Source: YouTube (LiveWire Calgary)
Calgary isn’t in decline, it’s being managed into decay.
With the Calgary mayoral election approaching, the mood across the city is unmistakable: frustration. After three terms of Naheed Nenshi and one chaotic term of Jyoti Gondek, Calgary feels stalled. The downtown core is unsafe, construction projects never end, services have slipped, and City Hall seems more interested in social experiments than city management.
Calgarians don’t want slogans. They want a functioning city again.
The downtown problem isn’t theoretical. Walk through the core after dark or ride the CTrain at night. Around City Hall station, steps from the mayor’s own office, open drug use is common, and police presence is minimal. If Calgary is truly one of the “most livable cities in the world,” it shouldn’t feel like a test of nerve just to get home. No one should have to bring their families through this chaos.
Source: Rawpixel
Residents and visitors deserve a downtown that feels safe. Yet the current administration seems content to tolerate disorder while lecturing citizens about compassion. In Q1 2025 alone, the level of violent assaults with a weapon causing bodily harm has gone up from 673 in Q1 2024 to 777, a 15 per cent increase. That isn’t a social-services issue; it’s a leadership failure.
Just days ago I posted on X about a stabbing just outside a luxury condo building in the Downtown West End. The Calgary Police did not even post anywhere in their newsroom about this stabbing at all.
Jeromy Farkas once built a reputation as a blunt, law-and-order councillor who rejected trendy causes like defunding the police. That version of Farkas is gone. His 2025 platform is packed with bureaucratic language about “Sector Social Surges” and “empowering prevention partners.” He even highlights “defending 2SLGBTQ+ and BIPOC Calgarians” as a policing priority.
Source: Reddit
EXCLUSIVE: Farkas pushes “hate-tracking”, other woke policies in Calgary
In an “ask me anything” thread on Reddit, Calgary mayoral candidate Jeromy Farkas advocated for “hate-tracking programs,” opposed Alberta’s efforts to enforce its ban on child gender transitions and other woke policies…
25 days ago · 15 likes · 28 comments · Isaac Lamoureux, True North
This isn’t clarity. It’s hedging. Farkas is trying to please everyone and, in doing so, stands for nothing. He’s the Erin O’Toole of municipal politics: campaign conservative, govern progressive.
His “Housing Equity Roadmap” is more of the same, promising that Calgary’s housing system will “work for racialized, Indigenous, disabled, newcomer, and 2SLGBTQIA+ residents.” It reads like a federal grant proposal from Mark Carney, not a city policy.
He also personally attacked me and Wyatt Claypool for actually standing up for our beliefs. Years ago, I supported him when he was on council, appearing to fight for us, and now he has the gall to attack me for supporting an actual conservative, now that he has his woke friends.
Sonya Sharp isn’t perfect, but she’s at least offering direct answers to immediate problems. Her plan is simple: restore visible policing, close the supervised injection site at the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre that turned Central Memorial Park into a public safety issue, and let the Calgary Police Service and Transit Police do their jobs without political interference, and increase their budget while making sure money goes to frontline officers and not rear-line DEI enforcement.
Source: Facebook
Calgary police union backs Sonya Sharp for mayor
The Calgary Police Association endorsed mayoral candidate and city councillor Sonya Sharp on Thursday, as well as several other municipal candidates under the Communities First Council banner…
18 days ago · 25 likes · 8 comments · Quinn Patrick, True North
She also promises to clean up the city’s infrastructure chaos. Every major artery seems to be under construction, often without a clear explanation or deadlines. Sharp wants public reporting on project timelines and costs, and she’s calling out the bureaucratic “technical reviews” that stall council oversight. That’s the sort of accountability Calgarians haven’t seen in years.
Calgary’s decline isn’t accidental. It’s the product of leaders who mistake management for messaging. They hold press conferences instead of fixing roads, publish strategies instead of solving problems, and let downtown decay under the banner of “equity.”
Source: Wikipedia Commons
Jeff Davison doesn’t have the support to win. Jeromy Farkas has abandoned the principles that once made him credible. That leaves Sonya Sharp as the only serious candidate with the consistency, pragmatism, and backbone to pull Calgary out of its managed decay.
On October 20, Calgarians get to decide whether they want more slogans or a functioning city.
Choose the latter.
Keean Bexte
