Calgary’s new mayor takes a page out of the Rob Ford playbook
There’s a scandal afoot in the city of Calgary involving some misused funds at the city-owned energy utility, Enmax. Seems as though a chief executive there may have been blowing tens of thousands of dollars on private events. This probably isn’t all that interesting to Torontonians, but what caught our eye (for once) wasn’t the scandal; it was the eerily familiar way that Naheed Nenshi—the city’s much-hyped new mayor—dealt with the whole thing. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
From the Calgary Herald:
Naheed Nenshi told the Herald his instructions were made very clear…And spending tens of thousands of company dollars on private events wasn’t one of them.
“I’ve gotten a few commitments from the Enmax board, and number 1 was no more parties,” Nenshi said Thursday.
Sound familiar? Here’s Rob Ford, from one of his interchangeable campaign speeches:
When I become mayor, the party’s over. The gravy train is gonna come to an end and the wasteful spending will stop immediately.
Borrowing from other public figures is a tradition as old as politics itself. Now, if we could just convince Ford to borrow some nuanced policy from his Albertan counterpart, we’ll be all set.
