Save Calgary

Masks don't work.
Masks work.
Masks work better if you wear 2 or 3.
Now you can take your masks off!
Wait, put them back on.
OK, take them off again, because only medical-grade masks really work.
Hey, science changed, take them off!
Now let us lecture you about weaponized misinformation.

Unions have created a PAC with a war chest of $1.7 million dollars to get their hand picked candidates elected. To put that in perspective, that is probably more than every single candidate in every single ward COMBINED. The amounts they are spending just on Facebook and Instagram ads:
$184,317 Grand Total
$30,694 over the past 7 days
$4,384 per day
These are paid ads promoting candidates in every ward. You can view them all here https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=CA&view_all_page_id=106230847435654&search_type=page&media_type=all.

When Calgarians can't afford their increasing property taxes, how can city council justify compensation like this?

Just who is Jeff Davison for Mayor?
For the past four years he's been the City Councillor for Ward 6, and now he's running to be Calgary's next mayor.
He's often described as a "pro-business conservative" who can "get things done" - but is that really true?
Save Calgary has dug into Jeff Davison's time on City Council and his mayoral campaign to answer this question.
Here's what we found.

1. Jeff Davison is a tax and spender.
In looking at his voting record over the past four years, Davison has voted nearly in lockstep with other big government politicians like Councillor Jyoti Gondek and Mayor Naheed Nenshi to raise taxes, increase spending, and grow the size of government.
• He opposed reducing the City of Calgary's budget by $5 million in 2017.
• He opposed freezing the public art budget at 2018 levels.
• He opposed freezing City Council salaries in 2018.
• He opposed finding $50 million in additional savings while preserving funding for core services in 2018.
• He opposed freezing property tax increases at 0% for 2020.
• He opposed targeting a 7.5% cut for property taxes for 2021.

2. Jeff Davison supports the special interests.
In vote after vote, Davison has supported the political insiders and special interests down at City Hall rather than the hard-working people of Calgary who have to foot the bill for these costly follies.
• He voted in favour of the failed 2026 Winter Olympics bid at every opportunity.
• He voted to increase funding for public arts in 2018.
• He voted over and over to build the economically disastrous Green Line.
• He voted to reduce Calgary's residential speed limits in 2019.
• He voted to make garbage collection more expensive in 2018 and 2019.

3. Jeff Davison supports corporate welfare.
Since being elected to Council, Davison has voted repeatedly to put taxpayer dollars into the pockets of private businesses.
• He voted to put $90 million more into the Calgary Opportunity Investment Fund in 2017.
• He voted in favour $1.5 billion for four major capital projects (the BMO centre expansion, the new Arts Commons space, the multi-sport field house, and the NHL arena and events centre) in 2019.
• He voted against cutting corporate welfare spending by $50 million in 2019.
• He voted to give an additional $12.5 million in taxpayer dollars towards the NHL arena in 2021.

These are just a handful of votes, but it paints a picture of a City Councillor who is not respectful of taxpayers' money, and who has sided with the status quo time and time again.
He has also demonstrated questionable ethical behaviour during this election.

Shortly after launching his mayoral campaign, Davison's campaign was accused of attempting to circumvent rules banning corporate and union contributions to election candidates.

A third-party group, Calgary Tomorrow, promoted a fundraising event to corporate donors. This invite was then shared by the Davison campaign.

Rather than apologizing for the situation, Davison blamed a campaign volunteer for the mistake.

This doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that transparency and accountability are going to improve dramatically if Jeff Davison becomes Calgary's next mayor.

But what about the reputation that Jeff Davison has for being a "conservative" option for mayor?

That also seems pretty doubtful.

As you may know, former Ward 5 City Councillor George Chahal has announced he's not seeking re-election to City Council because he's now the Trudeau Liberal candidate in Calgary-Skyview.
In attendance at Chahal's campaign launch on Sunday were prominent Liberals from across Calgary - and also mayoral candidate Jeff Davison and his campaign advisor, outgoing Ward 1 City Councillor Ward Sutherland.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

With Mayor Nenshi not running for re-election in October, it's an open race to see who will replace him as Mayor of Calgary.

If you didn't like Nenshi's leadership over the past decade, do you really think that Jeff Davison represents real change?
Based on the above, we don't think so.

If you want to see fiscal responsibility and real accountability down at Calgary City Hall, don't vote for Jeff Davison for Mayor.

Sincerely,

Save Calgary
www.savecalgary.com

P.S. We rely on the support of Save Calgary membership who are sick and tired of business as usual at City Council. If you want to support our work, then please consider making a donation to Save Calgary today!