From the Calgary Herald – Dec 31, 2009

I never did get around to writing Santa a list this year, so I thought that the last day of the decade might be a good time to think about what I really want: leadership that values results over power.

If there has been a theme this year among our political leaders, it’s been the pursuit of power without principle and of that power — not a better community, not improving the quality of life of others — being the ultimate goal.

We’ve seen this at all levels of government, and across party lines. Stephen Harper, once so principled that he quit Parliament because he couldn’t stand the compromises he saw Preston Manning making, now prorogues Parliament to dissolve committees asking tough questions and gleefully stacks the Senate with party hacks.

Meanwhile, Conservative MPs blanket Canada with giant novelty cheques bearing party logos and their own signatures, as though the party and not Parliament is bringing largesse to communities.

At the provincial level, the Progressive Conservatives, having long ago forgot the distinction between party and government, regularly make decisions in closed-door caucus meetings rather than in open sessions of the legislature or in committees that include opposition members.

Even municipal government, with no political parties, has not been immune from this. Calgary city council now regularly cleaves along partisan lines, with 8-7 votes common. Veteran Ald. Dale Hodges says he’s never seen anything like it.

The furor over the Peace Bridge is an instructive example. One faction on council wanted this bridge badly and thought that Calgary needed a Calatrava bridge to really be world-class (just like Turtle Bay, Calif.!).

The opposing faction seized on this and made misleading comments, based on no engineering study, that a plain bridge would only cost $5 million.

The proponents got their backs up, and rammed through the bridge.

Lost in all of this were a bunch of very real questions: how come the city could get away with awarding such a large project with no public tender? How could a neighbourhood with fewer than 4,000 people, and three other bridges, lead to a projection of 5,000 crossings a day?

What this was really about was simple. It looked like the mayor might retire in 2010. Aldermen who might run to replace him wanted to build up their images — either as forward-thinkers who know what a real city needs, or as guardians of the public purse. This led to the fight over the bridge, over the little Memorial Drive festival, over tax increases.

Meanwhile, little real leadership was shown: we still don’t have a plan for making Calgary Transit more customer-focused, for a new system of budgeting or for clearing the darn snow.

The good news is that citizens are themselves filling the gap. Groups like Civic-Camp and Reboot Alberta are bringing together people from across the antiquated political spectrum to talk about how their communities could be better, and to take action.

CivicCamp has been responsible not only for the most effective political engagement Calgary has ever seen, but also for a number of grassroots initiatives aimed at improving the quality of people’s lives in their own neighbourhoods.

The very best thing about the discussions at Reboot Alberta was the broad recognition that no one there, not even those promoting a new political party, was interested in creating a new political dynasty.

With luck, these citizen movements and not petty politics will define our 2010.

Happy New Year!

Naheed Nenshi teaches at Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business and volunteers with the Better Calgary Campaign. ( www.bettercalgary.ca)

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