Blog Archives - Municipal Watch

The Ford Factor in Mississauga

Aug 31, 2026

Municipalities may be creatures of the province, but should the Premier get to play kingmaker at City Hall? That’s the question worth asking as Mississauga – one of Canada’s largest cities, with roughly 770,000 residents – heads toward its mayoral election.

Because Premier Doug Ford has made his preference pretty clear.

Ford wasn’t a fan of Bonnie Crombie even before she became Liberal leader and his opponent in the 2025 provincial election. When she was mayor of Mississauga, Crombie fought Ford’s government over development charges – the fees paid by developers to help fund the infrastructure required to service new residents. Lowering those charges prompted Crombie to ask a fairly straightforward question: if developers pay less, who makes up the difference, and do existing taxpayers end up carrying more of the cost?

Hey, Mayor! “Stop the whining and complaining!”

Ford’s response to Crombie was not exactly diplomatic. He told her to “stop the whining and complaining.”

Ford’s interaction with current Mayor Carolyn Parrish on this issue was quite different. Instead of calling her names, just last week, he (together with representatives from the federal government) handed her a cheque in the sum of up to $401.4 million for the City as part of the Development Charges Reduction Program – to pay for that infrastructure that is required and used to be paid for by development fees.

This isn’t a new alliance. In March of this year, at an announcement in Mississauga, Ford was even clearer about whom he wanted to see back in the mayor’s chair, declaring: “I will send an army down here to make sure I support Mayor Parrish.”

Ford: “I never get involved in municipal elections.”

There is something almost amusing about the sentence that preceded Ford’s militaristic declaration, which was: “I never get involved in municipal elections.” Apparently Mississauga is an exception. I doubt Crombie is shaking in her boots, however. According to a recent Liaison Strategies poll, voters were asked how Ford’s endorsement would affect their vote, and 39% said it would make them less likely to vote for Ford’s preferred candidate, while only 15% said it would make them more likely.

That’s quite a gap, and perhaps a useful reminder that a Premier’s endorsement isn’t necessarily the political gift he might imagine it to be.

And Then There Is Bill 100 (Doug Ford’s power grab)

There is a provincial issue where Crombie and Municipal Watch happen to find themselves on the same side. She and I don’t agree on very much but, on Doug Ford’s Bill 100, which I wrote about last month (https://municipalwatch.ca/2026/07/29/from-for-the-people-to-power-for-the-premier/), we do.

Crombie has expressed opposition to the legislation, which gives the Premier the power to appoint regional chairs and then gives those appointees sweeping “strong chair” powers. The obvious concern is that a chair appointed by the Premier could potentially veto or override decisions supported by a democratically elected council.

That is a pretty extraordinary transfer of local political power to Premier Ford himself.

And it is worth noting because this is exactly the kind of issue Municipal Watch has been warning about: whatever one’s political allegiance, it is fundamentally undemocratic to give the Premier the power to appoint the leader of a regional government and then giving that Premier (Ford, and all those who come after him) enhanced powers over the elected council.

No more foreign flags at City Hall in Mississauga

Mississauga is a fascinating municipal case study because it sits at the intersection of so many of the debates currently reshaping Canadian cities. It is growing, its population is extraordinarily diverse, its housing needs are changing, its neighbourhoods are changing, and residents are clearly thinking about whether the city is headed in the right direction.

The foreign flag issue threw the curtain open on Mississauga’s changing relationship with its own multicultural identity. For years, the city has worn its diversity proudly and made cultural recognition a prominent part of civic life. But the politics surrounding some of that recognition have become considerably more complicated.

There were incidents around foreign flag raisings at Mississauga’s Celebration Square for Pakistan Day and India’s Independence Day that exposed some of the tensions beneath the city’s famously multicultural surface. Online, there were comments condemning the countries themselves as well as insults directed at residents of their respective Mississauga communities. City officials described some of the comments as “misinformed and even hateful,” while acknowledging that much of the online criticism was directed more broadly at the practice of raising foreign flags.

No more “national colours” or “lights” either

Things became contentious enough that when Calgary City Council voted in December 2025 to end the raising of foreign national flags at City Hall, Mississauga soon followed. In April 2026, Council unanimously approved Mayor Carolyn Parrish’s call to remove national flag raisings from Mississauga’s city square. Even “displays of lights associated with national colours (with the exception of those of Canada) on the civic centre clock tower” were banned.

The foreign flag issue also represents a striking contrast between the two frontrunner candidates. As mayor, Crombie had championed the City’s Community Recognition Program (under which the foreign flags are flown) as a way of celebrating the city’s cultural diversity; in 2026, Council headed up by Mayor Parrish passed a motion banning foreign-flag raisings, describing them as a source of “controversy and at times division within the community.” Parrish herself called the practice “very controversial” and said she was no longer prepared to continue it.

The flag controversy is interesting not because any flag, by itself, is going to determine who becomes mayor. It won’t. It is interesting because it illustrates something broader happening in Mississauga: the old assumptions about what multiculturalism looks like, and how City Hall should handle it, are running into growing pushback from residents themselves.

In addition to the debate over foreign flags, the Ridgeway Plaza controversy is another manifestation of those tensions. Arguments over development charges, density, transit and municipal autonomy are others. And now the mayoral race itself is testing whether Mississauga voters want to continue in the direction the city has been heading – or whether they are ready for a change.

That is why Canadians who don’t live in Mississauga should pay attention.

Municipal politics is where big national and provincial arguments eventually become local and very personal. Immigration, for example, eventually becomes a question about how a neighbourhood changes. Multiculturalism becomes a question about how public space is used. Housing policy becomes a question about whether you can still afford your home. Provincial power becomes a question about who gets to make decisions at City Hall. And “safety” stops being an abstract campaign talking point and becomes a question about whether residents feel comfortable walking down their own street at night.

Mississauga’s voters will decide which version of their city they want. The rest of us can learn something by watching what they decide, because the issues playing out there aren’t particularly unique to Mississauga. They’re showing up in cities across the country, in different forms and with different political personalities attached to them.

What Kind of Change do Mississauga Voters Want?

And perhaps that’s what makes this race so interesting. The question isn’t simply who will win. It is what, exactly, are Mississauga voters trying to change? And what do they think needs to be preserved?

Because when 46% of residents say their city is moving in the wrong direction, and 45% say it is less safe than it was a year ago, there is clearly a story here.

Mississauga’s Mayoral Musical Chairs

Aug 31, 2026

It isn’t every day that a former mayor decides to run for her old job again, especially after leaving it to pursue the leadership of a provincial political party. But that’s exactly what is happening in Mississauga.

For starters, look at the four leading contenders. Candidate A is a former federal Liberal MP. Candidate B is a former federal Liberal MP who became mayor for almost a decade and then went on to become Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. Candidate C is a former provincial Liberal MPP, and Candidate D is a former Ontario Liberal Party candidate who later ran for the leadership of the party. Three of the four currently serve on Mississauga City Council.

Is Mississauga City Council a one-party state? Well, not technically, of course. Municipal elections are officially non-partisan, and the absence of party labels on the ballot is one of the defining features of Ontario municipal politics. But political histories don’t magically disappear just because there isn’t a party name beside the candidate’s name.

And the political landscape in Mississauga is actually rather interesting. All six federal ridings are represented by Liberal MPs, while all six provincial ridings are represented by Progressive Conservative MPPs. So no, Mississauga is hardly a one-party city. But given that rather dramatic federal-provincial political split, it is certainly curious that the four leading mayoral contenders all come from the Liberal political orbit.

I can understand the absence of NDP candidates; historically, the party hasn’t fared particularly well in Mississauga. But four leading Liberal candidates? That’s worth noticing.

Can Crombie Make a Comeback?

Bonnie Crombie’s first mayoral victory in 2014 looked as though it might be a tight race. She was running against another former Liberal MP, Steve Mahoney, and the race was expected to be competitive. Then Hazel McCallion, Mississauga’s legendary former mayor and one of the most recognizable figures in the city’s history, endorsed Crombie, and the entire dynamic changed.

McCallion’s endorsement helped catapult Crombie into the mayor’s chair, winning more than 100,000 votes and 63.5% of the vote. She won again in 2018, this time with 76.7%, and then again in 2022 with an astonishing 78.5%. Huge victories.

But 2026 is a very different race. A recent Liaison Strategies poll has Crombie and current Mayor Carolyn Parrish neck and neck at 35% each among decided and leaning voters, a far cry from the margins Crombie enjoyed in her three previous mayoral campaigns.

Out of sight, out of mind is a real thing in politics. Some Mississauga voters may now see Crombie’s return as a comeback, while others may see it as something of a consolation prize after her 2025 provincial election defeat as Ontario Liberal leader – and, even more painfully, after she lost her own attempt to win a seat in the provincial legislature in Mississauga East-Cooksville.

It’s quite a predicament for Crombie, compared with where she stood when she left City Hall.

The Crombie Reinvention Machine

Crombie has had a long political career, with elected experience at the municipal, federal and provincial levels, and she certainly hasn’t been controversy-free along the way. One thing she does seem to be very good at, though, is reinventing herself at each stage of the game.

When she was mayor, from 2014 to 2024, Crombie was simultaneously pro-development, pro-density, pro-transit and strongly pro-climate action, embracing a thoroughly woke political agenda. At the same time, she opposed reductions to development charges, expressed concern about taxpayers absorbing infrastructure costs and was fiercely protective of Mississauga’s municipal autonomy. She was particularly vocal in opposing provincial interference in municipal affairs.

After nearly three years away pursuing provincial politics, Crombie is back with a very different political message.

The message now is affordability, safety, congestion relief and fiscal accountability – pretty much a checklist of the issues topping Mississauga residents’ concerns, with a made-in-Mississauga tariff plan thrown in for good measure. It includes buying Canadian and local, helping tariff-hit businesses with their taxes and promising faster City Hall approvals – another box to tick in a carefully curated campaign message.

Voters will have the opportunity to look at both the new message and the old record and decide what to make of Crombie’s latest political incarnation.

What About Carolyn Parrish?

The other obvious question is whether Mississauga voters will take a more critical look at current mayor Carolyn Parrish this time around than they did in 2022.

Parrish won the 2022 mayoral by-election after Crombie stepped down to pursue provincial politics. She won with just 31% of the vote, in an election where turnout was a dismal little over 25%. That’s hardly an overwhelming mandate, although it was enough to put her in the mayor’s chair.

Not many voters will remember – or are even old enough to remember – the heady days of Controversial Carolyn, the MP who was anti-American before it was fashionable. In 2003, Parrish famously said, “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards!” and later stomped on a George W. Bush doll to make her point in an episode of the television show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Some people might see that kind of outspokenness as a positive attribute. But then-Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin wasn’t impressed by Parrish’s comments about him and her Liberal caucus colleagues. She was kicked out of caucus and spent her final months on Parliament Hill sitting as an Independent MP.

She wasn’t exactly apologetic about the experience. Parrish said she had “absolutely no loyalty to this [Liberal] team. None.” And, referring to her former colleagues, she said: “After what they’ve put me through and lots of my colleagues, they can all go to hell.” Of Martin, she added: “If he loses the next election and he has to resign, I wouldn’t shed a tear over it.”

That was a long time ago. Maybe she’s mellowed since then.

And Then There Are the Other Two

Also in the 2022 mayoral by-election, Alvin Tedjo came in second with 25% of the vote, while Dipika Damerla finished third with 19%. According to the recent Liaison Strategies poll, those two are now third and fourth in voter preference, with Damerla pulling ahead of Tedjo.

So there we have it: four leading candidates, all with Liberal political pedigrees, three of them currently sitting on Council, with a former mayor trying to come back, a sitting mayor trying to hang on and two current councillors trying to break through.

Hovering over the whole thing is one rather interested provincial “conservative” Premier with plenty of Liberal options from which to choose. And Doug Ford has made his preference very clear.

Read about this neat twist in Mississauga Mayoral Race: Part 3.

Mississauga: The Suburb that Won’t Sleep

Aug 31, 2026

Something interesting is happening in Mississauga.

A recent Liaison Strategies poll found that 46% of Mississauga residents believe their city is moving in the wrong direction, compared with only 32% who think it is moving in the right direction. In politics, those are significant numbers. People in Mississauga are not happy. Why not?

Here’s a clue: 45% said Mississauga is less safe than it was a year ago. Only 12% said it is safer, while 31% said it is about the same.

So, when half of its residents say the city is headed in the wrong direction – and nearly half say they feel less safe than they did just a year ago – it is worth asking why.

One possible piece of the puzzle is a place that has become something of a household name in Mississauga: Ridgeway Plaza.

The Ridgeway Plaza Problem

Built in 2022 in what had previously been a relatively quiet residential neighbourhood, Ridgeway Plaza quickly became a hugely popular destination. It is a collection of restaurants and shops, particularly known for halal food, and has attracted thousands of people from Mississauga and well beyond.

There is absolutely nothing unusual or problematic about that.

Mississauga is Canada’s eighth-largest city, with a population of approximately 770,000. It sits immediately west of Toronto, is slightly larger than Vancouver and slightly smaller than Winnipeg, and is home to Toronto’s major international airport. It is also one of the country’s most ethnically diverse cities.

A diverse city should have diverse restaurants, shops and gathering places. In fact, the popularity of Ridgeway is a testament to the entrepreneurial energy and cultural diversity of Mississauga.

The problem, according to a City news release, is that the plaza has also become associated with overcrowding, excessive late-night noise, illegal fireworks, illegal patios, street racing and stunt driving, physical fights and altercations, threatening and aggressive behaviour, blocked emergency access and other safety concerns.

None other than The New York Times took notice, publishing an article in March 2026 titled “The Suburb That Won’t Sleep.” The newspaper described Ridgeway as having grown to approximately 120 restaurants, primarily Middle Eastern and South Asian, and noted that it attracts thousands of diners each week.

This wildly popular commercial destination grew faster than the surrounding infrastructure and municipal rules could accommodate, however.

As The New York Times reported, the popularity of the plaza has brought noise, litter, traffic, insufficient parking, confrontations, physical fights, illegal fireworks and street racing.

Those are legitimate municipal problems that require solutions because they affect the people who live nearby.

When Cultural Celebrations Meet Neighbourhood Peace & Quiet

There is another layer to the story, however, and this is where things get more complicated.

Certain culturally significant days have drawn particularly large crowds to the area. Unsanctioned (planned but not permitted by the city) events surrounding Pakistan and Afghanistan Independence Days, as well as National Iraqi Day, have at times attracted thousands of people.

