Surprise! Not everybody supports
Mayor Nenshi. His Worship is either naive or delusional to think that he has
100% approval. In light of a secretly taped presentation to a private meeting
of developers Cal Wenzel of Shane Homes had the audacity to express his opinion
and dislike of some current elected officials. How dare he, in a democratic
city be able to say that he does not approve of the way that business is
conducted at City Hall?
Mr. Wenzel , in the tape is seen
and heard saying that he and other developers made donations amounting to $1.1 million to the Manning Centre for
Democracy. This money is apparently is being used to educate prospective
candidates in the next municipal election. From the known facts I do not
believe that such contributions contravene any municipal electoral laws. There
is no difference to donations made to the Pembina Institute, Tides, or the
Fraser Institute or any other organization which supports political or activist
causes.
So far as we know there is no
such thing as a slate for the next municipal election. What we know is that the
Mayor and other members of Council belong to Civic Camp, a community activist
group. If the developers group broke any laws, shouldn’t we also investigate
the involvement of Civic Camp, the Sierra Club and other leftist organizations
who supplied volunteers to the Mayor’s, and other Aldermanic campaigns? It is a
myth to believe that there is no party politics at city hall. If not we should
at least recognize that there exist some form of coalition.
While there have been extensive
coverage of the ‘secret tape’, the media has never covered the involvement of
any other ‘leftist’ groups in the City. Would the media consider secret tapes
of some Aldermen meetings?
While we can sympathize with a
media industry in constant search for the next controversial issue, there is
one point missing in all the reports. This tape is very reminiscent of a “Mitt
Romney- 47% moment’. However the statement made in both these recordings may
have been in poor taste or ill timed, but they were both truthful in fact and
content.
There has not been any outrage of
the covert recording, by some body that Mr. Wenzel obviously trusted, but that is
typical of a leftist reaction. Let us remember that when the Mayor had his
fundraiser behind closed doors there was no ‘right wing’ nut making any
recording. It seems that taping other people’s conversation is more common on
the left than on the right.
If there were any laws broken, it
deserves the full attention of the Minister of Municipal Affairs; otherwise it
is purely a political issue. Ironically
it is rumoured that the Labour Unions want an investigation, this coming from a
group that constantly is involved in electoral campaigns either covertly or
openly by funding certain candidates. While the whole saga makes for good copy
it may just be another hypocritical outrage by a Mayor who has failed to be
transparent as he promised.
Marcel Latouche
