Jyoti Gondek reveals her vision for Calgary: 15-minute city, urban surveillance, the Prairie Economic Gateway, income supplements, electric/hydrogen buses, and more
On Thursday, I had the pleasure of listening to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek speak on a panel at The Pioneer.
She spoke about a wide variety of topics, essentially outlining her vision for the city.
This included investing in corporations, the Prairie Economic Gateway, the Green Line, investing in the arts, reshaping government practices around conflicts of interest, turning Calgary into what is essentially a 15-minute city, electric and hydrogen buses, and making Calgary a smart city with urban surveillance.
Gondek started by introducing herself as the “weird person on the panel”.
She mentioned she had a startup back in the day and talked about her master’s degree from the University of Calgary which focused on corporate social responsibility.
After her master’s, she started a consulting company.
According to The Sprawl, that company called “Tick Consulting” attempted to reframe how urban sprawl is perceived in Calgary.
The panel then went over the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund (OCIF), which recently received $60 million in new funding approved by City Council.
OCIF has previously invested in many companies, including $4 million in Parkland Fuels, $5 million in IBM, $400,000 in Platform Calgary, and $8.2 million in SAIT.
Gondek mentioned some of the criticisms of OCIF are that the city is picking winners and losers and that they are giving money to corporations.
The panel host mentioned one of the companies OCIF invested $4.5 million in, Attabotics, which posted a net loss in three consecutive years, reportedly terminated 94.5% of its staff, and then closed its doors.
It’s interesting to note that Communities First candidate and Councillor Andre Chabot joined Gondek in telling council the city needed to keep investing in OCIF.
Gondek talked about attending the Collision tech conference in Toronto and bragged, “We’ve been able to poach so many people from out east because we have a better city.”
She also talked about the Prairie Economic Gateway - a joint venture between Rocky View County and The City of Calgary to create a multi-use industrial park with direct rail access.
She called it a “risk in reward out” model, saying whatever the city puts in, they will get back with the tax uplift.
She said Calgary needs a strong tax base to pick up trash, fill potholes, and make sure there is clean drinking water.
Gondek went as far as to call it a project of national significance.
She mentioned she considers fiber optic cable a part of basic infrastructure.
The Mayor also stated she did not like the government practice of automatic disqualification from the Request For Proposal (RFP) process for having connections at The City of Calgary.
Currently, the government does this to prevent potential conflicts of interest because you could lobby or influence.
Gondek then outlined a vision for Calgary that sounded very much like the concept of the 15-minute city where you could drop your kid off to daycare or school, get to work, go to your lab appointment, get to your dental appointment, go home, get some groceries along the way, make dinner, then drop your kids off to whatever sport they’re in all concentrated in one place instead of all over the city.
She touted downtown as a place with proximity to a lot of amenities, where you can walk to work, bike to work, or scoot to work, but noted it still needs more schools and grocery stores.
On a more personal note, she talked about her frustrations with Microsoft Outlook, saying she swears at it every day because something about it doesn’t work and spoke about her dog Smokey who goes to doggy daycare near the Calgary tower while Gondek is on vacation.
Gondek said the perfect Calgary for her would be a city with a Green Line that connects the North to the South and is underground in downtown, a city with public safety in the form of helping people struggling with mental health and addictions go somewhere where they are supported and cared for, and a city where everyone lives with dignity and a roof over their head.
The panel discussion ended, and they turned it over to questions.
Unfortunately, they only took three and mine was not one of them.
The first question to Gondek was about addressing homelessness, which has risen in Calgary.
Gondek answered, saying there’s affordable housing, supportive housing, and market-based housing as solutions.
She said it’s not enough to give someone with a physical disability or a mental health crisis a place to live; they also need supports to help them out.
Gondek promoted income supplements, reduced rent, and below-market housing for people who are spending over 30% of their income on housing.
She touted The City of Calgary's 2024-2030 housing strategy called “Home is Here” and talked about the modular housing the city is doing.
She also talked about the indigenous housing the city has invested $30 million into, which will create culturally appropriate housing sensitive to the specific needs of indigenous people.
She then went into the downtown conversion program, which she says will allow 2,000 people to be able to live downtown.
The second question was about what the best metric was to measure the success of Calgary’s tech ecosystem.
Gondek said it was a blend of variables.
The third question was about the arts.
Gondek said the arts and the creative sector are a necessary part of the economy and are the soul of who we are.
She went on to say that tech, the creative sector, and the arts are intertwined, citing the example of music production.
She wants to marry tech and the arts together.
She said the city has invested a lot into the arts, making Contemporary Calgary a public art space, investing in Arts Commons, and investing in Glenbow.
Gondek said she will continue to invest in the arts.
After the discussion ended, I hung around to ask my question for Gondek.
After a bit of waiting, I was finally able to get to her.
I was nervous she would notice me and dismiss me without answering my question - the last time I asked her one didn't go so well, to say the least.
I fumbled a bit as I thanked her for speaking at the event.
Then came my question: Do you envision Calgary as a smart city? And if so, how would Calgary as a smart city help address the "climate emergency"?
To my surprise, she smiled and gave somewhat of a coherent answer.
Perhaps she didn't recognize me with my shorter hair ...
She said Calgary was already trying to be a smart city.
That’s true.
The city wants to scale and connect tens of thousands of devices and sensors.
Eventually, they want to monitor noise from trains, the road, drag racing, gunshots, and construction.
This is how they will enforce noise restrictions.
Calgary has implemented thousands of video surveillance cameras throughout the city to monitor over 900 sites.
One example of surveillance is in Olympic Park to monitor things like protests and public events.
High-quality cameras used in areas such as City Hall have helped security teams make a more complete list of "dangerous people" entering public spaces.
Not only is this urban surveillance a massive privacy concern, it could also be a national security risk.
CSIS has warned that smart city technologies, including surveillance systems, can be exploited by foreign adversaries like China, potentially leading to data breaches and unauthorized access.
Calgary has also proposed leveraging biometrics such as fingerprints or facial recognition to create a digital identity for instant access to digital services.
Gondek also mentioned the city’s electric and hydrogen bus initiative.
The city originally planned to buy 259 electric buses, but has scaled back to 120 due to the collapse of its B.C.-based supplier.
Electric buses experience significant range loss in winter temperatures due to battery inefficiency and the energy demands of cabin heating.
Hydrogen is highly flammable, raising concerns about leaks leading to explosions or fires, especially in accidents.
Gondek’s hydrogen bus experiment could blow up, literally.
I was about to ask Gondek how she believed sensors fit into all of this when she promptly informed me she had to run to another event.
And that was the end of it.