While it was interesting to say the least to see Monday night that the same polling company that polled Brent Butt as being not liked by 10 per cent of this province's population – Mainstreet – got the Calgary municipal election wrong, it shouldn't have been terribly surprising.
Monday, Calgary reelected Naheed Nenshi to his third term in office as mayor. He is a brand, no doubt, but that brand appears genuine even after some trying years. His gregarious, populist nature promotes that brand as someone who is happy and yet has some lines in the sand that you can't cross.
One of those lines is racism, something which rears its ugly head too often in Western Canada, but that's another column. But the other line that he took that he got some of the most negative feedback from was from the NHL and the Calgary Flames.
The city, led by Nenshi, proposed a three way split between the province, the city and the Flames for a $555 million area. The Flames' parent company – CESC – had their dreams about a $890 million project (in 2015 dollars) that included a football field, fieldhouse and the NHL teams' new rink on the west side of downtown.
CESC would have paid more into it in theory, but also assumed their $275 million contribution would be similar to pre-paying rent for 35 years. Which is an odd way to look at someone paying over two-thirds of your house for you, but anyway.
A couple of weeks ago the Flames even brought in NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to tut-tut things, and tell people not-so-cryptically that the Flames need a new arena, to replace the 1988-built Saddledome.
“They’re not moving this season, but I don’t know how long they can hang on,” said Bettman Sept. 27 when he was in Calgary, according to the Calgary Herald. “This isn’t an imminent issue, but it’s something that’s coming around the bend at some point. I’m not a soothsayer, and I’m not going to prognosticate other than to say the situation will continue to deteriorate.”
Nenshi's position on the issue wasn't vague. No one who voted in the election – and for a municipal election, turnout was robust — was unsure of his position. Edmonton's election where they reelected Don Iveson there was 31.5 per cent turnout. Calgary officials indicated they were at 58 per cent. Clearly, the people of Calgary have spoken, and it wasn't in favour of handing over a blank cheuqe to CESC for a stadium/fieldhouse/arena.
After the ballots were counted, Nenshi had 51.4 per cent support to main challenger Bill Smith's 43.7 per cent.
Let's get back to the polling. Mainstreet was wrong, with company president Quito Maggi admitting as much on Twitter. The idea that Mainstreet's claim on Friday of 47 per cent support for the United Conservative Party-backed Smith and Nenshi's 36 per cent support among decided voters was absolutely wrong. It's slightly reminiscent of the Trump-Clinton debacle among pollsters in the American election of 2016 but only in that the poling company was wrong.
It couldn't have been more wrong.
The fact is, we rely too much on what polls tell us. And maybe on this occasion, the polls inspired more people to come out to defeat Smith realizing exactly what was at stake – the likelihood of a city that would have money for new stadiums but not infrastructure repair or road maintenence.
Calgarians had their heads on straight for this election campaign. Mainstreet? Not so much.
