A week after Calgary's municipal elections, questions remain about the future of local political parties formed ahead of this year's vote.
Three municipal political parties originated in Calgary after provincial legislation passed last year allowed parties to be held as a pilot project in Calgary and Edmonton.
“Voters have not completely rejected political parties in municipal politics; some party candidates have been elected. But they have not entirely embraced political parties either,” said Jack Lucas, a political science professor at the University of Calgary.
Six of the 14 new Calgary city councilors were affiliated with a political party during the campaign, including four with Communities First and one each from the Calgary Party and the Better Calgary Party.
Eight elected and re-elected candidates, as well as Calgary Mayor-elect Jeromy Farkas, ran as independent candidates.
“I have to work alongside a council that was elected by the people of Calgaria, and I can do that because I ran as an independent candidate,” Farkas said during his victory speech last week.
Ward 10 Count. Andre Chabot and District 13: Dan McLean was re-elected under the “Communities First” slogan along with party candidates Kim Tyrese, elected in District 1, and Rob Ward, elected in District 11.
The future of the Communities First party will be decided by its members and will not include elected officials, Chabot said.
“As part of our platform, we agreed that after the elections we would immediately dissolve the party,” Chabot said.
“This will be completely independent of elected officials because we have all agreed to step away from the party in the future.”
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That promise is one of the reasons Ward said he decided to run for the party, as candidates “will be allowed to act as independent candidates once elected.”
“At the end of the day, I’m going to represent the people of District 11 first and vote accordingly,” he told Global News.
McLean, meanwhile, said he would “like to see party lines go away” once they are sworn in as the next city council, and noted that there will be no “caucuses or party whips” among party selectmen.
“No one has a clear majority. Maybe this will work out for the better,” he said.
The future of the Calgary party remains unclear, according to Ward 4 councilor-elect DJ Kelly, the party's only elected candidate.
“I don’t think there’s much difference between a one-man party and an independent,” Kelly told reporters. “I am confident that I can work with everyone at the board table.”
Another “party of one” on council is Ward 12 councilor-elect Mike Jamieson, who ran for the Better Calgary Party and was elected by just 59 votes over second-place candidate Sarah Ferguson of the Calgary Party.
According to Roy Beyer, executive director of the Better Calgary Party, Jamieson will become the “face of the party” as the party apparatus continues to operate and prepares for the next municipal election in 2029.
“For conservatives, this is the only mechanism by which we can consistently avoid splitting the vote,” Beyer told Global News.
“We plan to organize at every level of the district, have a real nomination process, have properly qualified candidates and make sure we have the best of the best nominated to run in the next election.”
According to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, parties can continue to exist and operate after elections if they meet all the requirements set out in the rules.
The rules prohibit parties from raising or spending money between elections and also prohibit campaign spending between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2027.
“To build a really strong reputation, like the reputation that provincial or federal parties have, those parties need to stay around, they need to stay active, continue to communicate with voters,” Lucas said.
“It seems unlikely that this will happen.”
Both McLean and Chabot had mixed feelings about the municipal party pilot, with Chabot saying he didn't consider the trial a success.
While the party's elected candidates promise to govern as independents, Lucas expects some bias in the next city council vote.
“A lot of it has more to do with patterns of basic agreement and disagreement rather than anything like party discipline or coordination,” Lucas said.
“This is what we see in Vancouver, Quebec City and other places where there are political parties at the municipal level.
As an example, Lucas said he believes McLean and Chabot voted together 88 percent of the time during the last council term before they joined the party because “they tend to agree on policy.”
According to the Office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, after each election the department conducts a regular review of the Local Government Elections Act “to identify potential improvements to ensure local election processes remain fair, transparent and consistent across the province” with parties expected to participate in the review.
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