The City itself said some of these gatherings had repeatedly created problems with its ability to maintain roads safely, control traffic, respond to emergencies and enforce municipal bylaws.

A Pakistani-Canadian physician and regular Ridgeway diner, Dr. Ilmana Fasih, offered an insightful perspective. She told The New York Times:

“I love my culture, but then I’m also critical of some of the things that we do which annoy people and which are different, because every culture has a different nuance.”

She immediately added another important point: “There are problems with us, and there are problems with racism in Canada also.”

That is probably a more useful way of looking at this than pretending that a problem doesn’t exist.

Matt Mahoney, Mississauga’s deputy mayor and the councillor whose ward includes Ridgeway Plaza, has also pushed back against the idea that the problem can simply be blamed on poor city planning. As he has pointed out, the City cannot dictate what type of businesses operate in a privately developed plaza.

Yet he has also described Ridgeway as a place that, beyond the food, has become known for “chaos.”

When the City Had to Step In

By December 2023, the problem had become serious enough that Mississauga Council, led by then-Mayor Bonnie Crombie, adopted a Nuisance Gathering By-law, which took effect January 1, 2024.

It was one of Crombie’s final acts as mayor before she resigned to seek the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party.

The Nuisance Gathering by-law wasn’t enough.

Large unsanctioned gatherings continued. Some drew more than 3,000 people. Emergency fire routes were blocked. There were illegal fireworks, very late-night noise, street racing, stunt driving and physical altercations.

Eventually, under newly elected Mayor Carolyn Parrish, Mississauga took the extraordinary step of going to court.

The City obtained an injunction restricting nuisance gatherings at Ridgeway Plaza and giving police additional authority – and the obligation – to restrict traffic and deal with violations. The injunction specifically covered periods surrounding Pakistan Independence Day and Afghanistan Independence Day in 2025.

Seeking and obtaining a court injunction is a pretty remarkable escalation for a suburban shopping plaza that opened only a few years ago.

Chaos: A Municipal Problem in Mississauga

Mississauga is a multicultural city. Its population includes large communities from South Asia, the Middle East and many other parts of the world. People have every right to celebrate their heritage, eat the food of their home countries, gather with friends and maintain cultural traditions.

But the same rules must apply to everyone.

Celebrating your heritage doesn’t give anyone the right to block a fire route. Driving dangerously isn’t acceptable because the gathering happens to be culturally significant. Illegal fireworks don’t become legal because they are part of a celebration. And residents shouldn’t have to put up with excessive noise or unsafe streets because a particular event attracts a large crowd.

That balance is precisely what municipal government is supposed to manage.

Why Does This Matter in the Mayoral Race?

Interestingly, Ridgeway Plaza and the related controversies don’t appear to have become major issues in this year’s mayoral race – at least not yet.

Perhaps that’s because tensions have subsided somewhat following the City’s tougher approach, including the court injunction. Or perhaps none of the leading candidates wants to touch such a sensitive subject during an election campaign.

And perhaps that’s understandable, but the underlying questions haven’t disappeared.

How does a rapidly growing city accommodate new businesses and new communities without overwhelming established neighbourhoods?

How does a municipality protect cultural expression while enforcing the same rules for everyone?

And what happens when residents begin to feel that their neighbourhood is changing faster than their government can manage?

These are legitimate questions for voters to ask their local candidates.

And that is why Ridgeway Plaza is worth watching.

Because when 46% of residents say their city is moving in the wrong direction and 45% say it is less safe than it was a year ago, politicians should probably be asking why.

Calmer, But Not Quite Settled

Since the injunction, things do appear to have improved somewhat, at least in terms of the city’s ability to control the large gatherings. The temporary court order proved effective, and in April the city and the plaza’s condo corporations reached an agreement involving cameras, gates, speed bumps, additional security and increased parking enforcement. Whether any of that has actually solved the underlying problems is another question, as the city has yet to publish meaningful before-and-after data, and complaints about traffic, noise, and safety have continued.

Liberals in a Hurry: Trudeau, Carney & the 3 Green Amigos

Aug 28, 2026

It was former Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent who famously quipped that the CCF (forerunner of today’s NDP) were “Liberals in a hurry.”

But what about New Democrats and fellow-travelling green lefties who start out on the far left but then gravitate to the federal Liberals? Are they no longer in a hurry? Or are they in such a big hurry that they can’t wait for the NDP to form a national government, so they seek to infiltrate the federal Liberals, one of the most successful political machines in the western world?

The most famous defector from a left-wing party to the federal Liberals was former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Before entering federal politics as a Liberal, Trudeau spent much of the 1940s and 1950s in the orbit of the democratic-socialist CCF, now the NDP. He even served as a CCF agent in the 1949 federal election.

But something has been going on more recently with defections and infiltrations from the green left and NDP to the federal Liberals. One of the epicentres of this “leftists-in-a-hurry” phenomenon is Vancouver.

In 2004, former British Columbia NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh was appointed by Liberal PM Paul Martin as the Liberal candidate in Vancouver South, a seat he won in 2004 and held until 2011.

And there are more recent examples of left-wingers “in a hurry” in Vancouver, and their stories are still playing out today.

The most celebrated green/NDP politician to switch to the federal Liberals is former Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. A one-time director of the notorious green-left “philanthropic” Tides Foundation here in Canada (now called “MakeWay”), Robertson entered public life as the BC NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview. Not satisfied with being an opposition backbencher, Robertson shrewdly jumped to municipal politics in 2008, was elected mayor and led the left-of-centre “Vision Vancouver” slate to victory that year.

For the next ten years, Robertson served as one of Canada’s most progressive mayors. His legacy involved pushing a hard-left green environmental agenda and, most controversially, setting in motion Vancouver’s notorious phased-in ban on natural gas. Approved in 2016, the ban was (thankfully!) terminated ten years later, in 2026, by the more sensible new Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim.

After retiring as mayor in 2018, Robertson spent over six years in what passes (for progressives) as the “private sector.” He worked as the Global Ambassador for the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (2019 to early 2025), an alliance funded by a combination of Bloomberg Philanthropies and the European Union’s European Commission (in other words: the long-suffering taxpayers of Europe).

Robertson was recruited in 2025 to be the Liberal candidate in Vancouver-Fraserview-South Burnaby. Upon his election to Parliament, Robertson was immediately elevated to be Carney’s cabinet as Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister for Pacific Economic Development.

While Robertson was serving as the Green Left (basically NDP) mayor, another Green Left-winger burst onto the political scene in the Vancouver area. Elected as part of Justin Trudeau’s 2015 landslide, Jonathan Wilkinson won his first election in the suburban Vancouver riding of North Vancouver (now North Vancouver-Capilano).

Like Robertson, Wilkinson got his political start in the NDP. A former head of the NDP youth wing in Saskatchewan and later an advisor to Saskatchewan NDP Premier Roy Romanow, Wilkinson went on to work for environmental tech, energy efficiency, water treatment, hydrogen and biomass energy companies. By 2015, this socialist-in-a-hurry had transformed himself into a federal Liberal and joined Team Trudeau, securing the nomination in North Vancouver. Wilkinson was elected three times under Trudeau and thrived under the green-left Liberal PM, serving successively as Trudeau’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment and Climate Change, and finally as Energy and Natural Resources – pushing a radical, left-wing, interventionist Net Zero agenda in all three portfolios.

