Author Archive

Audio: Interview with Ward 14 Candidate Shawn Kao

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August 19, 2010 - By

Nation, it was back to the grind for your humble scribe as I sat down last night for a good talk with Ward 14 Aldermanic candidate Shawn Kao.

As with previous candidate interviews, much of the first portion of our discussion was getting background for my later candidate profile of Shawn.  He consented to being recorded for posting to this blog, and the result is posted below, in all its “recorded on an iPhone using the Voice Memos app” glory.

(Please follow the link to The Enlightened Savage for audio of the interview)

Tags: ι Categories: Alderman - Ward 14

Audio: Interview with Ward 11 Candidate James Maxim

August 11, 2010 - By

Nation, last night was a good night to be the Enlightened Savage. 

I kicked it off with an all-too-brief appearance at the Calgary Tweet-Up (shout outs to @prairies and @theRoundhouse), and I was then pulled away so that I could have the pleasure of sitting down over a Coke Zero (this diet is going to kill me!) with James Maxim, candidate for Alderman in Ward 11.  We had a great chat, a lot of which is going to make it into my later “candidate profile” post for Mr. Maxim, and he also kindly agreed to be interviewed on-the-record.

The following is the entire interview, with no edits save the deletion of the first 30 seconds of audio which included such gems from your humble scribe as “HOW DO I WORK MY iPHONE?” and “THANK GOODNESS FOR AUDIO EDITING SOFTWARE!”

(Please follow the link to The Enlightened Savage for audio of the interview)

Tags: ι Categories: Alderman - Ward 11

Andrew Rodych to run for Alderman in Ward 13

August 6, 2010 - By

Nation, as part of my duties as one of the charter members of CalgaryPolitics.com and The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere (TM), I’ll be covering the aldermanic race in Ward 13.

I received a press release last night from the campaign to elect Andrew Rodych as Alderman for Ward 13.  I have never met Mr. Rodych, and had not heard of him until last night, but I commend him for his decision to put his name on a ballot in an effort to improve his community.  Well done, sir!

A quick google search for Rodych yields the information that he’s at least partially crazy, as he plays goal in a recreational ball-hockey league.  I’ve seen how some of those rec. league guys slap that ball – you’ve GOT to be crazy to play goalie.

On a more serious note, though – rather than running with platitudes and pretty words hiding a lack of substantive proposals, as many candidates across the city seem to be, the very first press release from Rodych outlines his plan to bring forward what he’s calling a “Community Characteristic Bylaw”, so as to protect in perpetuity those areas that are most valued by a community [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Alderman - Ward 13

Guest Blogger John Santos on the Global Poll

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July 31, 2010 - By

Nation, it’s funny how small a world this is when you think about it…

I received a Facebook “friend request” a few months ago, from a young man named John Santos. It turns out that his brother had attended a music school at which I had been a teacher. The message that John sent along with his “friend request” indicated that he had long been a reader of The Enlightened Savage, and now that he realized there was a personal connection, he’d be sure to read even more often.

Well, it turns out that John is quite the political animal, and when the Global/NRG poll came out this Thursday night, John made sure to point out on Twitter that, “Not that the overall picture would change, but there are methodological issues with the Global poll.”

Now, many would disagree with me on this point, but I firmly believe that methodology MATTERS in these things… a badly-constructed poll, whether by circumstance or by purposeful design, leads one to believe that certain things are true, when in fact they’re not – and donors, volunteers, and supporters pay attention to the numbers that these polls trumpet as STONE. COLD. FACT. A poll that’s [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Mayor of Calgary, Political Theory

Excuse the mess…

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July 30, 2010 - By

… we’re renovating.

Nation, in addition to some exciting news that DJ Kelly will be bringing us early next week (be sure to stay tuned!), the site is going through a bit of a facelift.

In the interest of making the posts consistent in the way they’re categorized and tagged, I’ll be going through the blog posts and tagging/categorizing them under our new system.

Until I’m done (should be early next week), the categories and tags are going to seem somewhat random. Because they more or less are.

