The Women of Calgary City Council: 2004-2010
The Women of Calgary City Council
It would be hard to follow 2001 in terms of significance to women on Council, but the 2004 election certainly gave it a run for its money. While no longtime Alderwomen stepped down, and no woman got as close to becoming mayor as Bev Longstaff did in 2001, big things were afoot in the municipal election. Perhaps overlooked by the slow decline of the federal Liberals—who were re-elected the same year with a minority government under Paul Martin—and the unfolding Sponsorship Scandal, was an incident of electoral fraud in Calgary’s municipal election.
Figure 1 Madeleine King, surfing the web and waiting for results to come in. Calgary Herald.
In terms of the number of women elected to Council, the 2004 election was as good as it has ever been. Six women were elected, with Madeleine King, Diane Colley-Urquhart and Linda Fox-Mellway winning re-election. Druh Farrell was acclaimed to Ward 7, and newcomer Margot Aftergood defeated Diane Danielson by 138 votes. Turnout was low this election, with less that 20 per cent of the population of Calgary voting.The election had just over half of the turnout than the previous election, and only five of the six women elected would actually serve on Council.
Figure 2 Margot Aftergood with her husband, David, October 18, 2004. Calgary Herald.
2004 was the first municipal election to allow for mail-in and advanced ballots, and even before the official election day, something was amiss. Four days before the election, Calgary Police were notified about irregularities with some mail-in ballots by the returning officer and the Commercial Crime and Arson unit began an investigation. The day after the election, the city’s returning officer publicly announced irregularities with 1,266 mail-in ballots. Margot Aftergood was the victor in Ward 10 and by October 21, three days after the election, calls were already being made, including from eight other Aldermen, for her to resign her position. The next day, the incumbent Diane Danielson requested a judicial review with the Court of the Queen’s Bench, which was approved on October 27. In the meantime, Aftergood was sworn in on the 25th, the same day the police started their investigation into possible mail-in ballot fraud. On November 10, PC MLA Hung Pham’s home was raided, with his computer equipment seized (Pham, according to the police, had eight laptops confiscated) as it was alleged to have been used to request some of the mail-in ballots in question.
By the end of November 2004, Aftergood resigned from her position as Ward 10 Alderman, forcing a by-election. While she resigned, Aftergood denied wrongdoing. Pham was involved on and off in the investigation due to his close affiliation with Ron Aftergood, Margot’s brother and a former Brian Mulroney staffer. Aftergood was a riding association president, who had also been involved in a minor scandal with the riding association when he raised the fees for challenging the incumbent, something that was done allegedly because the riding needed fundraising, but also was alleged to have been done to protect Pham from being challenged.
Figure 3 Diane Danielson doing the crossword in an interview with the Herald on May 14 2007.
The scandal, dubbed Aftergate, involved those 1,266 mail-in ballots, which were all requested to the same rented postal box. Eight-hundred fifty-one of these ballots appeared to have the same handwriting and had been returned in bunches, slipped through the night mail slot at the election office. Police had also noticed that 56 per cent of all mail-in ballots requested during that entire election had been made for Ward 10 alone. Danielson sought the services of a lawyer affiliated with the Liberals, whom her husband, Art, sought to represent in the upcoming provincial election. Incidentally, Art Danielson ran unsuccessfully against Hung Pham in that election. Pham had also run against Diane in 1997.
Aftergood chose not to run again in the by-election, saying that the controversy had “exacted a toll on her family.” It was found that the postal box was rented out by David Aftergood, Margot’s husband, and that he had ordered the mail-in ballots in question. David was found guilty of violating the Elections Act in April 2007 after being charged in 2005. After a nearly three-year long ordeal, David Aftergood would be sentenced to 14 days in jail, which only had to be served on weekends, along with a $2,000 fine. An appeal was filed and after everything, the charges against Aftergood were stayed – meaning he was found neither guilty nor innocent.
Figure 4Margot Aftergood and Diane Danielson in the Calgary Herald, 25 November 2004.
Of course, the Ward 10 Controversy was not the only significant thing that came from the election with regards to women on Council. This election was the last to have six women on Council, and subsequent elections would see a decline in representation until the most recent election.
Figure 5 Helen Laroque in the Calgary Herald, October 26, 2004.
New to Council this year was Helen Laroque in Ward 3. After John Schmal’s lengthy career on Council of five terms, the longstanding Alderman retired and left a void that saw 15 people initially register by September 2004. Four candidates would not make it to election day, though this still left Ward 3 as the most contested Ward, with a certain future mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, in the running. He would come in fourth, with 13.2 per cent of the vote, with Helen Larocque winning with 21.3 per cent. Another runner-up was Jim Stevenson, who would later go on to defeat Larocque in the 2007 election.
Larocque focused on quality of life-related issues, notably a sour gas well operated by Nexen near the Ward 3 neighbourhood of Martindale, which was up for lease renewal by the end of 2007. Larocque argued that the well was holding back valuable development land and that in 2005, Nexen had to begin the process of shutting down the well and begin to remediate it. A decision was made in August 2005 to reject the lease renewal of the well.
