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MAYOR JYOTI GONDEK: Political parties are the kiss of death for local representation.

COUNCILLOR SONYA SHARP: You have seen parties pop up. Do I line myself with either of those? No.

JEROMY FARKAS: I think municipal parties at the city level—I think it’s cancer.

JEFF DAVISON: I think the party system allows you to put a four-year agenda on the table.

BRIAN THIESSEN, CALGARY PARTY: When I look at this election, I look at how deeply unpopular this city council is, maybe the provincial government did us an advantage with leveling the playing field a little bit.

JEREMY KLASZUS (HOST): At the end of November, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek announced she would be running for mayor again in 2025. And in her announcement she was clear about what she thinks of having municipal political parties in Calgary and Edmonton—something that the province has introduced for the 2025 election.

GONDEK: Is our city better served by independent representatives who will amplify the voices of Calgarians, or do you want a council that is controlled by outside interests? I will be running an independent campaign next year.

KLASZUS: This followed a Chamber of Commerce speech a few days earlier where Gondek defended her mayoral record against her critics.

GONDEK: I’ve heard the noise this year—criticism in the media, a recall campaign, and I’ve faced dissent in public spaces. But let me be clear: I didn’t sign up for this role because I thought it was easy. I signed up because I believe in this city, and I believe in all of you.

KLASZUS: It’s still awhile to go yet. But candidates and parties are already gearing up for the October 2025 election. Three mayoral candidates had stepped forward by the end of November: former city councillor Jeff Davison, employment lawyer Brian Thiessen and Gondek. Then there are other potential mayoral candidates like former councillor Jeromy Farkas and current councillors Sonya Sharp and Dan McLean.

The nomination period officially kicks off on January 2. And this will be different than previous Calgary elections. There are new rules in place for how this election will be run. There are municipal parties for the first time. And incumbents likely won’t have the enormous advantage they’ve enjoyed in previous elections.

We’re going to dig into the nuances of all of this, and hear from some of the politicians and parties who will be on the ballot in 2025. Let’s get into it.

In October, Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver rolled out the details of Bill 20, which was passed in the legislature in May.

MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS MINISTER RIC McIVER: I continue to stand by what I said in the spring, and will continue to say today. The changes that we made to the Local Authorities Election Act and the Municipal Government Act are good for municipalities, good for voters and good for Albertans.

KLASZUS: Bill 20 is now law, and there are a bunch of changes, big and small, to municipal elections in Alberta. Changes like composite ballots and vote tabulators being banned. Here’s Calgary returning officer Kate Martin speaking to city council in November.

KATE MARTIN: We are now looking at a hand-count election, which means that our election workers will be working late into the evening.

KLASZUS: Tabulators, also known as vote-counting machines, are widely used all over North America to tally paper ballots. They’ve been used provincially in Alberta. And they’re used because they’re efficient. Calgary used them for the 2018 plebiscite on whether or not the city should bid for the Olympics and again for the 2021 election. And that meant fast results on election night.

MARTIN: Because 2021 was an election where we used the tabulators [for] our end-of-night vote counting, we were able to start reporting within an hour. So a number of the voting stations were completed their end-of-night processes within an hour.

KLASZUS: With a hand count, 2025 will be slower and more expensive. So why the change? Reverting to hand-counted ballots is something that’s been happening in parts of the United States.

AMBER RENEE DIXON (VEGAS PBS): Concerns of widespread voter fraud in 2020, despite no evidence of it, led some Nevada counties to question their voting machines and turn to hand counting ballots.

KLASZUS: Let’s listen in to Minister McIver’s press conference from October, where he announced the details of Bill 20. We’re going to hear CBC’s Janet French putting a question to the minister.

JANET FRENCH: What evidence do you have that these tabulators are risking the integrity of local elections?

McIVER: I would say to you that many Albertans feel that way. I know Leger did—

FRENCH: Many Albertans also think that airplanes are spreading—

McIVER: You asked me a question. If you don’t want to hear the answer, I guess we’re done here, but I’d be happy to answer your question. Certainly Leger did a poll here earlier this year, where they said I think it was 36% or 38% of Albertans don’t trust ballots counted by tabulators. I myself don’t feel that way. But the fact is I don’t want one out of three Albertans walking around feeling like they can disrespect their local municipal council because they think that they weren’t legitimately elected.

KLASZUS: The poll McIver referenced found that 36% of respondents supported the province’s ban on vote-counting machines. If you dig further into that poll, more than half of people intending to vote for the UCP provincially supported the tabulator ban, whereas only one in five NDP voters supported it.

