Posted by I really don’t like the mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi or his “purpleness” as he likes to portray himself. Nenshi is a liberal by any definition of the word. His education and work history is peppered with a focus on public policy and non-profit organisations; he has the CV of a career political animal all the way from his undergraduate days as president of the Student’s Union at the University of Calgary. His attitude reeks of liberal smugness and moral superiority which is made worse with his arrogant demeanor as he constantly makes statements suggesting he is the smartest guy in the room and everyone else is an idiot. I think he gets away with it because his pudgy purpleness brings up images of cute and harmless Barney the dinosaur and he is quick to tweet apologies for virtually every politically incorrect faux pas as is required in the age of liberal forgiveness for everything. Being a minority and muslim probably helps as well because even in redneck Calgary, critics are loathe to be too harsh let they be accused of racism or islamophobia. But let us be very clear. He is an over-educated liberal elitist with the accompanying baggage of social engineering beliefs that makes him more at home in Toronto; he is definitely not a man of the people like Ralph Klein was despite the very good act he puts on.
Demographics are important, especially in a democracy. In the United States, the Democrats are still stunned that they lost because angry white males are supposed to be becoming a minority as the “browning” of America (Obama said it himself in his farewell address) is an inexorable trend. Quebec separation is pretty much impossible now because “pure laine Québécois” no longer have the majority needed and the vast majority of the “brown” immigrants do not support independence.
That Calgary could vote in a brown muslim mayor and Alberta could vote in the socialist NDP is a reflection of the changing demographics. During past oil booms, the streets of Calgary were filled with license plates from Saskatchewan and the oilfields echoed with the drawls of Newfies and other Atlantic Canadians. One thing I noticed this time around (before the bust of the past two years) was the prevalence of Ontario, B.C. and even Quebec license plates. Economic refugees from the failed policies of their socialist provincial governments. You could hear the curses of “Tabernac!” coming from every construction site.
In 1950, the population of Saskatchewan and Alberta were both about a million each. More than half a century later, the population of Saskatchewan is still a million while Alberta is over four million. This province was built by farm boys from the rest of the prairies and fishermen from the east coast. Calgary may have gotten bigger in the past but it was on the back of people that were culturally similar. No matter how educated and well travelled I have become, deep down inside there still beats the heart of a simple redneck. This time around though, Alberta got economic refugees from the liberal heartland of central Canada and the left coast. The head of alumni affairs from my alma mater, McGill in Montréal told me during our breakfast meeting a few years back that it was easy to do fund raising in Calgary because nobody was from here and so many had come from the East. I was a little upset by that comment as I explained that I happened to be a born and raised Calgary redneck and he quickly backtracked. This happens to me a lot. I met a retired jewish lawyer from New York in Miami last year. He waxed eloquently on and on and even slipped into latin once or twice and was so happy to see me the second time I went because to Miami because, “it’s impossible to have a decent intelligent conversation down here”. I guess there’s enough cosmopolitan limousine liberal in me to cover my baser country hick tendencies.
That’s why I’m surprised (in a pleasant way) to see a politician that is stepping up to the plate in a way we don’t often see. Because of the redrawing of district boundaries for the last election, Michelle Rempel, MP for Calgary Nose Hill does not represent me even though her predecessor, Diane Ablonczy’s constituency office was literally across the street from my home. Rempel first appeared on my radar in December when she delivered a ten minute heart-felt speech in the House of Commons about how Calgary had the highest unemployment rate in the country and how so many people were suffering and that the liberal government was doing nothing to help them. She likened the federal government’s treatment of Alberta to “a fart in the room that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge.” and pointed out that Liberal MPs laughing while she was speaking were essentially laughing at her constituents. I can truly relate because I am no stranger to eastern smugness and superiority having gone to school out there.
But the moronic eco-hippy head of the Green Party, Elizabeth May doesn’t care about people losing their jobs and homes. To her, the bigger issue was, “I hate to interrupt my friend in her speech, but I heard her say a word that I know is distinctly unparliamentary, and I think she may want to withdraw it… The word was f-a-r-t.” Yes, she actually spelled it out letter-by-letter like she was at a spelling bee.
