Posts Tagged ‘Paul Hughes’

Paul Hughes drops out of mayoral race

1
September 17, 2010 - By

Paul Hughes has followed Alnoor Kassam’s lead and dropped out of the mayoral race. While Paul was the first to declare his candidacy for mayor (Okay, not counting Alnoor’s Twitter snafu), his withdrawal wasn’t completely unexpected as he made it clear early on he was not expecting to win.

“I’m not going to be elected mayor, that’s for sure,” he told CJSW 90.9fm’s Greg Chernoff  on August 19, 2010. “But certainly people who vote for me are saying something.”

Image from paulinate.com

“So 10,000 people run a marathon,” he continued. “I guess if you’re not going to win those 9,999 people probably shouldn’t run?…I have something to say, and if you’re at the table you can be part of the conversation.”

Paul definitely did contribute to the conversation and I would also consider him one of the most active social media users. Like Kassam, Hughes endorsed Barb Higgins.

Yesterday Hughes re-tweeted a link on Twitter to a blog post entitled Too much and too many, lamenting the large number of mayoral candidates. Looks like Hughes [...]Read More

No free lunch for any mayoral candidate

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September 9, 2010 - By

Update: Forgot to add a comment on Derek McKenzie. It has now been included.

This post was originally going to be called “Blurtations about the 2 horse race” but it was decided that this was a better title. While this blogger didn’t get the opportunity to eat lunch or have coffee with Higgins, he did have a “pseudo lunch” with her when she made her platform speech down at the Olympic Plaza. There are many points to be made from this event and from the election in general that a post to talk about it all was fitting.

1. A platform from Higgins, or at least something to hold onto: Expectations are pretty low so far when it comes to platform ideas. In the perceived two way race between Ric McIver and Barb Higgins, you’re probably not expecting a lot in terms of platforms and policies. However, while many have criticized Higgins for a lack of a platform, she came out with at least a few (and very practical). She laid out 7 main goals, and gave the public at least a hint of a platform.

a) Financial Responsibility: One that was interesting to hear was the make [...]Read More

The CalgaryPolitics.com Charity Bowling Event Was A Blast!

September 1, 2010 - By

Thanks again to everyone that supported the CalgaryPolitics.com Charity Bowling Event that we hosted on Monday August 30! The event was completely sold out and we had over 150 people in attendance, including over 20 candidates in the upcoming Calgary Municipal Election!

Everyone seemed to have a great time and we raised $2800 for Brown Bagging For Calgary’s Kids Society, which is pretty amazing! This amount will supply nearly 2800 lunches for needy school kids in the Calgary area!

Some of the candidates in attendance were:

Richard Dur Ernest McCrutcheon ( 2 Lanes) Shane Keating ( 2 Lanes) Jane Morgan

Al Browne Sean Chu Ric Lockhart Malik Amery Kevin Taylor

Chris Harper Roger Crowe Gian-Carlo Carra Shawn Kao ( the Get Kao Girls!)

Zak Pashak Andrew Rodych Judi Vandenbrink Josh Traptow Rory Rotzoll

Robert Guizzo

From the Mayoralty race, we had Craig Burrows and Paul Hughes in attendance. Ric McIver had donated a lane sponsorship for the event, but was unable to attend.

We also had some support from the business community, with Carma Developers, BiFrost Development, Canada Brokerlink Inc. and Principia Communications sponsoring the charity event!

And finally a big thanks to the media personalities that [...]Read More

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

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

Who’s running for Calgary City Council in 2010?

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April 4, 2010 - By

There sure are a lot of names coming out of the proverbial woodwork right about now saying they are going to run for Calgary City Council. Now it’s a long way off from nomination day on September 20, and everyone can change their minds still, but it’s already getting hard to figure out who is who, and who’s saying their running and who is not.

So with this in mind I decided to put together a list of everything I’ve seen reported, heard personally and have heard rumour of. I’ll try to update this list regularly as we hear or see other things. If you know of anyone missing, please just let me know and I’ll add it!

PS – Try not to read too much into the difference between “rumoured” and “declared”. At this point it doesn’t really mean much. It’s more a degree of veracity in their statements up till now that made me choose one over the other. Some however, are just rumours.

Mayor
Dave Bronconnier – Incumbent (not running)
Craig Burrows (rumoured)
Joe Connelly (rumoured)
Bob Hawkesworth (rumoured)
Kent Hehr (rumoured)
Paul Hughes (declared)
Alnoor Kassam (declared)
Jon Lord (declared)[...]Read More

Paul Hughes Declares Candidacy For Mayor

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March 11, 2010 - By

 Local food advocate Paul Hughes has declared his candidacy for the 2010 Calgary municipal elections. He has been a proponent of establishing a food council policy, a food charter, and been advocating for more community gardens.

He’s been featured in the Calgary Sun and Fast Forward Weekly for his work with sustainable food systems.

This is the first candidate to offer something more than just the usual transit and roads platform, but something new and potentially exciting. Beyond traditional politics, this is a particular issue that has rarely been addressed in the past.

Now the race just got a lot more interesting.

More to come…