This issue was in the draft Alberta Bill of Rights that the UCP board approved earlier this year. The right to elect legislators through “manually hand counted” ballots was listed alongside other rights like “freedom from excessive taxation” and “freedom to keep and bear arms.”

Let’s keep listening in to that exchange between the CBC’s Janet French and Minister McIver.

FRENCH: Why should the taxpayers of Alberta pay extra so your government can feed into basically what is a conspiracy theory?

McIVER: It's about confidence in the results of the election. We think that's that's worth something. We think the taxpayers actually benefit from people having confidence in the results of the election.

LORI WILLIAMS: The concern isn't coming from Alberta. The concern is coming from south of the border.

KLASZUS: This is Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams. And she emphasizes we’re talking about vote-counting machines, which are different from voting machines where you cast your vote electronically.

WILLIAMS: There’s been a lot of discussion under Donald Trump about questioning whether somebody can hack into those machines and steal an election and all of that sort of stuff. But we don’t have voting machines in Alberta. We’ve got paper ballots, and we’ve basically got a scanner that runs those paper ballots, tabulates them more quickly, and then if there are any questions, the results can be hand counted subsequently.

It’s also important to understand that as that tabulator is doing the counting, representatives of the parties in the election oversee that. They observe what’s going on to ensure that everything is happening. They could watch each ballot go one at a time, and watch that number count go up one at a time. This isn’t a concern.

The possibility of distortions, or not counting votes, or inventing votes, or any of those sorts of things, simply don’t apply here in Alberta. And yet, this very expensive, time-consuming requirement has been imposed on municipalities because there are some people that are in those filter bubbles essentially paying attention to concerns that don’t apply in Alberta.

TYLER GANDAM: We haven't heard any concern about vote counting machines.

KLASZUS: This is Alberta Municipalities president Tyler Gandam, speaking to reporters in April.

GANDAM: There’s going to be a lot more money having to be spent to bring people in to count those votes, or it’s going to take that much longer for us to be able to get those results. So I don’t see it.

KLASZUS: At the annual Alberta Municipalities convention in September, 85% of members asked the province to reconsider the ban on tabulators. The association has said the ban is “completely at odds” with the Alberta government’s commitment to reducing red tape.

The City of Calgary pegs the costs of implementing Bill 20 at $1.3 million. But that doesn’t include all future costs. As an example, a plebiscite question during an election used to be estimated to cost around $50,000. But now that composite ballots are disallowed and ballots would have to be counted by hand, city hall says it would cost nearly four times that much to add a plebiscite question.

CITY ADMIN: It's about $185,000.

KLASZUS: Arguably the biggest change with Bill 20 is the introduction of political parties in Calgary and Edmonton, and only Calgary and Edmonton. These parties have to be completely separate from provincial and federal parties—they’re forbidden from sharing money or information. Here’s Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver in April.

McIVER: We are taking this step to enhance transparency for the voters of Calgary and Edmonton, to allow candidates to show their party affiliation if they so choose, and to give Calgary and Edmonton voters, I think, a better sense of who they are voting for.

We’re going to see how this goes, and consider whether that benefit of transparency could be extended to voters of other municipalities in future elections. But that will be determined after we see how it works this time.

KLASZUS: The new rules also permit slates for candidates who want to organize informally under a shared banner.

McIVER: It's a similar idea to a political party, but without the financial implications. A slate of candidates cannot accept donations.

KLASZUS: The provincial government’s own surveying showed most Albertans didn’t want political parties at the municipal level.

McIVER: At one time we considered doing this for all municipalities. And out of 330, we’re down to two. Seventy percent of people don’t like it, 98% of municipalities won’t have it. I’d say we listened pretty hard.

GANDAM: I'm no mathematician but I know this pilot project will affect more than 2.4 million Albertans. That's half of all Albertans.

KLASZUS: The Alberta Municipalities association has taken issue with many elements of Bill 20, including political parties and new rules that give parties and their candidates more spending power than independent candidates.

But some backstory is in order here. The Alberta NDP banned corporate and union donations to municipal campaigns in 2018. But that didn’t get big money out of municipal elections. Here’s what Naheed Nenshi told me when he was running for the NDP leadership in the spring.

NAHEED NENSHI: When they banned corporate and union donations to individual campaigns, they actually allowed for unlimited corporate and union donations—some call them dark money—to these political action committees that in Alberta we call third party advertisers. Very U.S. system. There’s nothing wrong with third party advertisers being engaged in the community, but they have to be very well regulated. And there were very few rules for who could donate, or how much you could donate to one of these.