Rempel went off the rails. Her response was, “Is my colleague actually serious? I just gave an impassioned speech about supporting Alberta jobs, and that is what the leader of a political party stands and says? No, I do not withdraw it.” Good for you girl. And I mean that in a very admiring and respectful way even though some politically correct liberal feminist will likely construe it as a demeaning sexist comment.
Speaking of which brings us to the second time Rempel has been in the press. This week Rempel tweeted about the problem with the allocation of property tax to suburban business owners and that the municipal government should re-think what they’re doing. As a simple explanation, Calgary’s property tax system is based upon how much the city wants to raise and split by residential and non-residential. Say the city needs $1 million and there is $100 million appraised value of property in total so you pay 1% of the appraised value of your home. But the value of downtown commercial property in Calgary has plummeted by 16% as assessed value has declined more than $4bn amid vacancy rates soaring to over 25%. To balance the pool, that means that those suburban non-residential taxes (i.e. small businesses outside the downtown core) are likely to see a large and sometimes huge increase in tax.
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/over-1500-a-month-just-bang-gone-small-businesses-face-hefty-bills-in-calgary-property-tax-shuffle
This was what Rempel was tweeting about. His holiness (ooops sorry, I’ve worked out the code that Nenshi’s egomaniac narcissistic brain is really thinking when we use his pithy catch-phrase his purpleness) took offense and said to reporters, “I’m happy to have her wade in. I’m happy to have her help if she wants to help, but it’s sort of helpful if she actually knows what she’s talking about first… She just didn’t understand what was going on… Apparently math is challenging, but hopefully she’ll figure that out.” If you watch the video, you can also see the non-verbal and verbal inflections and tone that oozes with smug self-satisfaction and condescension.
Rempel, who has a degree in economics tweeted a link to a Calgary Herald story with Nenshi’s comments to which she adds, “Wherein Nenshi mansplains to me, and small business owners in Calgary, that ‘math is hard'”. Being the consummate politically correct liberal animal that he is, Nenshi tweeted back and half-apologized that he was sorry that what he said “came off as sexist… I would have said the same thing to men in political discourse.” In other words, he wasn’t really apologizing; he was just going through the motions of a fake apology because everyone misconstrued what he said as being sexist. This is Rempel’s response:
Nenshi’s pathetic whining and lamentations to reporters the next day was, “She spent hours tweeting and re-tweeting the most vicious personal attacks and insults against me… I’ve never seen a politician in Canada do anything like that before — you know, calling me an a-hole, calling me pathetic — for hours … It’s odd behaviour, so clearly she’s not interested in actually talking about the issue with me.”
Oh boo hoo Nenshi. To be clear, it takes two to tango and you always wants to have the last word. This is also not the first time you’ve gotten into tweet wars and internet flames and according to you, its always the other guys fault because you are always so open and reasonable. I think Nenshi can probably can give Trump a run for his money for his inability to put his phone down and stop tweeting the first inane sarcastic thing that comes to his mind. You’ve never seen a politician in Canada do anything like this before? I have… Oh wait… it’s you! Calling the CEO of Uber a dick… actually calling everyone at Uber a dick… while riding in a Uber registered car… and saying the rest of us need to be protected from Uber for our own good which is why you were so against allowing them to operate in Calgary… what a hypocritic.
P.S. Nenshi… you’ve been a politician too long and have been drinking too much of your own kool-aid and actual believe your own press that you’re the best mayor in the world… because in reality you actually are an arrogant conceited a-hole and more people should call you out on it. Maybe we should start calling you the “purple a-hole”… uggh… the imagery of that… maybe I’ll stick with a-hole.
Update (24 January 2017): City council approved a motion to cap the tax increase for non-residential property owners (ie, small businesses) at 5%. The cap will result in the city having to use $45m of its dwindling reserve fund and is a number three times higher than that originally proposed in the November budget. I guess Michelle Rempel was right and the math wasn’t really that hard after all. Meanwhile, this smug and arrogant photo taken of his purple-pudginess at the press conference yesterday confirms everything I have said previously. All that is missing is the caption, “I have bribed you with your own money temporarily because this is an election year so please don’t forget to vote me back in so I can jack up your taxes next year after I’m re-elected.” The sad truth is that he probably will win given there are still no viable candidates opposing him at this point in time. I guess the old adage is still valid today, “you get the government you deserve.”
