Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott said he would be bringing a future Notice of Motion forward to establish a system to show the voting records of city councillors in an easy-to-access format.

His comments came during a discussion on Council Services Committee recommendations from the Ward Boundary Commission report at the January 28 Regular Meeting of Council. The item and the recommendations were pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion.

A variety of the proposed changes were not approved by the committee, including the creation of an easy-to-access online system that provided a clear voting record of each Calgary city councillor, which also allowed for a brief rationale. Also not approved was a proposed review of political parties’ representational and organizational impact on the 2025 municipal election.

Some of the recommendations were merged with ongoing work that city administration was doing in other areas.

Walcott voted in favour of the revised recommendations but warned his colleagues he would be preparing a Notice of Motion around the publishing of voting records.

“I’ve heard so many of you stand in this room and actually misquote your own voting record,” he said.

“To see that one of the recommendations, along with a simple transparency of establishing a digital voting record that’s easily accessible by the public, that’s not written by yourself, manufactured and twisted to like suit your own logic, which is important…

“A how did you vote record established on the city website is a really baseline important thing, especially given the repeated conversations we have all had about the inaccessibility of tracking down the history of our votes.”

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said it all ends up being a much larger role for administration into councillor offices.

“We got elected to represent our wards. We’re leaders. We’re supposed to be able to handle and make decisions on our own, whether it’s… a website that shows your voting record, which I have done, whether it’s onboarding or off boarding city councillors,” he said.

“I just see this as just another layer of bureaucracy. A lot of time, energy and money, I think, that has been wasted.”

Rationale is important: Coun. Chabot

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said that she looks forward to seeing Walcott’s motion.

“If people want to see voting records, all they got to do is go to people’s websites,” she said.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who chairs the Council Services Committee said that sometimes a simple yes or no on a vote doesn’t provide the whole picture.

Walcott had referenced explanations and their “manufactured and twisted” to suit one’s logic, and Chabot said to have to do that for every vote is a lot of resources.

“Whilst it may be a good tool to utilize, for people to know yes or no if you voted for something, qualifying or those yes or no’s, I think is equally as important,” he said.

“I don’t know that I want to put all those resources to fully quantify every yes or no answer that every member of council gives.”

Councillors also did not approve a recommendation to create a clean transfer of information for newly elected councillors. That would include impartial reference materials for the status of ongoing constituent issues, major projects and internal and external contacts.

Further, they didn’t approve a recommendation for a review of training for council on governance, financial stewardship, municipal legislation and constituency office leadership.

“There was, I guess, some reluctance on the willingness to share some of that information, especially from somebody who’s running and potentially being challenged,” said Chabot.

“Also, there was talk about how somebody who’s going out willingly could then provide that information, and there was arguments as to whether or not this participatory process would actually result in in a positive outcome.”

At committee, Councillors Dan McLean, Andre Chabot and Raj Dhaliwal voted against creating the transition package for incoming councillors.