Naheed Nenshi and his crew of supportive slugs on Calgary’s city council are feeling vulnerable and as usual they are taking it out on the lone, dissenting voice of Jeromy Farkas.

Under the terrible guidance of Nenshi, the gormless gang has been taxing and spending Calgarians into oblivion for over a decade as they pursue pet vanity projects at the expense of citizens. While Alberta has been under terrible financial stress, Nenshi and council have ignored fiscal reality and continued with a campaign of fiscal bloat.

Jeromy Farkas (and often Sean Chu) were the lone voices speaking out against the spending sprees and they were regularly chastised and shouted down for their having dared to speak up.

Nenshi and his tax lapping council cartel were mortified when Farkas exposed their support for yet another pay raise for themselves back in 2018. While Albertans were taking pay cuts or being laid off, the highest paid Mayor (with two tax funded pensions no less) and council in the country were sidling up to the trough to gorge even more tax dollars for themselves.

Farkas was called every name in the book by the Mayor and council. They accused him of lying, grandstanding and breaking the code of conduct. Farkas was proven correct however.

Now, 510 days after the Mayor and Council failed to gag Jeromy Farkas for his daring to tell the truth about council compensation, Nenshi and gang are actually holding a secret meeting to try and have Farkas expelled from council meetings again.

Farkas has sought counsel on this move from the Mayor and council and the conclusion is below in Jeromy’s words:

“510 days have passed since the information I provided was proven to be correct. The Code of Conduct states that a ruling should have been made within 90 days. Since no decision was made within the time limit, I sought the respected ethical and legal perspective of the Honourable John (Jack) Major, C.C., Q.C., a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. 

Justice Major states that, in his view, I did not violate the Code of Conduct, and that the Mayor and City Council cannot legally expel me from meetings.”

Jeromy Farkas was popularly elected by his constituents and it should be criminal for anybody to try and gag him or prevent him from doing his duties as a councilor.

The Mayor and his council goons surely know that they have nothing to legally stand on in trying to shut Farkas down over something that he was cleared for nearly two years ago. Why are they trying to do this now then?

The answer is simple and it is ugly.

The city of Calgary is broke and with the pandemic shutdown their books are in tatters.

The mushrooms on council have long been driven by their personal legacy projects rather than the interests or needs of Calgarians. Shane Keating’s pursuit of the green line boondoggle has become outright obsessive as he sees his tax funded trophy at risk of being shelved due to fiscal reality. Farrel sees her blesses East Village collapsing as Calgarians reject urban living en-masse. Nenshi sees his public art program approaching the chopping block.

It is repugnant when one can see that the Mayor and Council know fully well that the city can’t afford to continue with their pet projects but instead of responding by putting the brakes on spending, they are putting their efforts into gagging voices of dissent.

Nenshi and gang want to lock the spending in now before Calgarians can stop them. They know that they will probably finally be fired in the next general election but they don’t care. They have grossly inflated tax funded pensions to fall back on and they want to be able to point at their personal legacy projects as they go into a rich retirement on the backs of taxpayers.

Farkas is a fly in the ointment. He dares to break ranks and speak up. For this, we see Nenshi and company circling the wagons and trying to gag him rather than make their case to Calgarians for their tax and spending increases while we head into a deep recession.

Surely their effort to gag Farkas will fail in the long run as it is so counter to open democratic principles that only North Korea would applaud it. They unfortunately may gag him long enough to ram through their spending plans before he can get back though.

It is tragic and repugnant.