Eat together.

That’s the advice to the next city council from four-term, 15-year Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong, who has decided he will not run in Calgary’s next municipal election.

“One of the amazing things that I witnessed over the years was the conversations that would take place over the lunch hour or the dinner break. You would have conversations,” Demong told LiveWire Calgary.

“Sean Chu would talk freely and openly about white pepper with Naheed (Nenshi). Druh Farrell would talk to Jeromy (Farkas) about kittens or cats; conversations would just take place, and you’d have a better understanding of the person that’s across the table from you.”

Early in this term, those sit-down dinner breaks were cut to save on costs. Now, they opt for quick take out and maybe the ad-hoc lunch together.

“We really just lost that ability to truly communicate out of chambers, which I think had a quite mellowing effect on all of council.”

The Ward 14 councillor joins Evan Spencer, Jasmine Mian and Courtney Walcott as councillors that won’t be running for re-election. It’s expected there will be several more who will hang up their legislative hats before the summer campaign fires up.

Demong was first elected to Calgary city council in 2010, defeating an incumbent, the late Linda Fox-Mellway. That year, Demong locked up 29 per cent of the vote, with Richard Dur close behind with 25 per cent, Shawn Kao with 20 and Fox-Mellway with 18 per cent.

After that, Demong cruised to victory in the next three elections, winning with margins of 67 per cent, 90 per cent and 66 per cent.

“I was very frustrated at a number of topics, mostly in retrospect, because I didn’t know enough about them,” Demong said of his initial reasons for running in 2010.

“I was frustrated with the secret meetings. I was frustrated with how the public was told what was happening when it was supposed to be engagement.”

Time provides perspective

The sharp-witted, dry-humoured Demong, known for his timely quips in council chambers, characterizes himself as an explainer. Before he can get there, he said he needs to understand the topic himself. That drive helped him understand the civic nuances that can often be very difficult for citizens to grasp.

“The biggest part that I’ve learned is that you need to learn how the processes work and to try and explain that as best you can to your constituents, is what I consider my job,” he said.

 “I’ve never tried to bring city hall to Ward 14. I’ve tried to bring Ward 14 to city hall, by hook or by crook, by dragging them, sometimes by the feet to come out to public hearings, town halls.”

He said in his time in office, his perspective has changed on several issues, including things like property taxes and secondary suites.

“It’s nuanced changes in that you start to understand that property taxes do have to go up every year,” Coun. Demong said.

“This is not something that goes up naturally, like income taxes do with inflation and the economy. Property taxes will stay at the exact same level unless you increase them on an annual basis, and we are a city that is growing. The city’s doubled in population since I got elected. That’s huge. How do you keep up with that?”

Demong said one of the areas that’s most evident is in pavement quality around Calgary. He spearheaded efforts to put money back into Calgary roads to help bring more of them up to an acceptable quality. Funds have been siphoned away from these projects to keep property tax increases manageable in previous years.

While he said he doesn’t sit back and think about mistakes or regrets—they happen to everyone, Demong said—he does consider his initial stance on secondary suites as a potential flaw.

“In retrospect, I guess I shouldn’t have fought them as hard as I had,” he said.

When he was doorknocking in his ward, he’d heard loud and clear that people weren’t fond of the secondary suites idea.

“It took six or eight years of working with the constituency and saying, ‘you know, this isn’t always going to be bad people moving into people’s basements,’” he said.

“A lot of times it’s the elderly or your own kids. I think people have started to accept the secondary suite concept.”

The influence of politics on city council

Aside from perhaps the long meetings and the repeated review of budgets throughout the year, Demong said the one thing he doesn’t like about the job is how political it’s become.

“I didn’t realize that the first three years were going to be my Camelot years,” he said.

“It’s kind of funny when I look back with fondness about Gord Lowe and Jim Stevenson and Shane Keating and even the John Mar and that there was an appreciation of each other. They knew you were working hard, you knew they were working hard, and whether I agreed with you or didn’t agree with you, we could actually sit down and talk about stuff. And we did.”

Demong said he believes that led to a more effective council.

“It seems now you have to have almost be an ideologue and be focused on one item, and once that one’s torn apart, ripped to shreds, we’ll go to the next one,” he said.

“I’m going to take this position, and I can’t move from that position. But that’s not what running a city is about.”