KLASZUS: In 2019, a single city union, CUPE, gave over $1 million to a third-party advertiser called Calgary's Future. In all, Calgary’s Future raised $1.7 million from city unions for the 2021 election. The group endorsed 13 council candidates and nine of them won, including Mayor Jyoti Gondek. Now donors to third-party advertisers can only give $5,000 max.

Bill 20 reverses the NDP’s ban on union and corporate donations to municipal campaigns. These donations are also capped at $5,000 per donor, across all council candidates—which is the limit for individuals as well.

But the biggest point of contention has to do with the new parties, which add a new tier of election fundraising and spending. Unions, corporations and individuals can give up to $5,000 across all parties.

In the 2021 election, there were no campaign spending limits. Now there are limits based on each municipality’s population. In an election year mayoral candidates can spend $1 per Calgarian, so around $1.4 million, if they can raise it. And parties can fundraise and spend a similar amount. Although I should point out that those limits are significantly higher than what mayoral candidates actually raised and spent in the last election.

Here’s Tyler Gandam of the Alberta Municipalities association.

GANDAM: We’ve talked about and supported Albertans in terms of not wanting more money in an election. I think it’s more important who you’re electing and how they are going to represent you as a member of the public versus who can fundraise the most money.

And one of the things that you’ve got in Edmonton and Calgary now is that if you’ve got a candidate in each one of the wards, you get to double dip in terms of the candidate being able to fundraise—and then the party as a whole being able to fundraise and to direct funds where they’re most needed. And I think that that puts somebody who isn’t running in a party format at a severe disadvantage.

KLASZUS: Both Mayor Amarjeet Sohi in Edmonton and Mayor Gondek in Calgary have strongly opposed Bill 20.

MAYOR AMARJEET SOHI: Bill 20 is a bad, bad piece of legislation. It undermines our local democracy. It introduces a game of money into our elections that we have never seen before.

GONDEK: The provincial government has blown the door wide open for money to be deciding the outcome of next year's election. And I don't buy into that. I don't think Calgarians will buy into that.

KLASZUS: So why introduce parties if most Albertans are opposed to them, and why just Calgary and Edmonton? Here’s Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams.

WILLIAMS: Well, the province clearly doesn’t like the fact that the big cities in Alberta are not voting conservative. And so, I think they’re hoping that introducing parties identifying folks as either conservative or something else, will give them an advantage and elect more councillors that represent that conservative ideological point of view.

KLASZUS: Calgary and Edmonton have elected centrist mayors for years. Dave Bronconnier, Naheed Nenshi and Jyoti Gondek in Calgary. And Stephen Mandel, Don Iveson and Amarjeet Sohi in Edmonton.

WILLIAMS: The question then becomes, why don’t Albertans want political parties in municipal elections?

And the main reason is that they want their elected representative to represent them and their constituency and not a party platform. Not be sort of aligned with the government, but actually stand up for Calgary against whatever is happening provincially or federally—or be willing to work with whoever is in power federally or provincially. And again, representing and advocating for Calgary and Calgarians, rather than political partisanship.

This is particularly important when we understand that surveys consistently show that most Albertans do not see themselves as particularly ideological. They see themselves as centrists. Some of them say centre-right; some say centre, some say centre-left, but over 85% of Albertans think that they are centrists.

KLASZUS: We’re going to hear from two of the new parties in Calgary.

Mike LaValley is the board president of A Better Calgary Party, which had its founding convention in October and describes itself as a centre-right party. And LaValley says municipal parties will be a good thing for candidates and voters.

MIKE LaVALLEY: A lot of people who run for council have never run for a public office before, or a position like that. And having the support of a party that can help them navigate the process, and sort out some things for them with their campaign and that sort of thing—it provides a lot of insight that they might not otherwise have when they’re working on their own.

I think parties are going to actually add transparency and clarity. I’ve read the quotes from our current mayor on it’s the kiss of death “to local representation” was the actual quote that she used. And I would certainly debate that.

It depends on how the party is set up. I think the fear or the concern that most people have with political parties at the municipal level stems from what they see certainly in federal politics, and to a certain extent provincial politics. Let’s use federal as an example where you have a leader that’s pretty much dictating policy down. And if you are in that party, you are just executing the ideas of the leader that are coming down. And people don’t want to see that at the municipal level. That’s the largest concern that I hear from people.

LaVALLEY: We know what the big concern is, and so we attacked it from a different direction, not from a top-down approach in terms of here’s our party and here’s our policies and this is what we want to achieve. We have a set of principles that kind of guide us, but the policies are going to be up to the candidates in the different wards.

KLASZUS: LaValley pushes back on the notion that municipal parties are a way to get UCP-friendly mayors and councillors elected.

