In a speech to Calgary’s business community, Mayor Jyoti Gondek vowed to improve communication and fight for Calgary amid what she called “noise” from critics, while touting some of the city’s successes over the past year.
Addressing the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Gondek noted several challenges she’s faced in her role as mayor including a recall campaign against her, “dissent in public spaces,” and “criticism in the media.”
“I didn’t sign up for this role because it was easy. I signed up because I believe in this city and I believe in you,” Gondek told the crowd of business leaders.
“Calgary deserves a leader who doesn’t just weather the storm but stands tall in the middle of it, fighting what this city and its people need.”
Gondek said she wanted to “address the noise head-on” by pushing back on the notion that Calgary is “a city in chaos,” a narrative she said is false.
“We’re not a city in chaos,” the mayor said. “We’re a city that gets things done.”
The mayor touted several highlights for the city over the past year, including the response to critical rupture of the Bearspaw feeder main, advances in the city’s tech sector as well as interest in the city’s office-to-residential conversion program in the downtown core.
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She also spoke on the 2025 city budget, approved by city council late Friday after a week of deliberations, which kept the overall property tax rate capped at 3.6 per cent with increases to match population growth and inflation.
However, Gondek acknowledged the challenges that comes with the significant growth the city is experiencing, and took aim at both the provincial and federal governments for off-loading costs onto the city.
The costs of that off-loading equate to around 10 per cent of the city budget, or $450 million yearly, according to the mayor.
Gondek said other orders of government aren’t “taking care of the people who are making them prosperous” and failing to share the burden of the booming population.
“Let’s recognize that new residents choosing our city don’t bring with them roads, sewers, water treatment plants, parks and swimming pools,” the mayor said in her speech.
In an interview after Gondek’s speech, Calgary Chamber president Deborah Yedlin said the issue deserves a bigger conversation around how municipalities are funded.
“I think that’s the bigger question we have to address,” Yedlin told reporters. “How do we look at how municipalities find their funding and how do we unshackle them from relying entirely on property taxes and fees because we can’t keep up, it’s not sustainable.”
The mayor pledged to keep fighting for Calgary, and vowed to improve how she communicates about the ongoing work at the city.
She also committed to “being more visible” and to “remain more engaged.”
Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, said the tone of the mayor’s speech may hint at other motives as she enters the last year of her term.
“She’s clearly trying to portray herself as a champion for the city,” Williams said. “It also sounds to me that she may be considering re-election and that she’s essentially trying to recover her reputation from some of the negative attacks she’s been the recipient of.”
When asked about the tone and intention of the speech, Gondek said it was important to talk about the initiatives she is spearheading.
“It was really important to talk about why we’ve made the investments we have over this past year and I think it’s important to talk about the results as well,” Gondek said.
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