The recall petition coming for Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek has a snowball’s chance in a chinook. More than 500,000 signatures from Calgary voters will be required to cut her term short. It’s doubtful the petitioner, businessman Landon Johnston, will meet the threshold by the April 4 deadline.
But the rare recall petition is proof of Ms. Gondek’s precarious situation. A little more than two years after making history as Calgary’s first woman mayor, her approval numbers have sunk to record lows.
“It’s dire,” said Marc Henry, the founder of ThinkHQ Public Affairs who served as former mayor Dave Bronconnier’s chief of staff for a decade. In December, Mr. Henry released a poll that found that Ms. Gondek has a 30-per-cent approval rating, and that 61 per cent of Calgarians disapprove of her leadership. “All the time there’s been municipal polling in Calgary, we’ve never seen a number this low for a sitting mayor,” he said.
Ms. Gondek is facing an array of discontent specific to Calgary, including a 7.8-per-cent residential-tax hike. She has said that people are frustrated about the price of everything, and that this anger is baked into the polls. But it’s also part of a wider pushback against progressive or left-of-centre politicians, as the public increasingly views climate initiatives through the lens of their cost burden. This feeling is both real and perceived, and is of course being stoked by conservatives.
In an interview with The Globe, Ms. Gondek wouldn’t say whether she will run for a second term. She said focusing on campaigning now would be a disservice to voters, and she wants to concentrate on public safety, transit and housing in one of Canada’s fastest-growing big cities. But less than two years before the next municipal election, questions are swirling about her staying power.
The poll, which was conducted in early December, is tough enough. But Mr. Henry noted it doesn’t fully capture the response to more recent events, such as Ms. Gondek’s decision to publicly withdraw from attending the city’s annual menorah lighting ceremony, with her explaining that the event had been “repositioned as an event to support Israel.”
That choice, which she said was the most difficult one she’s made as mayor, was described as hurtful by the Calgary Jewish Federation and Chabad Lubavitch of Alberta. “I accept the fact that I caused pain by making the decision that I did,” she said this week. But what would happen to our collective commitment to a multifaith society should every big-city mayor withdraw from similar events?
Earlier this month, a new single-use items bylaw, aimed at reducing waste, came into effect. With rising housing and food costs – as well as municipal taxes – even a 15-cent charge for paper bags was too much for some people. Last week, city council voted to start the repeal process. Premier Danielle Smith throwing her political heft against the bylaw (”I’ve heard there was near-mutiny on wing night in some restaurants because you have to ask whether or not people want napkins,” she said) helped steamroll council members who opposed the repeal, including Ms. Gondek.
There are more difficult issues to come on the housing file too, including a major densifying development planned near an affluent enclave, and eliminating single-family-only zoning to increase housing stock.
“The mayor and council are already deeply disliked in established areas,” added Mr. Henry, whose poll found men tend to offer harsher appraisals of Ms. Gondek, as do those older than 55 and voters in households earning more than $125,000 a year.
It has been far from an easy term for Ms. Gondek. She has been targeted with the worst kind of intimidation and remarks. People have showed up at her home, and one – in a clear reference to The Godfather – left a costume horse head on her driveway. There’s obviously sexist themes, too: Recently, she said that someone told her climate activists have been able to get into her underwear.
She puts this ugly behaviour in stark terms: “They feel that you are an object, and not a human being, and you are their property in some way because you’re an elected official.”
Ms. Gondek is pushing back. She said she’s energized by the issues her city and province face. She has joined protesters against the province’s sweeping new policies on trans youth and athletes, which she believes represent the worst kind of overreach and pandering – and not the kind of politics she would practice.
“You’re looking at a small percentage of the population and you’re going after them thinking no one’s going to care,” the mayor said.
For her part, the Alberta Premier believes public opinion is on her side. It remains an open question whether Ms. Gondek has the support to do politics her way.