Bear with us, though – when the re-organization is done, posts about particular races or mentioning particular people will be MUCH easier to find. :)

- E.S.

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Don’t Fire Until You See The Whites Of Their Eyes…

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July 29, 2010 - By

Nation, the silly season is upon us in full force, as we have (at last count) 12 candidates for mayor, 44 confirmed aldermanic candidates, and 11 candidates for trustee spread out over 2 school boards – all vying for public attention, donor dollars, media coverage, and the all-important momentum, going into the October 18th vote.

The crazy train arrived a little earlier than normal this election cycle, with word earlier this year that mayor Dave Bronconnier would not be seeking re-election. From the day that announcement was made, it was only a matter of time before all heck broke loose – and break loose, it did.

3 sitting aldermen are seeking the mayor’s chair: Ric McIver, Bob Hawkesworth and Joe Connelly. As well, Alderman Joe Ceci has announced he won’t be seeking re-election. So, right there, you have 4 wards that will seat new alderman at the first council meeting this fall. That’s assuming no incumbents taste defeat – an unlikely situation, as the acrimonious and controversial nature of this past council hasn’t been seen in these parts since Danielle Smith was a CBE Trustee. People are hungry for change – and it’s not overstating the matter to suggest [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Mayor of Calgary, Political Theory

calgarypolitics.com is taking over the airwaves!

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July 29, 2010 - By

Nation, it has been a big week for The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere (TM), with interviews galore over the past week.

DJ Kelly has been all over the radio waves (July 22nd – 6 pm – and July 28th, 3 pm), Shane Byciuk from calgaryrants.com was interviewed last Friday on Global TV Calgary and on radio (CHQR AM770 at 9 pm on July 28, also available at the audio vault, as well as a 5 pm interview on the 22nd), Jeremy Zhao from politicalgary has done radio and was admitted as media to the Barb Higgins press availability yesterday morning, and your humble scribe has been on the radio twice – once on CJSW and again this morning on CBC Radio One (with Jeremy).

The CJSW interview, and the CBC interview, with Jeremy, are embedded on my blog, here.

It’s clear that the more interesting this election season gets, the more you’re going to be hearing from the folks at calgarypolitics.com. Now would be a good time to bookmark the site, and add us on twitter.

Radio and television programming directors – the bidding for the entire calgarypolitics.com team to spend the evening of October [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Public Service Announcements

Lethbridge Mayoral Race Gets Interesting…

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July 15, 2010 - By

Nation, while this blog tends to focus on issues relating to politics on the provincial level or Calgary municipal level, once in awhile we get information about issues and races in other parts of the country and province.

This video showed up in my inbox last night, and suggests that the race for the open Mayor’s seat in Lethbridge is getting some fresh blood.

Kay Adeniyi, in his mid-twenties, will be the fifth person to declare their intention to run for mayor in a town that swells by thousands of residents when the post-secondary calendar begins for Lethbridge Community College and the University of Lethbridge (Go Pronghorns!) each September.

The other four declared candidates are:

  • Patrick Berthelot, Maintenance Manager
  • James Frey, Communication Consultant
  • Cheryl Meheden, University Professor
  • Rajko Dodic, 2-term Alderman

Adeniyi’s announcement will be open to the press and public, and will be held at the Galt Gardens on Monday, July 19th at 7 pm.

Anyone down in the Windy City want to be the Senior Lethbridge-ologist for The Enlightened Savage’s coverage of Election 2010?

- E.S.

(This has been cross-posted from The Enlightened Savage)

[...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι Categories: Mayor of Lethbridge

CalgaryLiberal.com Interviews Ward 4 Aldermanic Candidate Leslie Bedard

July 14, 2010 - By

Nation, the bleeding heart, socialist, anti-business, elitist, oilsands-hating threats-to-traditional-family-values (just kidding – love your work, Vince – disagree with a lot of it, but it’s well written & researched) over at CalgaryLiberal.com have posted a great interview with Ward 4 aldermanic candidate Leslie Bedard.

The interview runs nearly 25 minutes, and is audio only.

Go check it out!

- E.S.

