There was a full page ad in the September 16 edition of the Calgary Herald to save the public McCall Lake golf course and “all of Calgary’s green spaces.” The ad was sponsored by the Save McCall Lake Group and the Communities FIRST Society, but I was immediately struck by the picture of six candidates for Calgary city council who were endorsing the ad: Sean Chu (Ward 4), Richard Wilkie (Ward 9), James Maxim (Ward 11), Ian Newman (Ward 8), Joe Magliocca (Ward 2), and Kevin Taylor (Ward 7). Was this just about saving the McCall Lake golf course, or was there something else going on? I needed to investigate.
Nowhere in the ad does the word “golf” appear and none of the candidates are running in Ward 5 which contains the McCall Lake golf course. All six candidates are running in wards that either open, (Ward 2 previously held by Gord Lowe) or held by liberal councillors (Druh Farrell in Ward 7, Brian Pincott in Ward 11, Gail MacLeod in Ward 4, Gian-Carlo Carra in Ward 9, and John Mar in Ward 8).
More significantly is the connection all six candidates have to the Manning Centre and the home builders. Most of the candidates have attending the Manning Centre’s Municipal Governance Project by training courses and events. The wards that these six are contesting were identified by Cal Wenzel, owner of Shane Homes, in his infamous secret presentation to other home builders from November 2012 that was leaked to Global TV.
In that speech, Wenzel identified a strategy to takeover city council that he felt was anti-development. The strategy would focus on ward races because he felt that they could not defeat Mayor Naheed Nenshi, but as Wenzel noted, you don’t need the mayor, you only need eight votes. Wenzel went through each alderman and specifically singled out for defeat Farrell (challenged by Taylor), Pincott (challenged by Maxim), Carra (challenged by Wilkie), and Mar (challenged by Newman). Wenzel also stated that James Maxim and Kevin Taylor were “being taking care of” by the home builders. Finally, Wenzel acknowledged that the home builders had raised $1.1 million for the Manning Centre.
The Communities FIRST Society also appears to be pro-development. Its mission statement is “High Density Development only with community approval!” It explicitly references the $1.1 million that “local developers” have donated “to train selected Council candidates.” My guess is that this is not a grassroots community organization, but an astroturf group funded by the home builders.
So what was the purpose of these six candidates endorsing a major advertisement to save the McCall Lake golf course? I do not believe that it was solely about saving a golf course and preserving other green spaces around Calgary. This may be true, but it is an insufficient explanation. Instead we need to look at what else unites these six candidates. What unites them is a pro-development and anti-densification agenda.
The ad points out in small print that “this is an independent opinion and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of one person or the other; nor does it represent a Party or a Slate.” The fact that this asterisk was needed meant that the organizers were cognizant of how it looked. You have six candidates, all running in separate wards, all with similar attributes; it sure looks like a slate to me.
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