LaVALLEY: I think that’s very kind of near-sighted in that when you bring in legislation, you don’t bring in legislation for one election. It’s for the way that elections are going to be handled, in theory, from now and going forward—not just the 2025 election, but going forward. And there’s no guarantee that we’re going to have the same provincial party in power come the next municipal election in Calgary. So I think those concerns ring a little bit hollow in that it’s putting a structure in place, but it’s not to necessarily benefit any one political party.

KLASZUS: A Better Calgary Party hadn’t yet announced any candidates when I spoke with LaValley.

I also spoke with local employment lawyer Brian Thiessen, who is leading the centrist Calgary Party and is running for mayor. The Calgary Party had already put forward five councillor candidates in November.

BRIAN THIESSEN: I agree with the 70% of Albertans that said we didn’t need municipal parties in Alberta, and didn’t want them. But I’m a lawyer by training, and so I look at the law as it is, not how I wish it to be.

KLASZUS: Thiessen points out that when Minister McIver introduced Bill 20 in the Alberta Legislature, he talked about levelling the playing field for new candidates. The old rules forbade candidates from fundraising before January 1st of an election year.

McIVER: This benefited incumbents in the past who could easily start to raise money in the election year based on their reputation. By allowing fundraising prior to that, we will allow a prospective candidate the ability to raise the funds necessary to run professional campaigns against incumbents. This levels the playing field between incumbents and new candidates.

THIESSEN: I think they're right about that. As someone who's running for the first time, incumbents definitely have an advantage in municipal elections.

KLASZUS: It used to be that if you were an incumbent on Calgary city council, you were laughing. Re-election was mostly an easy ride and it was rare for an incumbent to get beat. That’s been an issue in Calgary for decades, where it was very difficult to unseat an incumbent, no matter how good or bad they were at their job. It’s happened, but it’s not common.

THIESSEN: So when I look at this election, I look at how deeply unpopular this city council is, maybe the provincial government did us an advantage with leveling the playing field a little bit so that new faces and a new perspective can have a chance at winning [the] election.

KLASZUS: Former city councillor and 2021 mayoral candidate Jeff Davison announced his mayoral candidacy in October without a party affiliation, but he says it’s something he’s considering.

JEFF DAVISON: I haven’t been in favour but I think I’m realistic, right? They’re coming, and so you have to look at the advantage being the financial benefit. They’re too great not to go in that direction.

And I think to some degree we’ve had slates or cooperations or teams working together for a long time. I think this kind of formalizes it. I think the party system allows you to put a four-year agenda on the table.

KLASZUS: And then you have potential mayoral candidates who haven’t announced but are weighing their options. Here’s Ward 1 Councillor Sonya Sharp, followed by former city councillor and 2021 mayoral candidate Jeromy Farkas.

COUNCILLOR SONYA SHARP: I would say the conversations that I’m having right now are just figuring out what the best game plan is. Are people running for parties because they want to be on one side or the other? You have seen parties pop up. Do I align myself with either of those? No. I would say at this point I have to be an individual to think about how I can best represent Calgarians, and I will form those decisions soon. (UPDATE: On December 10, Councillor Sharp announced that she has joined a new municipal party called Communities First.)

JEROMY FARKAS: I think municipal parties at the city level—I think it’s cancer. I think this whole idea that you want to support somebody based on their colour affiliation versus their ideas, I think it’s complete garbage.

My fear is that if you want to run for council or for mayor in the future, you’re going to have to be tied to one of these parties. And I don’t think Calgarians want to go for that, but unless we very, very strongly send a message that we want to keep our councillors and mayor independent, my fear is that once these parties have sunk their teeth into city hall, they’re going to be here to stay.

KLASZUS: Regardless of who ends up running, the 2025 election will be a fascinating one. Here’s Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams.

WILLIAMS: The last time we saw an incumbent mayor defeated was in 1980 in Calgary. When we’ve seen new mayors, it’s because a mayor has recognized that they might actually be vulnerable to defeat in an election and they step back—and the floor is open for others to put their names.

We’re now in a season where incumbency generally speaking, is a disadvantage. People are frustrated. They are really struggling with affordability. Primarily, that connects to things like healthcare and other concerns as well—housing, public safety and so forth. There are a lot of things that people are really concerned about, and that frustration is being taken out on incumbent governments.

So in almost every election we’ve seen happen for the last couple of years, the incumbent government has either lost seats or lost the election entirely. I think Jyoti Gondek’s incumbency is certainly in some ways still an advantage, but in many ways is not.

Jeremy Klaszus is founder and editor of The Sprawl. If you appreciate our independent Calgary journalism, please support our work today!