(This has been cross-posted to The Enlightened Savage)

Tags: Categories: Alderman - Ward 4

Filed under “Things You Probably Don’t Want To Get Wrong”…

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July 9, 2010 - By

 ”There’s been a misconception that I have already made an announcement regarding our Muncipal Election, and that is incorrect…”

Well.  Except for that time on February 27th.

(credit to Kirk Schmidt for the find)

Note to candidates: Twitter counts. People read it.

In fairness, here’s the speech Alnoor gave at his SECOND announcement (but his first “official announcement”, I guess) of his candidacy for Mayor, on June 28th:

*****

Welcome

Good morning and welcome.  I’m glad you were all able to attend this morning. And I hope you enjoyed the Alnoor cakes that were sent to you Friday morning! (I believe Chris already guessed…)

I’ll take a few minutes with prepared comments and then answer your questions.  We will be done in about a half hour.

First and foremost, I’d like to announce that after much consideration I have decided to run for Mayor of Calgary.

There’s been a misconception that I have already made an announcement regarding our Muncipal Election, and that is incorrect, I have been seriously considering it for the past 3 months, but  today I am officially announcing my decision.

Why am I running?

 I’ve been talking to [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Mayor of Calgary, Political Theory

Hey, Candidates – We’re Over HERE!!!

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June 23, 2010 - By

Folks, one of the most oft-cited reasons for politically engaged folks to resist taking the plunge and putting their names forward as candidates is money. Specifically, the need for lots and lots of it.

Now, the money that gets poured out of campaigns as though they’re printing it in the basement gets spent on many things – but none so needlessly as in advertising.

“We NEED to spend big money on advertising – we need signs, and banners, and posters, and print ads, and demon dialers…”

Okay…  you definitely need SOME of those things.  And unless you’re one of the mainstream media’s anointed few “real contenders” in your race, you probably need all the help you can get in getting the word out about your campaign, because there are only so many real reporters, and only so much print space, to go around.

IF you’re living in 1984.

Candidates, Official Agents, Communications Gurus and Campaign Managers, take note: calgarypolitics.com is here, to save you boatloads of cash, and help you get the word out.  Whether you want to be Mayor, Alderman or School Board Trustee, we want to hear from you – and so do our readers.  Who vote, by [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Public Service Announcements

Do We Have a Race for CBE Trustee in Ward 1 & 2?

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June 9, 2010 - By

Nation, we’ve received word here at calgarypolitics.com world headquarters that we may in fact have a race shaping up to fill the CBE Ward 1 & 2 Trustee seat being vacated this fall by Gordon Dirks, who has announced he won’t be running again.

We already knew of Trina Hurdman, who has been early out of the gate with her website and twitter activity. We’re hearing today that local political prodigy Josh Traptow may also be eying a run in the area.

We’ll leave it to Traptow to confirm or deny, but if this is the case, it can only bode well for the students and parents in Wards 1 & 2. When candidates compete with each other, better governance ensues – no matter WHICH candidate gets elected.

Tags: ι ι Categories: School Board Trustees - Calgary Board of Education

A Conversation With Naheed Nenshi

June 3, 2010 - By

Nation, I downloaded Skype for the first time 2 days ago. Tonight, I used it to interview a mayoral candidate who was 2 time zones away.

Now, my mother always told me not to apologize for something until people notice it’s badly done – but my inability to take my mother’s advice is legendary.  Just ask her.  So, I’m going to apologize in advance for the quality (or general lack thereof) of the audio.  Likewise, I’m aware that I overuse the “umm” non-word to segue in between an answer and the following question.  To paraphrase everyone’s favourite doctor: “I’m a musician, not a radio interviewer!”

All that said, though, I wanted to put the interview up, in its first and only take, without editing.  I think it’s important that everyone know the answers that Nenshi provided were off the cuff, without practice or warning.  After all… the object is not to make ME sound good, the object is to hear what Naheed has to say.  He’s running for Mayor – I’m just the Benevolent Ruler For Life of the E.S. Nation.

And heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Nenshi!

Tags: Categories: Mayor of Calgary

And Bob Makes… Eight? Nine?