Even before becoming an Alderman, Larocque was heavily involved in the community. While born and raised in Ottawa, Larocque moved to Calgary in the ‘80s and started two businesses, while also working with the Martindale community association. After the election, candidates had to disclose how much money they had raised and spent in their campaigns, and Larocque was one of the most efficient campaigners in that election, having raised the third-least amount of money, and spent the third-least on the campaign itself. Only Bob Hawkesworth and Margot Aftergood raised less, and only Hawkesworth and Ric McIver spent less.
Larocque, whose first name was printed interchangeably as Helen or Helene in the Herald, did have a productive term on Council; she voted against a tax hike in 2005, and advocated to her colleagues for improved safety on the Deerfoot after a tragic crash.
2007:
After the previous term, which saw six women elected but only five serve their term, only three women were elected in 2007, with Helen Larocque and Madeleine King losing their wards to Jim Stevenson and John Mar, respectively. Margot Aftergood never served on Council and resigned shortly after swearing in, and was replaced in a 2005 byelection by Andre Chabot. Linda Fox-Mellway, Diane Colley-Urquhart and Druh Farrell would be the only ones to win their election, giving Council at least a seasoned presence of women. Fox-Mellway had been on Council since 1995, Farrell since 2001 and Colley-Urquhart since 2000, after Patti Grier’s abrupt departure from Council. Druh Farrell ran away with her re-election, winning just shy of 69 per cent of the vote, and both Colley-Urquhart and Fox-Mellway were acclaimed, meaning they ran without competition.
There were some upsides to the election, though. It saw nearly double the turnout of the previous election, which had the lowest turnout in Calgary’s history. The 2007 election did see a number of women run. Sandy Jenkins and Elizabeth Fielding ran for mayor, coming in third and seventh places, respectively. Jennifer Banks ran against long-time Alderman Dale Hodges and placed second in the ward, Evonne Whelan ran against Brian Pincott and came second, too. Women ran in just about every ward in the 2007 election, but the results were lacking for them.
2007 would be Linda Fox-Mellway’s last time on Council, as she would run one last time in 2010 but lose out to a current Councillor. Leading into her fifth term, Fox-Mellway was touted as being able to effectively get things done quietly, and was an important part of the City’s budgeting strategy as chair of the finance committee. She was also involved in developing a solution to a space-sharing agreement between the old downtown library and Bow Valley College.
This election would also be Madeleine King’s last. King, the two-term Ward 8 Alderman, had began the 2004-2007 term battling cancer, and combined with a lot of issues surrounding the rapid growth in the Beltline, had a tough term. Shifting her image away from an arts and society-based image, King started focusing on fiscal issues in the rapidly changing and dynamic Ward 8. King was pressed to address property taxes, crime and homelessness in the inner city, while also dealing with parking issues, and a controversy surrounding a halfway house that was forced to relocate into a wealthier part of the Ward, upsetting some residents.
2010:
The decade came to an end with the 2010 election, which saw three women win council seats: Druh Farrell and Diane Colley-Urquhart, who retained their seats, and newcomer Gael MacLeod, who took Ward 4 from Bob Hawkesworth as he ran for mayor. He would come in fifth place, taking 0.4 per cent of the vote despite having pulled out of the race to endorse the third placed candidate, Barb Higgins. Linda Fox-Mellway lost her seat on Council to current Ward 14 Councillor Peter Demong.
Figure 6 Gael MacLeod celebrating with Joe Ceci, October 21 2010.
MacLeod, originally from the Maritimes, had been a Calgary resident for much of her life and a resident of Ward 4 since 1995. After obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta and an MBA at Royal Roads University. MacLeod worked in the non-profit sector and had demonstrated a strong commitment to affordable housing. Leading into the election, MacLeod brought over 30 years of experience and would serve on several committees during her single term.
Barb Higgins had been a long-standing news anchor with CTV Calgary. Rumours began in July that Higgins would run for mayor, with columnists like Don Braid and Tony Seskus noting that web domains “barbformayor” and “barb4mayor” had been registered, and some idle speculation from political insiders. The day before that the speculative column was published, Higgins announced her resignation from CTV, not saying what was coming next, further fueling the speculation. The same day that the paper was published, Higgins announced her candidacy for mayor, describing herself as a fiscal conservative with a social heart.
The election saw a voter turnout of 53 per cent, an increase over previous years (2004 saw less than 20 per cent turnout, 2007 saw roughly 33 per cent.) Higgins enjoyed decent polling, with a poll released on 13 October 2010 showing her in second place (31 per cent vote intention) behind Ric McIver (33 per cent) and Naheed Nenshi in third (28 per cent.) While there were 15 candidates on the ballot (three had dropped out of the race too late to be taken off the ballot,) the race was clearly between the three. Higgins did face criticism, though, for a late policy platform that mirrored long-since released platforms of both Nenshi and McIver. A controversial and testy interview with CityTV on October 14 did not help her chances, either. Momentum was in Naheed Nenshi’s favour, who had been at 8 per cent support a month before the election, saw his support climb to around 30 per cent.
Figure 7 Higgins at a debate featuring other candidates like Nenshi and McIver, 13 October 2010