'Not a fan': Mayor Jyoti Gondek opposes idea of parties at municipal level

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Mayor Jyoti Gondek says she’s “not a fan” of the idea of establishing political parties at the municipal level — a notion Premier Danielle Smith has suggested her UCP government could explore.

“It’s important for us who are locally elected officials to work with whoever happens to form government, either provincially or federally,” Gondek told reporters Friday.

“I think if we fall into this quagmire of becoming partisan at the local level, it hinders our ability to work across orders of government.”

While other Canadian cities — most notably Montreal and Vancouver — have entrenched a form of party politics, Calgary has maintained a governance system where city council candidates run and are elected as independents.

“I really appreciate the fact I don’t have a party telling me how to vote,” Gondek said. “I don’t have someone whipping votes saying, ‘this is what you’re going to do.’ We have 15 members who were elected to think clearly, look at the empirical evidence and make strong decisions for citizens.”

Smith has floated the idea of introducing a municipal party system since being elected as the UCP’s leader in the fall of 2022.

Saturday, on her weekly radio show, the premier said she supports the idea for the province’s largest municipalities, where partisan politics is already prevalent.

“I know everybody thinks that it’s not, but did anyone really know that there were going to be single-use plastics and paper bans that happened in Calgary and Edmonton in the last election,” Smith said in response to a question on the issue. “Don’t you think people should have campaigned on that?

“I think because we’re now at a point where Calgary and Edmonton decision-makers are moving beyond the things that cities normally do . . . I would say because they are now getting far more political and far more ideological there probably needs to be a little more transparency about that.”

Smith said the UCP cabinet will ultimately determine if the idea advances during the spring legislature session.

Support for the idea may not extend very far outside of the UCP’s own caucus.

Like Gondek, ABmunis, the advocacy group that represents 260 of Alberta’s municipalities, said it is against the idea of introducing political parties at the local level.

The association’s president, Tyler Gandam, said a poll conducted on ABmunis’ behalf last September found 68 per cent of respondents opposed the idea. Furthermore, a resolution at ABmunis’ convention that expressed opposition to the notion received 95 per cent member support.

Current political ‘norms would be lost in a party system’

“The current municipal government model ensures that local elected officials, selected by most voting residents, stand for the best interests of their residents and businesses,” Gandam wrote in a column for the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal this week.

“Today’s model enables mayors and councillors to debate and vote on issues from independent points of view, be open-minded, and freely collaborate with all council colleagues to find solutions to their community’s complex problems.

“These norms would be lost in a party system, as shown by the politics practised at the provincial and federal level.”

There are pros and cons for implementing a party-based system in municipal politics, said Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt.

He said a pro is that it makes it easier for voters to distinguish between several candidates who are all vying for the same position. Such was the case during Calgary’s municipal election in 2021, when over 20 people ran for the mayor’s seat.

“But that’s not what seems to be driving this in Calgary, at least,” Bratt said. “What seems to be driving this is to elect more conservatives. It’s not about, what is the best model of governance. It’s about, what is the best model so ‘our’ people win?

“And that’s highly problematic. You shouldn’t make governance decisions based on such a narrow definition.”