City of Calgary surveys provincial parties on key municipal issues ahead of provincial election

The City of Calgary has launched a website ahead of the spring provincial election that's intended to keep the city's key issues top of mind for both voters and the political parties vying to control the provincial legislature.

Before federal and provincial elections, the city uses YYC Matters to ask political parties for their positions on issues that affect Calgarians, from keeping the commitment to the Green Line LRT and promoting tourism in Calgary to funding affordable housing and flood mitigation.

"Calgary has long been the economic engine for Alberta and Canada. For Calgary's growth to continue and it must continue we need support from the province to create a new future and compete in a modern, global economy," the YYC Matters websitesays.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says that for the provincial election, the website is collecting information on the parties' positions, organized into four categories:

• How partiesplan to honour commitments to Calgarians.
• How they intend to support Calgarians.
• How they plan to promote economic recovery.
• What they'll do to close Calgary's infrastructure gap.

Although it will post the parties' responses on the YYC Matters website, Nenshi says the city will not endorse any particular party or encourage people to vote for or against anyone.

"We've stayed away from partisanship but we're not staying away from saying 'XYZ Party will not fund the Springbank Dry Dam,' and I think Calgarians need to know that," he said.

Nenshi said he hopes the parties take the city's survey seriously.

"This is more than a third of the population of the province. This is 28 seats. And it is, in fact, unbelievably important work to almost 1 million people. So I apologize in advance to the party leaders. It is some survey. You're not going to be able to do it in five minutes."

The city wants answers from the political parties on their positions by April 1.