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June 2, 2010 - By

Nation, the announcement of Bob Hawkesworth’s intention to run for Mayor of Calgary this week has bumped up the list of confirmed mayoral candidates to eight – or nine, depending on what counts as “declaring” – with over 4 months to go to polling day.

For those keeping track at home, here are the confirmed candidates, according to CalgaryDemocracy.ca :

Alnoor Kassam – Alnoor claims he hasn’t declared his intentions formally yet, but that’s like the Oilers saying they haven’t decided whether to take Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin or someone else entirely on Draft Day. He’s been “unofficially declaring” himself to anyone within earshot for months. He’s running.

Bob Hawkesworth – the longtime Alderman joined the fray officially this week, though he’s been hinting for several weeks since announcing he wouldn’t be seeking his Aldermanic seat again. Thus far, he seems to be the only incumbent member of council in the running for Mayor who is actually defending council’s record – an interesting approach, but certainly unique among his peers.

Craig Burrows – the former Alderman announced last week, to little fanfare. Burrows has had some time away from “the game” to organize his bid, and doesn’t have to wear [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Mayor of Calgary

Ask Naheed!

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May 29, 2010 - By

Nation, I’ll be talking next week with recently announced mayoral candidate Naheed Nenshi, and posting the results of that interview on the blog in some form or another (audio? video? text?). While I’ve got a list of questions to ask him, I’m also very interested in what it is that YOU want to know about the lucky 7th person to declare himself a candidate for Mayor.

Add your questions to this post as a “Comment” or email me directly at amishbuggyracing (at) gmail (dot) com, and I’ll get you the answers you need from the ‘Heed.

Remember “Choose your own adventure” books? Consider this a “Choose your own interview questions” blog post.

- E.S.

Tags: Categories: Mayor of Calgary

Calgary Municipal Pre-Election: Hashtag Selection

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May 20, 2010 - By

Nation, as one of the first (THE first?) Tweeters to use #yyccc to tag tweets related to Calgary’s City Council, the issue of using #yyccc for election coverage strikes particularly close to home for me.  I’ve been using it just like everyone else, but we’ve got to agree on a convention – what hashtag will we ALL use, to keep things simpler (the entire point of a hashtag in the first place)?

I’ve heard some people want to keep #yyccc strictly for issues of actual governance by the sitting council, rather than filling up the stream with election tweets.  Which is certainly fair, in my opinion.

A good article on how to go about choosing an appropriate hashtag can be found here.

No matter what decision we make, the winning hashtag needs to be 3 things:

  1. Easy to remember
  2. As short as is practical (it counts towards your 140 characters!)
  3. Forced down the throats of those mis-using the old one (if applicable)


Results will be announced tomorrow, and a new hashtag (possibly) will be born.

- E.S.

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Why Hehr Shouldn’t Step Down

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May 7, 2010 - By

Nation, it hasn’t been 72 hours since Kent Hehr announced he was going to be running for Mayor of the City of Calgary, and already the naysayers are coming out to decry the move as an effort to “double-dip”, at the taxpayers’ expense.

“Hehr should resign his seat as an MLA to run!” goes the loudest cry. Slightly quieter, hoping to be taken more seriously as a “moderated” opinion, is the insistence that “he should at least take a leave of absence!”.

Here’s the thing…

Kent Hehr shouldn’t do EITHER of those things at this point – and very probably, neither at ANY point.

Let’s imagine Kenny Ware, cab driver. Kenny, like most of the cab drivers I know, thinks he’s got a lot of solutions for what ails our society. So he decides to run for Alderman in the upcoming municipal election. Kenny’s boss calls him into the office the next day and says… what? “I want you to quit working for us if you’re looking for another job”? Or, even better, “I want you to keep working for us, but we won’t pay you as long as you’re looking for other work”?

Are you KIDDING me?