Wilkinson served briefly in the Mark Carney cabinet and then sat in Parliament as a backbencher, waiting for his next assignment.

In April, Carney announced that Wilkinson, the green left-wing Trudeau operative, would become Canada’s next Ambassador to the European Union.

There is a third left-winger-in-a-hurry (to become elected as a Liberal) associated with Team Carney: Braeden Caley.

When Wilkinson was appointed Canada’s new ambassador to the EU, he had to resign his seat in the House of Commons, triggering the current federal by-election in North Vancouver-Capilano, to be held on Monday, August 31. Just days after leaving his job as Mark Carney’s deputy chief of staff, Braeden Caley was named the Liberal candidate for the North Vancouver–Capilano by-election.

It’s true that, unlike Wilkinson and Robertson, Caley didn’t spend his youth as an NDPer. This young leftist-in-a-hurry went straight into the Liberal Party of Canada and enjoyed a successful career there. Early on, he worked for Vancouver-area Liberal MP Raymond Chan, but Caley’s true left-wing bias was easy to see.

All in one year – 2008 – he joined the staff of former NDP Premier, then Vancouver Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh; supported former Ontario NDP Premier turned Liberal MP Bob Rae for Liberal leader (Caley was Rae’s Youth Director); and founded a group called “Canadians for Obama.”

Caley earned his green municipal stripes from 2011 through 2016 when he left his federal opposition Liberal job for a job with real power – in the office of (wait for it…) Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson! Caley eventually became Robertson’s Director of Policy and Communications. Indeed, Caley held this job in the crucial year of 2015, when he likely played a role in Vancouver City Council’s in-principle adoption of Vancouver’s “Renewable City Strategy” on November 4 – the policy that led to Vancouver’s 2016 ban on natural gas.

These were heady days for environmentalist fanatics on the Canadian Left.

While Robertson and Caley’s Vancouver – real leaders of the municipal environmentalist left – were laying the groundwork for the natural gas ban, Canada’s new PM Justin Trudeau was attending the COP21 conference in Paris, signing the Paris Accord on Climate Change. Around this time, Caley left Robertson’s office for Ottawa to take on the role of Senior Director of Communications for the Liberal Party of Canada. Meanwhile, weeks later, PM Trudeau met with the Premiers and released the Vancouver Declaration on Clean Growth and Climate Change in March 2016, which led to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change.

Caley was there for all of this, every step of the way.

Trudeau’s choice of Braeden Caley was hardly surprising. A committed progressive Liberal with an interest in climate policy, Caley also had firsthand experience in Vancouver municipal politics, where some of the country’s most ambitious – and, in my view, misguided – green policies were taking shape.

In 2020, Braeden Caley became Executive Director of the progressive think tank Canada 2020, unofficially affiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada, and eventually became its President and CEO. At the same time, in May 2020, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney became Chair of Canada 2020’s new advisory board. Carney’s time chairing Caley’s board coincided almost exactly with his post-Bank of England role as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, from 2019/2020 to 2025.

Once Trudeau resigned, Carney left his various jobs, and so did Caley. Caley became the National Campaign Director for Carney’s successful campaign for Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and then one of the national campaign co-directors for the party’s general election victory in early 2025. He then served as a deputy chief of staff in Carney’s office.

On Monday, August 31, with Wilkinson settling into his EU job in Brussels, voters in his old riding will be asked to pass judgment on the first year of Carney’s government. As the Liberal candidate, Braeden Caley is Carney’s surrogate in North Vancouver–Capilano. His former boss, former Vancouver mayor and municipal green-extremist trailblazer Gregor Robertson, will undoubtedly be cheering on his former staffer. Carney, too, will be counting on adding Caley to his caucus, essentially swapping out one left-wing activist to Brussels to make room for another.

And yet many small- and large-C Conservatives continue to insist that Mark Carney is some sort of “moderate” or “centrist.”

Really? Look at the people around him.

The Carney Liberals are filled with former NDPers, left-wing activists and green policy zealots who have figured out that sometimes the quickest route to political power is to stop calling yourself a socialist, put on a Liberal jersey and get elected.

These “Liberals in a hurry” joined the Liberal tent because that is where the power is – and where they can now put their ideas into action.

And if you want to know where Mark Carney sits politically, don’t just listen to what he calls himself. Look at the people he chooses to surround himself with. Birds of a feather, after all.

FROM “FOR THE PEOPLE” TO POWER FOR THE PREMIER

Jul 29, 2026

In 2018, Doug Ford’s Ontario PC party swept into power using the slogan, “For the People.”

Today, that slogan is rarely used by Ford, and it’s a good thing too! ”For the People” has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with his increasingly authoritarian governing style and contempt for the very people who elected him.

Ford’s latest attack on local democracy comes just three months before Ontarians vote in this year’s municipal elections on October 26, 2026.

What has Ford done this time? Earlier this year, Ford’s Minister of Municipal Affairs introduced Bill 100, the Better Regional Government Act. Thanks to Ford’s Progressive Conservative majority, the Ontario Legislature passed this anti-democratic legislation and it became law.

But is it really better?

Hardly. Not for voters. Not for local democracy. It does, however, concentrate more power in the Office of the Premier.

What does Bill 100 do? It is the latest step in Doug Ford’s steady centralization of power – taking decision-making away from “the people” and consolidating it where he appears to believe it belongs: in his own hands.

Bill 100 gives Ford the power to appoint the Chairs of Ontario’s eight regional and district municipalities – even the ones that had for years been electing them by popular vote.

Bill 100 is a backward step for democracy and accountability, and this is no sudden development.

Since becoming Premier in 2018, Ford, who failed in his own bid to become Toronto mayor in 2014, has been using provincial powers to exact his revenge on municipal voters and local politicians.

How Regional Government Works – and Why it Matters

The Canadian Constitution establishes only two levels of government – federal and provincial. Municipal governments exist because provincial governments create them, and the provinces have complete authority to establish, regulate, structure and restructure local government as they see fit. So Doug Ford, whose party holds a majority in the Ontario Legislature, unquestionably has the legal authority to make local government as democratic – or as undemocratic – as he chooses.

Of the 8 regional governments in Ontario, six are heavily urban and specifically designated as “regional municipalities.” In the Greater Toronto Area, there are four: Peel, York, Durham and Halton. West and south of Toronto, there are two others: Waterloo and Niagara. Muskoka and Oxford County are “district municipalities,” which, for the purposes of selecting their leadership, are treated the same as the other regional municipalities.

All eight of these regional governments are “two-tier,” meaning there is an upper-tier regional government responsible for services such as policing, regional roads, public transit, public health, paramedic services, water and wastewater, waste management, and regional planning, while the lower-tier municipalities (cities and towns) are responsible for local roads, parks, recreation, libraries, local planning, fire protection, and other community services.

To use one example, in Peel Region, where I once served as a Member of Parliament, there are three lower-tier municipalities – the Cities of Mississauga and Brampton and the Town of Caledon – together with one upper-tier government, the Regional Municipality of Peel, which is responsible for regional services for all three municipalities.

