Calgary’s New Mayor Says Her City Is More Than an Oil Town

With the current oil worth restoration, Calgary has woke up from a protracted financial slumber, and its new mayor desires to assist the town cut back its dependency on oil by changing into a pacesetter in new sources of power.

Jyoti Gondek has a Ph.D. in city sociology, was a member of the town’s planning fee and a metropolis councilor. She promotes insurance policies that put her at odds with the town’s conservative institution, which is entwined with the oil trade.

Oil’s final collapse, in 2014-15, gave Calgary, a metropolis of 1.3 million, an issue now going through most cities: discovering new makes use of for empty downtown workplace towers. As has been the case with many cities for the reason that begin of the pandemic, Calgary has additionally discovered rising numbers of individuals, many with extreme psychological well being and drug issues, dwelling on its streets.

I met with Ms. Gondek, the town’s second consecutive mayor of South Asian heritage, earlier this week at metropolis corridor, days after the town and the province had introduced that they’d each contribute a complete of 867 million Canadian {dollars} to construct a brand new area for the Calgary Flames. The announcement was extensively seen as a transfer to bolster the re-election hopes of the premier, Danielle Smith, who typically stymies Ms. Gondek’s political agenda, within the present provincial election marketing campaign. Our dialog has been edited for size and readability.

What do individuals get fallacious about Calgary?

Folks that don’t dwell right here and haven’t visited right here have been offered a stereotype of who we’re. It’s type of this cartoon picture of Calgary. And I believe we’ve performed a remarkably poor job of telling our story correctly as Calgarians.

The narrative developed that we have been solely excited about oil and gasoline — and that was about it. We’ve let it get away from us and we’re attempting to regain it now. The funding that we’d like right here is just too essential. We should be speaking about who we actually are.

How has Calgary’s rising ethnic variety modified the town?

It’s the third most numerous metropolis in Canada, and but lots of people don’t know that about us. But when you spend any period of time right here, it’s fairly evident.

The capability constructing that many ethnic communities have performed permits newcomers to return right here and truly settle right here and never simply make this a touchdown place. People come into Calgary they usually keep.

That comes about with a few issues. There’s the financial benefit. If it’s simpler to get a job, the higher the earnings ranges are, the extra reasonably priced your housing is — all these elements actually play a job. But whenever you see individuals who appear to be you, whenever you’re out someplace and also you hear your mom tongue, when you find yourself embracing a cultural exercise and also you discover a piece of your personal historical past in it — all that makes you are feeling like this place understands you, that you simply belong right here. It’s taken a very long time to domesticate that.

There have been many oil- and gas-related booms and busts. Is that cycle doomed to proceed?

We are actually at a exceptional level the place true power transformation is feasible, however we have to make some fairly vital investments. So now we have an power transition middle within the metropolis that’s taking a look at some massive, daring strikes in partnership with quite a lot of our oil sands corporations. We have of us who’re actively taking a look at hydrogen and important mineral methods.

So we’ve received quite a lot of actually massive curiosity in the way forward for power manufacturing. While we have been a hub for oil and gasoline, we proceed to be a hub for the brand new face of power.

• Dan Bilefsky met with one other of Canada’s new big-city mayors: Ken Sim, Vancouver’s first mayor of Chinese descent. Mr. Sim has been drawn into the present political storm attributable to claims that the Chinese authorities interfered in Canadian elections.

• Canada expelled a Chinese diplomat whom it accused of intimidating and gathering data on a Conservative member of Parliament. Soon afterward, China retaliated by sending dwelling a diplomat from the Canadian consulate in Shanghai.

• Wildfire season in Alberta and British Columbia has began, masking an unusually extensive swath of the province. Forecasts of scorching climate for the weekend have officers bracing for extra hearth outbreaks.

• Striker the Samoyed stole the present finally yr’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, solely to lose within the closing spherical. He’s now retired, and Sarah Lyall stories from his dwelling in Toronto that Striker “is still a champion, and he is still busy — playing, romping, posing and shedding.”

• Canada is increasing its coaching program for Ukrainian forces to a NATO base in Latvia the place about 800 Canadian army members are actually stationed. Canada has had a presence there since 2017 as a part of a battle group to bolster the alliance’s safety efforts within the Baltic area.

• “BlackBerry,” a comedy about Canada’s onetime tech large directed by Matt Johnson, is a New York Times Critic’s Pick. In her assessment, Jeannette Catsoulis writes that it’s “a tale of scrabbling toward success that tempers its humor with an oddly moving wistfulness.”

• A Canadian actor is the topic of one other Critic’s Pick. “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” is a biographical documentary that each evaluations the actor’s profession and explores his experiences studying to dwell with Parkinson’s illness.

• After 27 years of performing and recording, the Canadian band Sum 41 is breaking apart its act.

• Denis Shapovalov, the Canadian tennis participant, who’s at the moment ranked twenty seventh, is amongst these criticizing some tournaments, together with Canada’s National Bank Open, for nonetheless providing much less prize cash to ladies than they do for males.

• Connie Walker, a Canadian journalist who’s a member of the Okanese First Nation in southern Saskatchewan, was singled out by the Pulitzer Prize jury for her work in a podcast about residential colleges.

A local of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the previous 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

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