Another Calgary mayoral candidate has entered the race, with current Ward 1 city councillor Sonya Sharp announcing she’ll add her name to this October’s municipal election ballot.

Sharp made the announcement on March 31 during a fundraising event at the Rooftop YYC in downtown Calgary. She joins an already brand-name field with incumbent Mayor Jyoti Gondek, former city councillors Jeff Davison and Jeromy Farkas, and former Calgary police commission chair and lawyer Brian Thiessen as the top names announcing thus far.

Sharp, who spent years working with the City of Calgary before making her first foray into municipal politics last election, told the crowd Monday that she’ll work to ensure their voices are represented at Calgary city hall.

“Calgarians need to be reconnected back to their local government,” Sharp said.

“Many Calgarians feel that city hall is increasingly out of touch and on the wrong track. People feel the majority of this council doesn’t listen or care about many of their biggest concerns, and often make decisions despite them, rather than for them.”

Sharp is the latest member of the new municipal political party Communities First. This party has said that it won’t bind its members to voting any certain way on issues, instead voting what the people in their ward want.  Currently, Terry Wong, Andre Chabot, John Mar, Rob Ward, Dan McLean and Cornelia Wiebe are candidates who will be running under that party banner.

When asked how she and the party would ensure that they voted the will of all residents and not just the select views that matched their own and described as a majority of citizens, Sharp said that she’s running to represent all Calgarians.

“I’m here to represent the constituents generally,” she said.

“Votes are not about me. They’re about them.”

Sharp is also running her own campaign, something she said was important to her as the potential leader of Calgary.

“I feel that if I’m going to lead this city, I’m going to lead my own campaign,” she said.

“I don’t need to be puppeteered, but I have very smart people around me, very smart political strategists, very smart communicators. I have a team of people that I rely on, but I have to do this because this is a role you take to lead the city.”

Sharp’s vision for Calgary: Simplicity

The Ward 1 councillor won her 2021 council seat in what could be characterized as a landslide over eight other candidates. Sharp garnered 14,038 votes, with the nearest challenger nearly 10,000 votes behind. The only councillor to have a greater vote margin in the 2021 municipal election was now outgoing Ward 14 incumbent Peter Demong, who had a 15,000-vote gap.

At that time, Sharp, who has lived in northwest Calgary for much of her life, talked to LWC about bringing residents’ voices to the conversation about important topics in Calgary.

Sharp said she started focusing on a potential mayoral run last summer. That’s when she sought the approval of her family.

“When I started to see decisions being made by the majority and including the mayor, that I just was like, ‘this is not OK anymore, and we need a leader,” she said.

“We need leaders to lead and listen.”

Moving forward, she said Calgary must focus on delivering the essentials for citizens and doing that well. At a time when affordability is a key issue for residents, making sure the City of Calgary delivers value for property tax dollars should be a focus, she said.

“I have seen firsthand how our city can work well, and I have also seen where it has gone off track. Our sense of unity is slipping. Our services are not keeping up, and many are struggling with affordability,” she told the crowd attending the event.

“Most of all, many feel like City Hall is not listening.”

Public safety, core services and affordability were the top issues for Sharp, something she feels have been largely ignored over the past four years.

“Infrastructure has been neglected for 10 years, and is actually holding Calgary back. We have missed countless opportunities to plan for the future, leading to congestion, unreliability, inefficiencies and delays, and I know you have all seen potholes every day,” Sharp said.

“Those need to be addressed. We have roads in disrepair and critical systems like water have failed us. Over the last four years, the council majority has increased property taxes by 18.5 per cent while rejecting efforts from many of us on the other side to find efficiencies and lower costs.”

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