Three Decades of Expanding Local Democracy

Prior to Ford’s election in 2018, under successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments, Ontario’s regional governments had been evolving over several decades toward greater democratic accountability. Until the 1990s, the chair of each regional council was typically chosen by the locally elected regional councillors. Technically, there was no legal requirement that the chair be an elected official. In practice, however, appointing an unelected chair was rare. Indeed, the last notable example of this occurred in 1992, when Peel Region selected a former mayor who was not at the time an office holder.

In the 1997 municipal elections, Waterloo Region became the first regional municipality to adopt the direct election of its Regional Chair. The change was initiated by the Region itself and approved by the Mike Harris PC government. The Harris PCs later authorized Halton Region to follow suit for the 2000 municipal election. Years later, after Durham Region voters approved the direct election of their Regional Chair in a 2010 referendum, the Wynne Liberal government completed the necessary legislative changes in time for the 2014 municipal election.

In 2016, the Ontario Legislature amended the Municipal Act to require four remaining holdouts – York, Peel, Niagara and Muskoka – to hold direct elections for regional chair (or “district chair” in the case of Muskoka). (Oxford County, which already elected its head of council or “warden” directly, was unaffected by the change.) Although the change was imposed by Queen’s Park rather than requested by the affected municipalities – a debatable approach – it was nevertheless enacted in the spirit of giving a direct voice to voters in choosing their regional leader, replacing a process that had long been controlled by elected councillors behind closed doors.

The pattern is clear. Both PC and Liberal governments alike moved Ontario toward greater democratic accountability, first by permitting, and later by requiring, the direct election of regional chairs. By 2016, the transition was nearly complete.

Then Came Doug Ford, against the people

Perhaps it should not be surprising that Ford has shown so little regard for the traditions of local government. Before becoming Premier, his entire elected political résumé consisted of a single four-year term as a Toronto city councillor, serving during the tumultuous mayoralty of his brother, Rob Ford. It was a remarkably narrow apprenticeship from which to redesign the democratic governance of every municipality in Ontario.

Despite his “For the People” slogan, his government has spent the years since 2018 dismantling that bipartisan legacy and shifting power away from voters.

Doug Ford became premier in June 2018, just months before Ontario’s scheduled municipal elections. That summer, the Ontario Legislature was recalled for a rare emergency session to pass new legislation that, among other things, repealed the impending direct election in the holdout regions of York, Peel, Niagara and the District of Muskoka. The elections for regional chair were famously, or infamously, cancelled, even though campaigning was already underway.

While some local politicians in these regions undoubtedly welcomed the return to the old insider system of selecting their respective regional chairs, their self-serving satisfaction proved short-lived. In 2022, apparently no longer content merely to deny voters a direct voice, Ford launched an even more sweeping new power grab.

The Premier Hand-Picks the Winners

Just before the 2022 election, the Ford government’s PC majority amended the Municipal Act once again, eliminating completely the role of local councillors in selecting regional chairs in Peel, York and Niagara. For the 2022 to 2026 term, it would be Premier Ford himself, through his Minister of Municipal Affairs, who would personally appoint the chairs in these regional governments!

That arrangement clearly suited Ford. Having centralized the appointment power into his own office, he soon decided to go even further. In 2026, the Ford government passed the Better Regional Governance Act, overturning a system of direct election in Durham Region that had been used successfully in three municipal elections and, more importantly, had been approved by voters themselves (the people!) in a 2010 referendum.

Ford didn’t stop there. His 2026 legislation also reversed reforms introduced by the Harris PC government nearly three decades earlier. Direct election of regional chairs in Halton and Waterloo was eliminated as well. So much for governing “For the People.”

Even worse, Ford did more than eliminate the direct election of regional chairs. Following the precedent he set in 2022 in York, Peel and Niagara, he also removed local elected officials from the selection process altogether. Beginning immediately after the 2026 municipal elections, the appointment of every regional chair in Ontario’s upper-tier municipalities will rest with Ford himself, acting through his Minister of Municipal Affairs – including in regions where voters had been choosing their regional chair directly for decades.

Ford’s appetite for centralized power seems to know no limits. What began by denying voters a direct voice has culminated in the unprecedented concentration of appointment power in the hands of the Premier.

The Most Powerful Regional Chairs Ever – and They All Owe Their Jobs to Ford

Bill 100 goes even further. Ford has also granted his appointees the same “strong mayor” powers already extended to many municipal mayors, creating the most powerful regional chairs in Ontario’s history.

Provided they support certain Ford-designated provincial priorities, these Ford-appointed regional chairs will be able to propose and pass certain bylaws with the backing of just one-third of regional council. Conversely, they will be empowered to veto bylaws adopted by a democratic majority if, in their opinion, those bylaws conflict with Ford’s provincial priorities.

In effect, Ford has created a system in which the most powerful person in every regional municipality will no longer owe that position to the voters – or even to local elected representatives – but to the Premier himself. A mandate from Ford to pursue Ford’s priorities – and the arbitrary, Ford-style, near-dictatorial powers to impose them.

I am not alone in finding Ford’s latest power grab deeply troubling. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), which represents Ontario’s municipal governments, has condemned the changes and urged the province to repeal Bill 100, stating that “appointing regional chairs with ‘strong chair’ powers is fundamentally undemocratic… We want to keep the selection of regional chairs and county wardens local.” AMO further warned that the legislation “erodes accountability to voters, undermines the ability of local governments to reflect community needs, and risks concentrating power at the provincial level.”

Governments Change. Powers Remain.

For those who still support Doug Ford and are tempted to dismiss these changes as harmless because they trust the current government, consider this: governments change, but the powers they acquire remain.

One day, Ontario will once again elect a Liberal or NDP government. When that day comes, it will inherit every one of the centralized powers Doug Ford has accumulated. It will decide who serves as regional chair. It will determine the “provincial priorities” that justify overriding local decision-making. And it will exercise the very powers that today’s government insists are necessary.

If voters truly believe in local government, democratic accountability, and limiting the concentration of political power, they must oppose these changes now – not after someone else inherits them.

Governments change. And the question is not whether we trust today’s Premier. The question is whether we are willing to entrust these extraordinary powers to every Premier who follows.

Introducing the Next Climate Hoax

Jun 29, 2026

I came across yet another example of municipal madness recently: 18 Canadian municipalities and regional districts have officially endorsed the global Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.

Two-thirds of the municipalities are in British Columbia. Three are in Quebec. Three are in Ontario – Toronto, Ottawa, and Mississauga.

Ever heard of this “treaty”? Probably not.

The reason is simple: treaties are normally formal, legally binding agreements negotiated between governments. This “treaty” is something else entirely – a public relations ploy designed to borrow the prestige of real treaties while advancing a political campaign against fossil fuels. The not-so-small print advocates ending new oil, gas, and coal development worldwide, with a “gradual” phasing out of existing fossil fuel production, and replacing it with renewable energy through an internationally coordinated “transition.”

Ordinarily, the phrase “non-proliferation” has been paired with nuclear weapons – instruments capable of destroying entire cities, potentially ending civilization, and rendering vast swaths of the planet uninhabitable in a matter of moments.

This is a bit different. The green propagandists pushing this nonsense are using language designed to get your attention. Perhaps they are getting desperate.

“Fossil fuel non-proliferation” wasn’t a concept I had ever heard of until a little bird at Mississauga City Hall whispered it in my ear.

The vote in Mississauga, by the way, was unanimous. That means even the councillor I spoke with voted for the essentially meaningless propaganda.

