Mayor Farkas and Calgary city council have spent the bulk of this term building political capital and goodwill.

Calgarians have repaid them with high marks in a spring survey by Probe Research. Farkas sits atop the survey with an 81 per cent approval rate.

On the horizon is Calgary’s four-year budget, with it comes the challenge of actively navigating a national slowdown in housing construction, a growing infrastructure gap, a “technical” recession, and continued population growth.

Up until now, city council has had the luxury of being a passive council, where even the hardest decisions were those handed down by the previous council. From the independent water main report and recommendations commissioned by the previous council, to repealing the climate emergency and blanket rezoning, city council has yet to make any moves that are wholly their own.

However, with the four-year budget upcoming, now is the opportunity.

With all of this goodwill and political capital that has been built up, a question lingers: What will they spend it on?

Others have already spent their political capital

On the heels of two colliding crises, COVID-19 and housing, many elected leaders found themselves out of office, with Jason Kenney and Justin Trudeau resigning, and locally, Jyoti Gondek losing her re-election bid.

Governing during the pandemic and a housing crisis was an immense challenge for politicians of any political stripe. It allowed elected leaders who took up from their COVID-19 counterparts an opportunity to rebuild public perception, amass political capital, and then use it to make substantial societal changes and reshape political institutions as they see fit.

Prime Minister Carney is reshaping the Canadian economy with international investment to bolster Canadian economic sovereignty while simultaneously trying to assert Canada’s position as a middle power with new foreign policy positions.

Premier Smith is reshaping provincial institutions from public education to healthcare, ushering in an age of two-tiered public services. Smith has courted separatists, suspended Albertans’ constitutional rights with the use of the Notwithstanding Clause, while creating a pay-to-play for public services.

Both Carney and Smith are taking big swings amidst strong public polling. Whatever political capital they’ve built, they’re spending it.

These decisions open opportunities for other elected leaders to build their own capital.

Farkas has been vocally opposed to many actions of the UCP, and as such, has gained a lot of credit for speaking out and defending Calgary loudly, and deservedly so.

Speaking about separation, an increasingly unpopular idea across Alberta and very unpopular in Calgary, Farkas has made bold declarations and made clear his position on this divisive issue.

“I will make a loud and proud case for this country and our city’s role in it. My job is to fight for the city’s future, protect confidence in our economy and make the case that Calgary is stable, ambitious and open for business,” Farkas has said.

These types of statements are often met with support across political divides. Farkas is well-liked by both UCP and NDP voters. Being a loud and proud member of Team Canada is an opportunity for Farkas to gather people behind him in patriotic unity.

Farkas and council have also received praise for their response to the second Bearspaw South Feeder Main break. While no one would say there is ever a good time for a catastrophic system failure, having one just as the final independent report from the recent 2024 break with recommendations certainly allowed Farkas and council to take calculated and definitive steps to resolve the problem and invest in solutions in short order.

The attitudes and decisive actions have been positively received by the public, and a focus on infrastructure in Calgary remains a top priority for Calgarians, according to the Spring Citizen Satisfaction Survey.

These actions are earning Farkas, and council by proxy, the type of credibility needed to take a big swing that will define their term in office. But so far, no clear vision is shaping up for where this council wants to guide the City of Calgary.

The bill is coming due

Immediately after being elected, Farkas and council proceeded to rescind one of the actions from the City of Calgary’s Housing Strategy – “blanket rezoning” – while repeatedly stating that they’ll find an alternative strategy.

They said that any “repeal” will be met swiftly with a plan to “replace.”  This is despite the fact that early reports from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation showed that it was working to deliver housing in Calgary, where it was needed.

But now it’s gone. Blanket rezoning has been repealed. Nothing new has been proposed, and Mayor Farkas has made big promises to the public and to the federal government that a replacement strategy is still coming.

In one of their early moves following the election, Farkas and council cut the planned tax increase from 3.6 per cent to 1.2 per cent by taking money out of reserves and using it to subsidize 2026’s property taxes.

Subsidizing taxes appeared to be an easy decision to make, but it quickly becomes a very challenging budget problem to manage due to the effect it creates on future budget cycles. Especially now, as city council moves into the creation of its next four-year budget.

The decision to cut property taxes was a bold one because it limits city council’s ability to meaningfully invest in other priorities. Their first investment will now be about covering last year’s tax subsidy.

Eventually, the goodwill and political capital being built will have to be spent on actions that will define them. Will this council make landmark investments in infrastructure that will be seen and be felt by Calgarians for decades to come? Is a downtown police station truly the final piece that will make Calgarians feel safer? Will there be further investment in downtown vibrancy?

With every other order of government working furiously to implement its vision for Alberta and Canada, the time is approaching quickly for Mayor Farkas and Calgary city council to start laying out their own plans for Calgary.

So far, it is unclear if they have one. The next few months leading up to their four-year budget are when this council will truly get to show Calgary what kind of leaders they are.

It’s time for this mayor and council to decide how they’ll start spending that political capital they’ve been building up.