One day into being the new Mayor of Calgary, Jeromy Farkas delivered his first post-election speech to the Calgary business community and answered questions about the future of the city at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce fireside chat.

That chat, hosted by Calgary Chamber of Commerce CEO Deborah Yedlin, was one that emphasized the continuity of Calgary city council to its predecessors—and echoing his speech to Calgarians after being sworn in, reflected on the temporary nature of those who hold power and who are entrusted to steward the city towards the future.

Asked by Yedlin what is major message was to the business community, Mayor Farkas said that Calgary is a city that is growing and is on the rise.

“We are one unbroken chain. We are one city. We are one city council. We are one Team Calgary, to be able to get this done,” he said.

Making his point more than a rhetorical one, he wore the livery collar chain of office for the Mayor of Calgary that was presented to then Mayor Ralph Klein by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce President Robert Brawn in 1985.

“The challenges we’re facing right now are real and present, from high unemployment to uncertainty as a result of workplace cuts, and it was just yesterday that we had some time with the nonprofit chamber discussing learning about how food bank uses were surging, and affordability continues to be a key conversation in every single out here in household,” said Mayor Farkas.

“But what I’m so excited to be able to emphasize is our capacity as a city to turn our challenges into opportunities, building on our history and prominence as an energy industry hub, the diversification and innovation of our economy into technology, aerospace and more, and the drive that we all have as Calgarians, and it’s going to be this innovation economic spaces where young people can begin seeing a future in our city.”

New council, who’s this?

Farkas said the benefit to his leadership as the new mayor and with a largely brand new council of 10 new members was that there would be a reset with both the provincial and federal governments.

“I was really grateful to receive an almost immediate call of congratulations from Minister [of Municipal Affairs] Dan Williams. The Premier and I have been corresponding, and I’m really hopeful for this opportunity of a reset with the provincial government, as well as some really fruitful first conversations with our federal counterparts as well,” he said.

“I’m really grateful to be in a position, having run as an independent, where I can work with both a Conservative premier and a Liberal prime minister to get things done for Calgarians. So we’re still in the early stages of building those relationships. But look, there’s a lot of common ground in terms of addressing the safety, affordability, and infrastructure issues of Alberta’s largest city and one of Canada’s largest cities.”

Top of mind for Mayor Farkas is the upcoming budget debates in November, to discuss the final year of a four-year budget passed by the previous council.

Yedlin said that for the Chamber and for the business community, the desire to right the ratio between residential taxpayers and businesses is still important. Calgary’s upcoming 2026 budget continues to shift the property tax burden away from businesses and onto homeowners.

“Obviously, for the Chamber, the issue of tax fairness from the perspective of property taxes, residential and non-residential properties, is an issue. We want to make sure that we are as competitive as we can be from a business standpoint,” she said.

“Right now, we’re getting perilously close to a five-to-one ratio in terms of what businesses bear versus what the residences bear, and that’s not a good number to be at because that means the provincial government has license to be involved in what the city does. So that taxation rebalancing is continuing to be very important to the chamber. We want to be the competitive jurisdiction for business in the country, and that’s an element that we have to resolve.”

Yedlin said that the Chamber would be spending the next 100 days meeting with all members of Calgary city council to understand what their priorities are and how the Chamber can work with them.

Budget for safety more than just policing

Mayor Farkas, in his remarks to the Chamber audience, said that he likened current safety concerns in Calgary to that of a house with a leaky roof.

“There’s a storm outside. There’s a big hole in the roof. The water is pouring in, and the question of how much to spend on the police is the same as how much should the family spend on the buckets? Well, we could go get buckets at Home Depot, but we’re not going to solve the problem of the roof,” he said.

“My answer to that is just enough to ensure that the safety and enforcement and security concerns that Calgarians are experiencing are addressed, but getting ahead of the issue in terms of mental health and addiction recovery, treatment, wraparound services, housing, first, we have to plug the hole, and we have to ensure that every single Calgarian, no matter which neighbourhood they live in, has access to a safe and affordable life.”

He likened that to providing not just compassion or enforcement, but a mix of both.

Calgary Downtown Association Executive Director Mark Garner said that Mayor Farkas was delivering the right message to downtown businesses, which made safety a key message during the last election.

“I think as we move forward around safety, we really parse out in two different ways, real safety issues, what we’re seeing with open consumption, violent behaviour, damages in downtown, and then specifically look at the perception of safety issues,” he said.

“So as part of CDA, we’re looking after the perception of safety issues so that cleaning the state of good repair work, but seeing the city coming forward on their part, which is the increased safety requirements based on what we’re seeing on transit today and in the downtown, is paramount to the success for Calgary going forward.”

A desire for Mayor Farkas to have a wealth of activities in the core every night of the week was also a welcome message, said Garner.

“We’ve got to make sure that downtown Calgary, and all Calgarians and even new Canadians and new Calgarians can say that downtown is for them, and we have the associated program that people want to see. You’ve got to get people out of those 15 minute communities and back into the downtown core based on the economics that they generate,” he said.

Arts, tourism, sports also on the agenda

For the wider economy, Mayor Farkas said that there has to be a reframing of what that means for Calgarians.

That included increased support for the arts and cultural sectors of the city, bolstering sports and sporting opportunities at all levels, and encouraging more events and conventions to come to the city.

On the arts, he said that included making it relevant for all Calgarians, not just those visiting the downtown.

“We need to make the arts more relevant to every single Calgarian, so that people don’t think it’s something that happens somewhere else for somebody else,” he said.

Reflecting on his vote against a Calgary Olympics during his previous tenure as a city councillor, Mayor Farkas said that what he missed then and has now come to understand is that there is a need to lean in on those types of events to maintain Calgary as a centre of excellence in the nation.

“Especially around the sports, the facilities that Calgarians require, and also Team Canada and other teams coming here together. So this is an area that we have a competitive advantage, and we need to reinvest to be able to maintain that,” he said.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the eSports arena that Bow Valley College has just opened up because sports looks a lot different into the future. As well as we think about people coming from elsewhere, the demand (for ice hockey) is not as high as, say, field hockey in the northeast, so we need to be a little bit more nimble and creative in terms of power with that broader objective.”