There’s a grown-up Jeromy Farkas now. He might be formidable
Jeromy Farkas might run for mayor again. “I wouldn’t close the door to it,” says the former councillor and second-place finisher to Jyoti Gondek in 2021.
He’ll decide sometime next year, he says, but for now he offers an instant Farkas classic.
“It’s their job to do what they’ve got to do to serve their owners, but at the minimum I would have expected Calgary city council to be serving the taxpayers that they’re supposed to report to.”
Farkas was critical of the agreement struck in 2019 with Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., while allowing it had some good points.
Farkas notes that in 2017, Scotiabank paid $800 million for naming rights to the Maple Leafs’ rink in Toronto.
The only mention of any such naming benefit to Calgary is a portion of a $17-million annual payment by the Flames for naming and other matters.
“I’m not going to suggest that Calgary, as a smaller hockey market, would be able to get that much money,” Farkas says.
“But that said, it’s still a significant chunk of change, and to have that money just going straight into the pocket of the Flames, I think rubs taxpayers the wrong way, especially now that we’re on the hook for an astounding 94 per cent of the upfront cost, for really zero per cent of the revenue.”
Farkas ran in 2021 with a reputation as a council disrupter and ardent defender of the taxpayer dollar. Gondek, the progressive candidate, won 176,000 votes to his 116,000.
He took the loss hard, he says, but resolved to learn and “be better, not bitter.”
“I’ve turned down opportunities for that political comeback because I want to be better the next time I go, if I go.
“It’s just really hard right now, kind of feeling politically homeless as a more old-school Progressive Conservative, very liberal, live-and-let-live on social issues, but also thinking that we need to spend the right amount of money on the right things.”
Jeromy Farkas, a progressive? That sure didn’t come out in the 2021 campaign.
“I tried to stick to a safe script and it didn’t serve me well, and I don’t think it served the voters well, either,” he says.
“Part of it was about having the courage to share more about myself and not just be a one-dimensional figure.
“I had a lot of folks around me that said, ‘Hey, don’t talk about you being a member of the LGBTQ community, because all it will do is alienate voters.’
“One of the biggest regrets I have is staying silent about that, when I really should have — and do now, to the extent that I can — champion the fact that Calgary is a place that works best when it celebrates all of us.”
The civic election set for next October could shape up as a 2021 rerun. Jeff Davison, the former alderman who finished third in that race, confirms that he still intends to run. He and Farkas could compete with Gondek once again.
Anti-Gondek Coun. Sonya Sharpe is clearly interested, although unconfirmed. Conservatives could once again split their own vote — unless Farkas starts showing progressive stripes.
A lot of people would find this cynical. I don’t see Farkas that way.
In 2021 he was a green candidate that took some bad advice from people who promptly ditched him after he lost.
There’s a grown-up Jeromy Farkas now. He might be formidable.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald