From the Calgary Herald – June 18, 2009

This week, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Grade 1, 2, and 3 students as Rosemont Elementary School. They have been discussing the infamous pedestrian bridges, and wanted my perspective. They shared with me their opinions, both pro and con, as well as the letters they had written to city council on this issue.

I left the school feeling great about democracy–if six year olds can respectfully ask questions and come up with thoughtful points of view, there’s hope for all of us. My good mood continued when I saw the city council report card issued by a business lobby group calling itself the Coalition for Property Tax Fairness. They posted their methodology in detail on their website, something I appreciated.

I didn’t agree entirely with the findings of the report card (I probably would have ranked nearly everyone lower) and there were a few bizarre choices in it. Points were given, for example, for trying to delay Plan-It Calgary, a document which one report says will save the city $11 billion. Wouldn’t supporting it be the single most taxpayer-friendly move this council could make?

Nonetheless, good for the group for doing the work, and for engaging citizens in the conversation.

What ruined by mood, though, was the story around Ald. Joe Connelly. As reported in the Herald over the last week, Connelly, like all aldermen (me, too, when I ran for Council in 2004), accepts donations from the development industry. Where he went further is that he asked the umbrella group for the industry–the Urban Development Institute– to advertise a fund-raising event for him.

They did so. Indeed, the head of UDI, Mike Flynn, implied that some of his members would no longer support all aldermen, as they had done in the past.

“It will definitely lead to a larger discussion down the road, whether we want to look at who’s been supportive of our positions and who hasn’t,” he said.

At the same time, UDI and its sister group, the Calgary branch of the Canadian Home Builders Association, which also sent an e-mail ad to its members, are engaged in a frantic lobbying effort against Plan-It. A document dated June 2 includes a sample letter to be written to council, the phone numbers for all aldermen, and other suggestions to defeat Plan-It. It also reminds members that the deadline for public submissions was June 11, coincidentally the date of Connelly’s fundraiser.

One could be forgiven for raising one’s eyebrows at this point. Particularly when one considers council’s ethical guidelines document, which reads in part, that members of council “(n) ot use their position to secure special privileges, favours or exemptions for themselves, or any other person” and “(a) void any situation that could cause any person to believe that they may have brought bias or partiality to a question before the council.”

Well, this person certainly believes that Connelly’s actions– accepting aid from an organization that has not in any way hidden its desired outcome for a specific question before the council –has brought his ability to be impartial into question.

Connelly and Flynn certainly do not see it this way: in Wednesday’s Herald, they shrugged off the concern, with Flynn saying, “I’d like to believe that the aldermen are capable of making up their own minds.”

So, the e-mail asking for money has no relationship whatsoever to the e-mail asking for a letter opposing a Council decision. Even though these e-mails are from the same groups. Am I the only one a little bit confused here?

So, the question remains: if the money does not influence council member’s votes, as Flynn asserts this week, why are developers giving it? As one citizen told the city solicitor, the optics of this are terrible. If Connelly does not recuse himself, and goes on to vote against Plan-It, his vote will forever be suspect in the minds of some people. And those six year olds will get just a little more cynical about politics.

« Back to “In His Own Words”