a healthier relationship between the public and council will take shape.

Kyra Bird is a reporter for the Calgary Journal, produced by the journalism students at Mount Royal University. The Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun and Calgary Journal are working together this election to provide readers with the city’s most comprehensive coverage of the civic campaign.