January 19, 2025
Finally, Calgarians have lost faith in our mayor and council
For those of us who cover city hall and have done so for decades, we’ve wondered when the scales would fall from the eyes of our fellow citizens.
For those of us who cover city hall and have done so for decades, we’ve wondered when the scales would fall from the eyes of our fellow citizens.

At long last, Calgarians are waking up to the nightmare at city hall.

A new poll shows citizens of our fair city by the Bow are — finally — fed up with Calgary city council and our mayor.

ThinkHQ Public Affairs found that 55 per cent of Calgarians disapprove of Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s performance — 37 per cent strongly —  which represents a precipitous 22 percentage-point drop in the mayor’s approval from last year.

“You would likely need to go back almost 40 years to find a sitting Calgary mayor with approval this low, and the year-over-year drop in his approval is staggering,” said ThinkHQ president Marc Henry, who adds that one year ago Nenshi’s approval rate was 61 per cent. Only 39 per cent of Calgarians say they approve of Nenshi’s performance, with just 14 per cent strongly approving.

Council on the whole fares even worse, with an approval rating of just 32 per cent. But herein lies the rub. Almost half of Calgarians are happy with the performance of their councillor (49 per cent). The next municipal election is in October 2021 and what’s ironic, says Henry, is if these numbers hold, most councillors will likely be re-elected.

The whole lot of them could get back in even though most Calgarians are really unhappy with how this city is run.

“But that’s not the case for Mayor Nenshi. It would be very unlikely for the mayor to contest and win re-election with approval this low,” says Henry.

[…]

See Also:

(1) Calgary’s huge rainy-day fund now at minimum

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