Council colleagues that have already announced they aren’t running for re-election have all referenced the bitterness, division and vitriol they’re dealing with regularly. They’ve talked about how different actors spread misinformation and disinformation, making it a challenge to govern effectively.

Demong said that while he hasn’t experienced this as much as others, he has witnessed it.

“I am witnessing a far more hyperbolic politicalization of every single issue that comes up. Seriously, the Premier’s going to tie into the whole plastic bag argument. Doesn’t she have a province to run?” he said.

“But it’s deeper than that. It’s not just the politicization, it’s the mis- and disinformation that is really, really getting to be to the point of, how do you get your message out anymore?”

Demong said he used to host regular ‘alder-talks’ with roughly 30 or 40 citizens, talking about issues in the ward. They would talk about everything from public safety to homelessness to the city compost program.

He said he started seeing people bring cameras out to those meetings.

“I started thinking about if anybody starts actually filming these procedures and then actually starts taking bits and pieces out, which mis- and disinformation is so beloved of doing, it is going to put not just me in a bad light, but potentially my constituents,” Coun. Demong said.

“So, I basically stopped doing that for fear of repercussions from the social media, mis- and disinformation side of things.”

Major achievements

Demong said he’s incredibly proud of the work that he’s done as a councillor over the past 15 years. One of the first things he pushed for, through the Council Innovation Fund, was the installation of the Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs) for pedestrian crossings.

The first one was on Sun Valley Boulevard in Sundance. Now it’s become a national standard, he said.

“We now have over 250 of these in the city, and each one of these is a third to half the cost of the big overhead ones,” Demong said, also noting people are more receptive to them on the roads.

From there it was the creation of the budget savings account to help Calgary manage the economic woes in a post-2014 world.

After that, it was on to being chair of the Sustainability and Environment Committee for three years when the City of Calgary began its compost program – which has already had to be expanded.

Then it was on to his crown jewel – Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).

The work over the past eight years on EPR, and the ability to help create a provincial system of environmental sustainability, along with saving Calgary taxpayers’ cash on their blue bin charges, was a big win, Demong said. It only finished up last week.

“If you told me 15 years ago, I was going to get passionate about recycling and composting, I’d have laughed my face off,” he said.

Demong also notes his time on the Enmax board, which is a job unto itself, he said, as a real learning experience.

As a city, moving forward on waste and recycling, along with getting the water system to where it’s no longer even partially tax supported were big victories. Demong said there are structural things, helped along by a capable bureaucracy, that don’t get a lot of recognition.

Demong said building four major recreation centres early on, moving forward on the arena project, beginning the transformation of the Culture and Entertainment District, and hopefully laying track on the Green Line are also milestone events in his 15 years.

Peter Demong – Calling it a career

Before the 2021 municipal election, Demong said he hadn’t planned on doing a fourth term in office. He said he soon realized that a fourth term would be necessary to get the EPR effort finished, and because there would be a big turnover on council.

“I thought somebody should really try and be there to bring things forward,” he said.

With his aforementioned colleagues already deciding not to run, plus more expected, and a mayoral race that will likely mean the loss of another, more turnover is imminent. But Demong said he’s not the guy to bridge the two councils.

“I suspect there’s going to be another massive turnover, but it’s going to have to be somebody else that leads that,” he said.

Demong said he did think about the turnover again, as he pondered a fifth term on Calgary city council.

“I thought about it, said, ‘Well, Peter, maybe you can do four more years,’” he recalled.

“Then I looked in the mirror and said, ‘No fucking way. At some point, you have to hand it over to somebody else.’”

Still, he said the past 15 years have been the honour of his life. He heaps praise on his ward staff for their help over the years.

“In some ways I feel like an idiot for stepping down, because I could probably win another election,” he said.

“I have given it my all for a number of years, and at this point I need to recharge. The fire isn’t in my belly.”

He’s not leaving without sharing some wisdom for potential future councillors.

“First and foremost, talk to your family. Let your family understand that if you’re going to do the job well, you’re not going to be around much. It’s literally a 10-to-12 hour a day job,” Demong said.

After that, Demong said would-be councillors need to decide what kind of councillor they want to be—bring the city message to the people or bring the message from the people to the city.

“These people are why you’re here. Make sure that what you’re doing is what they want you to be doing. Otherwise, you’re not going to be there for long,” he said.

Calgary’s next municipal election is Oct. 20, 2025.