Calgary mayor meets with head of Recall Gondek campaign
The Calgary citizen who started a petition to recall Mayor Jyoti Gondek met with the city's elected leader on Friday in a 20-minute, closed-door meeting.
Calgary resident Landon Johnston started the campaign to remove Gondek in January because he was frustrated with city hall and concerned about tax increases and the city's single-use plastic bylaw.
He said his first meeting with the mayor was interesting.
"The mayor was very friendly. She listened to everything I had to say," Johnston said.
"But it's still not enough."
He said they discussed transparency, affordability and the recall legislation.
Calgary's mayor said they did find common ground.
"He and I may not agree on policies, but I do think that we share a desire to do good things in Calgary," Gondek said.
Johnston said he requested the meeting through the mayor's office.
He said before creating the petition, he had been unsuccessful in getting in front of the mayor and council because his topic was not on the agenda.
Gondek says she understands the petition has resonated with some people and is going to work harder at trying to address all of the things she can, while also better explaining the decisions council is making.
"We are not focusing on the things that could be bringing us together. So, I would like to make sure that we're spotlighting things like the housing crisis, that we're spotlighting things like poverty, human rights," the mayor said.
She says council needs to work harder to find common ground because a lot of time is wasted on division.
"None of us are innocent in this. I have made comments that I shouldn't have made," she said.
"Once we fall into that trap of arguing with each other and making it very public, we become less credible to Calgarians."
Johnston said the number of names required on a recall petition is unrealistic because it's based on population and not voting age.
He has to collect the more than 514,000 signatures in person, by April 4.
The 2021 municipal election had far fewer voters, with just over 393,000 Calgarians casting a ballot.
Johnston said he was pleased Gondek agreed to work with him to try and get the province to address gaps in the recall legislation.
"It's not easy for elected officials to make it easier for them to not be in power, so I appreciate the mayor for at least giving me that," he said.
"Outside of that, I'm not happy with the job performance and so many other Calgarians deserve better than what we've had in this council chambers."
He says he hasn't heard back from the province on his concerns about the recall legislation.
Johnston suspects the petition with his name on it has been used by others for their political purposes or data gathering.
He said a lack of regulations around the petition could put personal information at risk.
Alberta's government introduced recall legislation in 2021, with funding requirements at the provincial level, but not the municipal level.
Premier Danielle Smith said Friday her minister of municipal affairs, Ric McIver, is considering changes.
"The minister is looking at ways in which we can build a little more rigour around the process, a few more rules around it," Smith said.
"We don't want to make any changes while there are active recall campaigns going on.
Johnston says about 42,000 signatures have been counted so far, and that he has thousands more waiting to be added to the tally.
"I'm going to see it through, and now that is the fight for the people that have told me they have a voice, but it's not being heard," Johnston said.
"I respect the fact that he's trying to do something that, while it may be targeted against me, at least he's engaging in a process that he has every democratic right to engage in," Gondek said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.