Meaningless because comparing fossil fuels or hydrocarbons to nuclear weapons is fundamentally disingenuous. Oil and gas are safe sources of energy and do not pose a threat to world civilization.

So why the extreme language? Why have so many municipalities fallen for such ridiculous rhetoric?

Let me remind you of another municipal, pre-COVID-19 pandemic, fad: the climate emergency declaration hoax.

Back in 2013, activists on the Green Left had grown dissatisfied with phrases like “global warming” and “climate change.” Neither was generating sufficient urgency. Governments were not acting – at least not fast enough or dramatically enough for the movement’s most ardent supporters.

So the terminology evolved.

Suddenly we weren’t facing mere climate change. We were facing a climate emergency.

Before long, municipal climate emergency declarations spread across Canada like wildfire. Councils eagerly adopted the language. Environmental plans were rewritten. Councillors congratulated themselves for recognizing and highlighting the problem.

It all seemed harmless.

But it wasn’t.

Those declarations were mostly ignored for a while, eclipsed by a newer and far more fashionable emergency in 2020: COVID-19 (and 2021, 2022, 2023…). Yet despite those pandemic headwinds, the climate “emergency” never really went away. In many municipalities, it became the justification for millions of dollars in spending – taxpayer dollars disappearing into a fog of vaguely defined climate initiatives. The “emergency” slowly worked its way into budgets and spending decisions across virtually every municipal department.

That continued for the better part of a decade, and is still with us. A thaw in the emergency is on the horizon, however. Last month, Calgary became one of the first major Canadian cities to reverse course and rescind its climate emergency declaration. Councillors cited affordability concerns and an inability to effectively “follow the money” flowing from expenditures justified under the emergency banner.

The lesson should be obvious.

Equating fossil fuels with nuclear weapons is the same tactic. It is purposeful, outrageous, and ridiculous fear-mongering. It is language designed to shock, provoke, and create a false sense of crisis.

While the motion may be largely meaningless, it is not harmless.

First, while association alone is not proof of bad judgment, a cursory glance at the countries that have endorsed the treaty raises some red flags.

The list includes Vanuatu and Tuvalu in 2022; Tonga, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Niue, East Timor, Antigua and Barbuda, Palau, Colombia, Samoa, and Nauru in 2023; the Marshall Islands, the Bahamas, and Pakistan in 2024; and Cambodia more recently. The initiative has also been endorsed by the World Health Organization, the European Parliament, and the Vatican.

I don’t wish to insult any of these countries, but what does it say that there isn’t a single G7 nation on the list? Not one major developed economy.

And what does it say about Canadian municipalities that they are so eager to join such an anti-illustrious club?

Canada would be disproportionately harmed by any meaningful action on this “treaty” because Canada is a resource-rich nation. Implementation would restrict energy development and economic growth, increase energy costs, reduce energy security and transfer significant economic and political authority to international institutions and treaty bodies.

Also, many of the treaty’s most enthusiastic supporters produce little or no fossil fuel themselves, meaning the economic burden would fall overwhelmingly on major producing countries like Canada.

Translation: Canadians pay more, have fewer opportunities, and get a lower standard of living in the bargain.

This has to stop.

Councillors, your responsibilities are already enormous. Look after roads, sidewalks, water systems, sewers, public transit, waste collection, parks, community centres, policing, fire protection, zoning, planning, public health, and local economic development.

There is more than enough genuinely important work in your own backyard to keep you busy for a lifetime.

Resist the temptation to reach halfway around the world looking for the latest global fad to awkwardly graft onto local government because, if history is any guide, today’s seemingly harmless virtue-signalling resolution becomes tomorrow’s costly spending program.

Let’s hope Canadians don’t have to endure ten years of fossil fuel non-proliferation initiatives before some future mayor, armed with a morsel of common sense, realizes the whole thing was misguided and undertakes the gargantuan task of unwinding it all.

Affordability Over Ideology in Vancouver

Jun 09, 2026

Vancouver finally did it … and not a moment too soon!

Last month, in a major political move, current Mayor Ken Sim and Vancouver City Council began to dismantle one of the signature climate policies of the Green Left, Liberal/NDP Gregor Robertson era: the notorious ban on natural gas.

Gregor Robertson, a former NDP MLA in British Columbia, then Mayor of Vancouver (2008-2018), and now a Mark Carney Liberal MP and cabinet minister, was once the darling of the Green Left.

Unlike most Canadian municipal politicians, however, Robertson was (and still is) a Green Left true believer, not merely a virtue-signaller. It was late in his tenure as mayor, in 2016, that the Robertson-led Vancouver city council passed a collection of regulations that directly affected affordability and consumer choice. They called the framework “Energize Vancouver.”

The key feature of Energize Vancouver? Restrictions aimed at phasing out natural gas in city buildings – a policy Vancouver was among the first Canadian municipalities to adopt. Vancouver’s anti-natural gas position was notably more aggressive than any other Canadian city. The result was as predictable as it was destructive: more bureaucracy, higher construction costs, fewer consumer choices, and yet another obstacle standing between ordinary Vancouverites and affordable housing.

Specifically, the natural gas ban was enacted by By-Law 14578, part of a roughly ten-year effort, beginning in 2016, to phase out natural gas use in new commercial and large residential buildings in Vancouver. To accomplish this, Vancouver had to create its own municipal building code, a highly unusual move in a province where virtually every other municipality simply chooses to follow the less radical BC Provincial Building Code.

Banning natural gas in new builds increases housing and construction costs, strains electrical grids, reduces consumer choice, and disproportionately burdens lower- and middle-income families who rely on affordable and reliable natural gas for heating and cooking.

Robertson retired from municipal politics in 2018, but the council continued to “lean Left” for four more years.

Eventually, political winds do change – even on Canada’s “left coast” – and Ken Sim and his centre/centre-right municipal political party, ABC Vancouver, swept the left-wing council from office in the 2022 municipal election.

After an unsuccessful 2024 attempt to reverse Robertson’s anti-natural gas policies (due in part to last-minute defections within the ABC caucus), Mayor Sim tried again to repeal Robertson’s gas ban in May 2026 – this time with resounding success.

Mayor Sim introduced the repeal Motion 8 on May 13 and it was debated at the city’s Finance and Services Committee on May 20 and 21. The motion passed at council on a largely party-line 7–4 vote, with Mayor Sim’s ABC Vancouver councillors supporting the measure and councillors affiliated with green and progressive parties voting in opposition.

To understand the significance of Mayor Sim’s victory in rolling back Robertson’s natural gas restrictions, it helps to look at the language City Council itself used to justify the move. The motion was bluntly titled “Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Housing Affordability Through Alignment with the Provincial Building Code” – a striking admission from a city long known for layering costly climate regulations onto housing construction.

The motion read like an indictment of Vancouver’s own policy failures. Council acknowledged that Vancouver is “among the most unaffordable housing markets in the world,” while also admitting the city remains the only municipality in British Columbia with its own standalone building code. Industry stakeholders warned that “limiting options for water heating will increase costs to residents and hurt affordability,” and council further recognized that municipal regulations should not “unnecessarily contribute to the cost of delivering housing.” In other words, even Vancouver City Council could no longer ignore the growing reality that ideological climate policies were colliding head-on with economic common sense.

