Calgary was ready for a change and ‘herstory’ was made

It was destined to be historic either way but Calgary elected its first female mayor in city history — or should we call that herstory. 

We covered Jyoti Gondek’s big win in our special election coverage last night. Gondek was in a two-horse race with Jeromy Farkas but won with 45% of the vote, while Farkas earned 30%. 

Political scientist Duane Bratt called it “the night of the female politician” as several female councillors also won in addition to Gondek being elected as mayor. 

Those include Sonya Sharp in Ward 1, Jennifer Wyness in Ward 2, Jasmine Mian in Ward 3, and Kourtney Branagan in Ward 11. 

Bratt says it’s a “much bigger transformation” for city council from a gender perspective than expected. 

Lori Williams agrees, saying it was a big night for women, and for progressive candidates.

“Electing more women to council is good news, and it presents the possibility of a good mix on council, a little bit more moderate, maybe a little less polarized,” she says. 

“I think there’s actually some really good potential with the number of new people on council and the possibility of building a new set of coalitions on issues and being able to work together to find innovative and novel solutions.” 

Williams says there will be a steep learning curve out of the gate, especially for the new faces elected, and they will have to get to work immediately. 

“Gondek was talking about there not being a lot of experience on council in the newcomers, but there are good community roots and good experience at that level that could actually help this council work quite effectively to resolve some of the issues and solve problems.” 

There are also significant challenges facing this council, Williams says, pointing out that they will have to learn on the job, get ready to address the budget, and help fix the city’s struggling economy. 

“It’s nice to talk about the opportunities that are presented there. But there are also numerous challenges,” she adds. 

Struggling incumbents 

Williams says one of the biggest stories of the night was the struggling incumbent candidates. 

Ward 2 councillor Joe Magliocca lost his seat as expected, and so did Ward 13 councillor Diane-Colley-Urquhart, which was more surprising as the longest-serving member. Ward 9 councillor Gian Carlo-Carra had a tight race before pulling through and embattled Ward 4 councillor Sean Chu was only narrowly hanging on as of press time. 

On Colley-Urquhart, Williams says it wasn’t “shocking” — but it was a big story that the longtime councillor finished third in her riding. 

“I think when somebody has been on council for as long as she has, you build up enough of a record… but in those 21 years, you can do enough things to annoy voters,” Williams says, adding the ward obviously wanted change. 

“I think there’s just sort of a different mood in the city. It was becoming clearer and clearer as we got closer to the election that the incumbents didn’t have safe seats.” 

Williams thinks Calgarians were just ready for change. 

“There just seemed to be greater dissatisfaction, more openness to change.” 

As for Chu’s race, Williams thinks he definitely would have lost if advance voters knew about the allegations made against him. 

Calgarians send a message to the Alberta government 

Earlier in the night, Bratt said on social media that Calgary voters were sending a message to premier Jason Kenney that they are not happy. 

“There were three Calgary candidates closely associated with the Kenney government. Farkas lost. Magliocca lost. Chu is losing. DST referendum is losing. Equalization referendum is leading, but with only 58%. This was a big message that Calgarians sent to the Kenney govt,” Bratt tweeted. 

Williams agrees, saying while we still have to wait to see how the full province voted on these ballot questions, it appears that voters in Calgary were not supportive of the additions Kenney made to the ballots. 

“They got pretty decisively shut down at the mayor’s level, the councillors level, the school board level, and on the referendum questions,” she says, adding we still have to wait for the full results. 

“This was an expensive lesson.”

Those ballot results are as follows (this is from Calgary voters only): 

Fluoride Referendum as of 10 p.m. MST 

Yes: 61%

No: 39% 

Daylight Saving Time Referendum as of 10 p.m. MST 

Yes: 49%

No: 51%

Removing Equalization Payments from the constitution as of 10 p.m. MST 

Yes: 59%

No: 41%

Top 3 Senate nominees as of 10 p.m. MST 

Pam Davidson (CPC)

Erika Barootes (CPC)

Mykhailo Martyniouk (CPC)

View the full recapp of Calgary’s 2021 General Election here.