{"id":1538,"date":"2007-10-14T22:49:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-15T02:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2007-10-14T22:49:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-15T02:49:00","slug":"go-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1538","title":{"rendered":"Go Vote!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday is municipal Election Day and, after fewer than 1 in 5 Calgarians voted in the last municipal election, I\u2019d encourage all my Calgary readers to take a few minutes from their time to cast a ballot. Hell, if you\u2019re surfing blogs right now, you can\u2019t use the \u201cI\u2019m too busy\u201d excuse. Since the City decided against sending out \u201cwhere do I vote\u201d cards, if you\u2019re looking for your voting station, you\u2019ll need to click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While I could<\/em> give a somewhat unbiased run down of the candidates, if the Herald\u2019s not going to be impartial, I don\u2019t see why a freaking blog should. What I can do is point you towards the Enlightened Savage <\/a>who has an AMAZING recap of all the candidates for all the positions<\/a>. Incredibly detailled – it’s well worth the read. As for me, here\u2019s why I\u2019m voting for my guy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think the most important thing to do is to send a message. Calgary is, above all else, an establishment city. In the past 27 years, the incumbent mayor has won every time. It\u2019s never even been close. The strongest challenge against an incumbent in that time was Ray Clark, who garnered 17% of the vote in 1998. I think Calgarians need to send a message in this election that the City is off track in some key areas.<\/p>\n

The \u201croads, roads, and more roads\u201d doctrine that swept Bronconnier into power twice has not worked. Traffic has worsened and Calgary Transit<\/a>, despite high ridership numbers, has fallen behind where it should be. Public Transit <\/a>only works if it\u2019s accessible and enjoyable to ride. To make it accessible, we need to get the West and South-East LRT legs built. To make it enjoyable, we need to get four car trains running on existing routes, to ease congestion. Bronconnier\u2019s proposal to expand the C-Train further north-east and north-west before building the south-east line or going to four car trains will just mean more overcrowding, turning more people off of the transit option. That’s why Alnoor wants to get 4 car trains on the system and create new lines before expanding the existing, overcrowded ones.<\/p>\n

Another key plank is transparency and accountability<\/a>. Despite the howls Calgary raised towards the federal government on accountability issues, there are no rules right now at the municipal level. There is no ethics commissioner. There is no municipal auditor general. There are no campaign finance rules. Barry Erskine walked away from his job 4 days before the election and his entire war chest is his to keep. Bronconnier hasn\u2019t ruled out using his sizeable war chest to run for MP or MLA. There\u2019s also no real estate registry so there\u2019s no way to know if elected officials are in conflict of interest on votes that can dramatically change property values.<\/p>\n

The third issue that I personally feel strongly about is the secondary suite one. Right now, there are thousands of illegal secondary suites across Calgary because it\u2019s illegal to rent out your basement in most parts of the city. Legalizing secondary suites <\/a>would ensure the current suites are safe and would add thousands of units of rental space to the market.<\/p>\n

Those are just the issues that grabbed me the most. Feel free to browse the full platform <\/a>if taxes<\/a>, the environment<\/a>, or crime<\/a> are the things that get you going.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t say that Bronconnier has been a bad Mayor. Far from it. But there is just so much potential in this city and it\u2019s important to send a message that there needs to be a shift in some key areas. And the best way to send a message is by voting for Alnoor Kassam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday is municipal Election Day and, after fewer than 1 in 5 Calgarians voted in the last municipal election, I\u2019d encourage all my Calgary readers to take a few minutes from their time to cast a ballot. Hell, if you\u2019re surfing blogs right now, you can\u2019t use the \u201cI\u2019m too busy\u201d excuse. Since the City […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-calgary-municipal-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}