The motion then directed city staff to “pause the Energize Vancouver By-law implementation through non-enforcement as a specific means of addressing affordability in the city in advance of the review by staff, and inform strata owned buildings of this change as soon as possible” and further directed staff to “bring back a bylaw repeal report for By-Law No. 14578, to align with baseline provincial standards and restore the ability of Vancouverites to choose a hot water heater replacement that best suits their needs.”

This action effectively brings an end to the Gregor Robertson-era natural gas ban, which had been gradually phased in since 2016. A victory for common sense and for energy affordability in Vancouver – finally!

Congratulations to Mayor Sim and ABC Vancouver for having the courage and tenacity to stand up to green extremists and their allies at Vancouver City Hall.

Vancouver voters should re-elect Mayor Sim and his ABC coalition, and not let the Green Left regain power.

And municipal leaders of Canada, take note!

This is what real policy change looks like: repealing harmful policies outright when they are driving up costs and making life harder for ordinary residents.

The lesson is simple: focus on affordability and, where the votes exist, repeal failed policies rather than merely amending them or tinkering around the edges. And while you’re at it, end the virtue-signalling too.

When Green Left politicians seize political power, they often prioritize ideological climate activism over economic growth, consumer choice, and the everyday concerns of ordinary people.

“Energize Vancouver” should never have become Vancouver’s official policy in the first place. Now that its knee-jerk, and potentially disastrous, anti-natural gas agenda has been rolled back, voters should be wary of those seeking to revive similarly reckless, costly, and irresponsible policies.

Is the Climate “Emergency” Over, Already?

May 31, 2026

Once again, Calgary City Council is ahead of the curve. From what I can tell, it’s the first Canadian municipality to delve into the real meaning and consequences of its climate emergency declaration.

Like a teacher playing favourites, I’m going to single out the city of Calgary once again, this time for forging a path and doing the right thing – or at least appearing to want to do the right thing.

With a new mayor and some new councillors, things are really looking up in Calgary. And Municipal Watch hopes other cities and towns in Canada are taking notice.

What issue am I talking about?

Five years after declaring a “climate emergency,” Calgary’s current city council is looking at possibly… maybe… undoing the policy.

One of the two motions on the subject was put forward by Andre Chabot, a six-term councillor who points out that using the term “climate emergency” is “largely symbolic” but not harmless because it leads to significant expenditures. In other words, it’s costly – to taxpayers! – to virtue signal in this way.

Let’s face it: when the previous council passed this declaration in 2021, it wanted to appear to care about an issue that was, at the time, higher on Canadians’ list of priorities. But that was before affordability and trade issues reshaped the political landscape and pushed nearly every other issue aside.

Credit to Chabot for including a full audit of all climate-related spending in his motion. With a $26 million budget, the climate and environment department is not exactly operating on chump change.

But that specific department’s spending allotment is just a fraction of the approximately $214 million that Chabot says the city is spending on climate-related line items this year.

There’s little doubt that many “embedded” climate costs are, in fact, “hidden.”

This is Councillor Chabot’s second attempt to bring this issue to the fore. In September of 2025, he and only three other members of council voted for a similar motion to rescind the emergency declaration. Back then, the motion was sponsored by then-Councillor Sonya Sharp (who ran for Mayor a month later but lost narrowly to current Mayor Jeromy Farkas).

Back in 2021, Calgary Council voted overwhelmingly (13-2) in support of calling climate change an “emergency,” but Sharp herself was one of the councillors who changed her mind. She initially viewed it as a harmless gesture (aka virtue-signalling), but eventually concluded that it simply created “open-ended spending obligations without a clear return.”

Yep, open up the chequebook and call it climate change investment. Funny how green money always seems to grow on someone else’s tree!

The political atmosphere was already heating up ahead of the mayoral campaign, though, and Sharp quickly became the target of accusations of climate “denialism” and the usual assortment of green activist name-calling.

One particularly solid councillor of the common-sense variety, Dan McLean, invoked the definition of the word “emergency”: a “sudden and temporary event that requires urgent, coordinated action to protect people, property, and the environment.” When you look at it, that way, he concluded that “climate change does not qualify.”

“It’s a long-term, global challenge that must be addressed through steady, responsible decisions, largely by other orders of government,” he added. Well, thank you, Councillor McLean, for stating that so simply. Changing the temperature of the planet is under the purview of the federal government!

Have these hundreds of millions of dollars produced any “real, tangible results?”

Somewhat telling was the response by a member of city staff when asked about the possible repercussions of eliminating climate emergency language from city documents and by-laws. City staff pointed out, as one would expect, that much funding from other levels of government (namely federal) is dependent on these performative climate emergency declarations. The city’s bureaucrats are concerned that the Carney Liberal green funding taps will be turned off. Leveraging pots of cash from other sources is, after all, a significant part of their job descriptions.

First-term councillor Landon Johnston put forward his own motion, which also calls for the scrapping of climate emergency declaration references. His motion emphasizes the insidious nature of this phrase which gets mentioned in most, if not all, of the city’s plans, communications, and websites.

Johnston looked into the city staff contention that it was necessary to keep the language intact in order for the city to leverage pots of federal green cash. He found that none of the funding programs were tied to the emergency declarations, but rather to the city’s overall environmental protection plans. In other words, Calgary could continue with practical measures like mitigation and adaptation, without risking green Liberal largesse.

Councillor Chabot considers the two motions as complementary and stressed that both seek to focus on the aspects that are “measurable and quantifiable”; that is, spending that makes sense and which improves quality of life, with direct benefit to Calgarians versus unrealistic, bureaucratic practices that don’t work and negatively affect the lives of ordinary citizens.

“Climate change isn’t something we can do as a city,” said Councillor Chabot, suggesting instead that reducing airborne pollutants, pursuing adaptation and mitigation measures, and cutting bureaucratic climate red tape (on housing policy, for example) would go much further toward improving life for Calgarians in the long run.

As a city, creating environmental standards is acceptable, but imposing climate policy restrictions and red tape on ordinary citizens is “overreach,” Chabot said. “At a municipal level, we have core responsibilities that are delegated by other levels of government to fulfil.”

Well said. When cities spend time and money embedding meaningless climate-emergency language into every aspect of their work, intricately woven and difficult-to-track spending often follows. And it takes away from the time, funds and commitment they should be spending in their own backyards – literally.

The two motions will be debated at a future Calgary City Council meeting. Let’s hope that happens soon and that it spurs other municipalities to begin examining their own not-so-harmless, not-so-urgent, climate “emergency” declarations.

Will Calgary be the First to Roll Back the Climate Emergency?

May 22, 2026

More great news coming from the City of Calgary!

In recent months, Calgary led the charge against the divisive and unCanadian “flying of foreign flags” with its own ban on this dodgy practice.

Now it seems that some newly elected municipal councillors in Calgary have initiated the process to repeal Calgary’s 2021 climate emergency declaration.

Climate emergency declaration? What is that?

For those old enough to remember politics before the Covid-19 pandemic, the green left and other virtue-signallers got swept away in the euphoria of having their local municipality declare that there was a legitimate “climate emergency” and that something had to be done immediately.