Kenny would [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι Categories: Mayor of Calgary

Wanted: A Few Good Women

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May 6, 2010 - By

Nation, I’ve never been a fan of “gender balance for its own sake” when it comes to the workplace. I don’t believe that an employer should be forced to give a position to a less qualified candidate simply because the office hasn’t met its “50/50″ state of complete gender balance. For that reason, I’ve also not been a big fan of the never-ending caterwauling that accompanies every cabinet announcement in the history of EVER when the same old suspects rise up to decry the “institutional sexism” that exists in our governments – Prime Minister, Presidents and Premiers should be appointing the most qualified people to fill the challenging roles of cabinet positions, not appointing empty suits in an effort to keep their constituents satisfied that there are enough women, men, people of colour, people with mobility challenges, or people of Ukrainian descent in a cabinet at any given time in relation to the percentage of population.

ALL that said, though, I think it’s a real problem that we have such a hard time attracting female leaders of our community into the political realm, to put their names on a ballot.

Now, there are literally HUNDREDS of ways in which women [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Political Theory

Waiter! Waiter! There’s a Hehr in my mayoral race!

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May 5, 2010 - By

Well, Nation, nobody suggested that this year’s Calgary mayoral race was going to be boring…

Kent Hehr, Liberal MLA for Calgary-Buffalo, announced today his intention to seek the office of Mayor for the City of Calgary.

This seems a little unexpected to many – I have to admit that I was made aware of the “98% certainty” of Hehr’s decision last week, however even then I was totally unaware of the immediacy of that decision being announced. This sounds like Kent was trying to get his announcement out before someone else who appeals to the same demographic – Dave Taylor, perhaps? – could get the drop on him and steal his thunder.

One of Hehr’s primary arguments in favour of his candidacy is his perception that choosing a mayor who has been on the current council would result in a great deal of baggage coming with the new mayor. Certainly, the sniping that we’ve seen among council members isn’t likely to change with one of the current bunch just switching chairs and getting to hold the gavel – but, we all know that the new mayor isn’t going to be the only change on council… not by a LONG [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι ι ι ι Categories: Mayor of Calgary

The 14 Races No One Talks About…

April 11, 2010 - By

Nation, before we get too far ahead of ourselves in the “Shark Week on Discovery Channel”-esque feeding frenzy that is the “will s/he or won’t s/he” Aldermanic and Mayoral race speculation (too late), we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least note that there are, in fact, 14 other races coming up in Calgary this October.

Those of you with children in the public or separate (Catholic) school system might argue, with merit, that these are far more important than who wins an aldermanic seat from a ward on the opposite end of town.

I speak, of course, of the election of school board trustees.  People elected by the supporters of each board to represent the best interests of the children in those systems and, by extension, society as a whole (as those children will be our doctors, lawyers and – heaven forbid! – our politicians in the future).

As we’ve seen elsewhere recently in this province, and even in our own city in the not-so-distant past, choosing wisely is of critical importance.  Rest assured that the Best Political Team in the Blogosphere ™ is on the job, and prepared to cover these races with all the tenacity [...]Read More

Categories: School Board Trustees - Calgary Board of Education, School Board Trustees - Calgary Catholic School Board

What About Bob?

March 25, 2010 - By

Nation, we’ve all heard by now that Bob Hawkesworth has decided not to stand for re-election as a City of Calgary Alderman in Ward 4.

The question, then, becomes…  will he be running for another job entirely?

As was reported several weeks ago, Hawkesworth had quietly been talking to people about his viability as a mayoral candidate, given the surprise announcement by Dave Bronconnier that Bronco would not be running for another term as Mayor of the ‘Burg on the Bow.  We heard that Bob was considering a run for mayor, and then he came out last week and announced that he would not be seeking another term as Alderman for Ward 4 – the public announcement, by the way, was via Twitter – follow Bob at @bobhawkesworth

So…  we wait for the other shoe to drop.  Is Bob Hawkesworth retiring from public life? Or is he just taking a deep breath before plunging into a deeper pool?

Calgarians like their mayors a little red in the middle – it’s a nice, civic medium-rare.  Hawkesworth would be liberal even by our regular standards, having been an MLA for the Alberta New Democrats.  All that said, though, Hawkesworth is far from [...]Read More

Tags: ι Categories: Mayor of Calgary