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Public approval of Calgary’s mayor and council has fallen beyond record lows at the end of 2023, according to a new survey.
Between June 13 and 19, 2024, ThinkHQ conducted an online survey of 1,114 adults living across Calgary and found that approval of the mayor and councilors has reached an all-time low.
“For as long as there have been municipal polls in Calgary, this would be the low water mark. I think this is very indicative of the mood in Calgary now,” said Marc Henry, president of ThinkHQ.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek has a 26 percent approval rating compared to 64 percent disapproval in December.
Almost half (48 percent) of voters say they “strongly disapprove” of the mayor, compared to just seven percent who report “strong” approval.
Overall, city councilors also got increasingly negative ratings, with 33 per cent saying they approved of their councilor compared to 47 per cent in December.
“They haven’t paid attention to the basic services in Calgary and so I’m not pleased with them,” said Calgarian Mayor Gord, who added that he was also disappointed with the decision to pass the second bylaw -zoning.
Calgarian Arti Dutt said she is also disappointed with the mayor and council.
“I haven’t seen anything significant happen, any significant changes,” he said.
ThinkHQ invited a sample, chosen at random, to reflect the gender, age and region of Calgary’s population, according to Stats Canada.
The margin of error for a similar random sample based on a probability of this size is +/- 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Demographics
Men tend to offer harsher ratings of the mayor than women, and younger people tend to be less critical, with those aged 55 or over and those in the highest household income group giving the assessments most negative of the mayor.
Disapproval of the mayor is less intense in the inner city.
Councilor performance ratings are fairly consistent across demographics.
Men tend to be more negative about their councilors than women and residents in new and suburban communities provided less negative ratings of their councillors.
Times of crisis
A water crisis of a different kind 11 years ago had a different effect.
In 2013, mayor Naheed Nenshi’s approval rating rose significantly during the floods.
“There is a tendency in times of crisis for people to rally around a leader. Gondek doesn’t see any of that kind of five and I suspect that he has to do more with the nature of the problem,” he said. Henry.
The flood was a natural disaster.
Infrastructure is responsible for the water supply crisis.
The mayor says this is also a turbulent time for Calgarians.
“Costs have gone up significantly. Inflation continues to rise. We’ve had more people moving into our city than we’ve ever seen before or anticipated. And with that comes an affordability squeeze,” Gondek said. .
“We understand that that is difficult for everyone. We are trying to do the best we can to address those difficulties. We are trying to partner with the other orders of the government to make sure they realize that we cannot do this on our own.”
Calgary’s next municipal election is scheduled to take place on October 20, 2025.
“If these numbers hold, I believe the mayor would have a very difficult time being re-elected if he chose to run,” said Henry.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source link https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/approval-for-calgary-s-mayor-and-council-sinks-to-all-time-low-amid-water-crisis-1.6940902