The climate declaration panic started in Australia and then swept the “democratic” world, especially in North America and Europe. Here is what I wrote about it last year (January 21, 2025) in Alarmism, Australia & (Tony) Abbott, which can be found on the Municipal Watch website:

Climate emergencies were also declared throughout the Province of Quebec in 2018, with climate change emergency debates spreading to council chambers across most cities and towns in English Canada in 2019. The result: a veritable tsunami of climate emergency declarations!
Did mainstream Canadian political opinion suddenly lurch dramatically leftward in 2019, so far left that middle-class awareness of climate change led, overnight, to a “climate crisis”? Did the milquetoast municipal political class of hundreds of Canadian municipalities suddenly find radical left green religion? Uh, no.
The green left activists who impressively orchestrated dozens, and then hundreds, of climate emergency declarations across Canada in 2019 soon discovered that the same bandwagonism that prompted lemming-like municipal politicians in this country to declare “climate emergencies” quickly reduced these declarations to a pathetic status of empty virtue-signalling symbolism.
Following the hundreds of 2018 and 2019 municipal climate emergency declarations, there was virtually no follow-up action – anywhere – by these municipal councils. Why not? No doubt municipal leaders were distracted for quite a while by the COVID-19 outbreak and, after that, a multitude of other pressing issues. But quite a lot of time passed, and still nothing happened. No new policies, no sense of urgency. And so the climate emergency deception became apparent to those paying attention.
Perhaps it wasn’t a true emergency after all.
From 2016 to 2019, climate emergency declarations started out as a radical far-left green strategy, then became a very mainstream concept. And when nothing was done about them, these same declarations revealed the climate “crisis” to be merely the old wines of “global warming” and “climate change” in a new bottle.
In short, there was no climate emergency back in 2019. And there isn’t one today. “

Five years after its 2021 “climate emergency” declaration, Calgary’s current city council is looking at possibly… maybe… scrapping the policy.

With a new mayor and some new councillors, things are really looking up in Calgary. And Municipal Watch hopes that other cities and towns in Canada are taking notice.

One of two motions calling for the city’s climate emergency declaration to be rescinded was announced in April by Andre Chabot, a six-term councillor who points out that using the term “climate emergency” is “largely symbolic” but not harmless in that it leads to significant expenditures.

In other words, it’s costly – to taxpayers! – to virtue signal in this way.

Credit to Councillor Chabot for including a full audit of all climate-related spending in his motion. With a $26 million budget, the climate and environment department is not exactly operating on chump change.

“Climate change isn’t something we can do as a city,” said Councillor Chabot. He added that reducing airborne pollutants, pursuing practical adaptation and mitigation measures, and cutting bureaucratic climate red tape (in housing policy, for example) would go much further toward improving life for Calgarians in the long run.

Chabot’s motion and a related motion by Councillor Landon Johnston will be debated at a future Calgary City Council meeting. Let’s hope it happens soon and that it spurs other municipalities to start looking into their own not-so-harmless, not-so-urgent, climate “emergency” declarations.

Why Mark Carney’s Green Extremism Matters to Your Municipality (and YOU)

Apr 27, 2026

Mark Carney’s carefully cultivated image as a pragmatic, non-ideological banker continues to shape public perception in Canada. Many commentators are now applauding him as some sort of sensible “conservative.” But this image collapses under even modest scrutiny.

The real Mark Carney is not a cautious moderate. Before entering electoral politics, Carney was one of the most prominent and persistent global advocates of Net Zero, a radical ideology that is currently crushing Canada through higher energy costs, reduced competitiveness, and increased dependence on foreign supply chains dominated by China.

Carney’s career trajectory demonstrates what his “green” obsessions look like in practice.

As United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance from 2019 – 2025, Carney was an active driver of the global Net Zero agenda. After serving as Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 – 2020 – where he raised eyebrows with inappropriate left-leaning forays into politics, praising Greta Thunberg and criticizing Brexit – he was appointed, in 2020, advisor to the UK government on climate finance ahead of COP26, where he helped solidify international commitments to Net Zero.

At the same time, Carney joined Brookfield Asset Management as Vice Chair and Head of ESG and Impact Investing, a position explicitly tied to advancing environmental priorities and monetizing the transition he was helping push on governments around the world.

Here in Canada, Carney’s proximity to the Trudeau Liberals intersected with climate policy: he was an advisor to Justin Trudeau during Covid-19, at a time when Carney was telling anyone who would listen that the pandemic “offers us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to enact what he called a “green recovery.” He also chaired the Liberal Party’s 2024 Task Force on Economic Growth within a government committed to aggressive Net Zero targets.

Since becoming Prime Minister in 2025, Mark Carney has worked to make his climate obsession less obvious. But he is still the same old green ideologue and so, as Prime Minister, he has retained key elements of the Trudeau climate superstructure.

Before last year’s election, when Liberal strategists finally recognized that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s pledge to repeal the Trudeau-era carbon tax was resonating with voters, Carney responded by removing the consumer-facing component, while doubling down on the industrial carbon tax.

The costs of the carbon tax didn’t disappear – they simply moved upstream. That is to say that businesses still had to absorb higher costs and those costs are passed through in the prices of goods and services. The carbon tax is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, obscuring the true responsibility and making it less likely voters will pin the blame on his government for the higher grocery bills, more expensive housing, pricier transportation, and more.

Carney’s so-called “repeal” of the carbon tax was a classic Liberal bait and switch manoeuvre.

Carney has done much the same more recently in scrapping the Electric Vehicle (EV) mandate and replacing it with a 75% tailpipe emissions reduction target by 2035, jumping to 90% by 2040.

This smokescreen obscures the radical green reality. While the focus has shifted toward automakers rather than consumers – keeping explicit EV mandates off the books – the effects will still be felt by Canadians through rising prices and a narrowing range of choices.

Another bait and switch by climate ideologue Carney.

Keeping Trudeau’s environmentalist agenda has come at a steep cost to our economy: billions of dollars in federal and provincial spending on “green” initiatives, energy prices rising faster than incomes, growing “energy poverty,” food inflation, and grid strains related to our increasing reliance on so-called “renewable” energy.

Carney’s track record reveals a relentless push for Net Zero policies that prioritize ideology over affordability, stability, and opportunity. When the Prime Minister’s top priority continues to be Net Zero – embedding climate targets into every aspect of decision-making – those responsible for infrastructure, lending, and long-term planning (like city councillors!) intrinsically understand their new marching orders.

In order to align with the Trudeau and now Carney governments’ Net Zero targets and tied funding, grants, municipalities (which rely heavily on federal and provincial funding) have begun aligning their plans to qualify for a better chance at scoring federal government money.

To add extra financial pressure, banks, pension funds, and insurers – also influenced by the very global Net Zero frameworks Carney helped champion – favour projects that meet climate criteria. Municipalities, seeking financing for infrastructure or development, adjust their own policies to remain “fundable.”

To make matters worse, simple peer pressure is part of the equation. Municipal networks, planning associations, and international groups (like FCM or ICLEI) promote Net Zero targets as best practices. Once a critical mass of cities adopts them, others follow to avoid being seen as out of step.

In summary, Carney’s influence – both before he became PM and now – has helped define the “rules of the game” at the global and financial level – and municipalities end up playing by those rules.

That’s why Net Zero policies can appear to emerge “naturally” from municipalities, even when the underlying logic, language, and ideology began elsewhere. And when local politicians favour following harmful and expensive globalist policies over the interests of their local residents, the biggest loser is, well, YOU.