{"id":123946,"date":"2026-07-10T03:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/123946\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T03:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:20:18","slug":"bell-mayor-farkas-warns-danielle-smith-dont-try-to-push-around-calgary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/123946\/","title":{"rendered":"Bell: Mayor Farkas warns Danielle Smith \u2014 don’t try to push around Calgary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been looking for the fiery Jeromy Farkas.<\/p>\n

I found him Thursday.<\/p>\n

“They’re much more afraid of me than any other mayor they’ve had to deal with,” says Farkas boldly, laying his cards on the table, serving up the unvarnished truth as he sees it.<\/p>\n

He points to a big difference between himself and two former Calgary mayors.<\/p>\n

“I’m not Jyoti Gondek. I’m not Naheed Nenshi. When I swing I actually hit.”<\/p>\n

Farkas says if Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi ever became premier he’d hold Nenshi’s feet to the fire.<\/p>\n

But Danielle Smith is the premier Farkas faces in the here and now.<\/p>\n

“The UCP is accustomed to mayors who pull their punches. For me, all options are on the table when it comes to getting results.”<\/p>\n

These days Farkas says he’s spending time looking at the history books and how the most effective mayors fought for Calgary.<\/p>\n

He mentions former mayor Dave Bronconnier.<\/p>\n

Bronco tangled with provincial and federal governments, fought hard and won against both, scoring huge cash for Calgary.<\/p>\n

Now Farkas holds the reins.<\/p>\n

“I’m holding the premier to her commitments.”<\/p>\n

He sends your scribbler a video of an earlier Danielle Smith describing how the province takes more money from Calgarians than it gives back, just like Ottawa takes more from Albertans in taxes than it sends back.<\/p>\n

For Smith in the video, that was a bad thing.<\/p>\n

In the present, the Smith government hiked taxes on the property tax bill<\/a> of Calgarians by 21 per cent.<\/p>\n

A big portion of the tax hike you see on the current property tax bill sent to you by the city is the increase in taxes demanded by the Smith government.<\/p>\n

“You can’t just milk Calgary taxpayers,” says the mayor.<\/p>\n

Farkas also wants to call out what he sees as the hypocrisy of the provincial government.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A photo radar vehicle monitors traffic in an Inglewood-area playground zone on 9th Avenue S.E. in Calgary on April 22, 2025.<\/p>\n

He says the province and their roads boss Devin Dreeshen has cut back big-time on photo radar,<\/a> criticizing its use as a cash cow.<\/p>\n

But, says Farkas, what really gets under his skin is the Smith government taking a bigger share of the photo radar cash still being collected.<\/p>\n

“I want to work with Minister Dreeshen but I’m not going let him get away with saying I’m some spend-happy woke liberal from Woke Town.”<\/p>\n

It’s not all about battling it out with Smith.<\/p>\n

Farkas says he is not interested in going around and picking fights.<\/p>\n

When the Smith government does the right thing Farkas promises to give them the credit, hand out the kudos publicly and scream the praise from the rooftops if needed.<\/p>\n

Ditto for the Liberal government in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to be the scrapper. I want to be the ribbon cutter.”<\/p>\n

“My job is to stand up for Calgary. I’ll work with anyone but I sure as hell will challenge anyone who stands in Calgary’s way.”<\/p>\n

Farkas adds the province knows when he takes a stand he can go to the rest of city council and they will back him up in a vote.<\/p>\n

Just like they did when Farkas and the city council majority tried to curb excessive noise at loud music tents<\/a> located in the city’s core operating for 11 nights at Stampede time.<\/p>\n

That’s when Smith and other high-profile conservatives pounced on the city saying the fun police were cracking down and targeting the Calgary Stampede.<\/p>\n

No one was targeting the Stampede. The tents were nowhere near the Stampede and city council was responding to complaints from the residential neighbourhoods where the massive tents were blasting music.<\/p>\n

\"Alberta<\/p>\n

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas at the Premier\u2019s Pancake Breakfast at the McDougall Centre in Calgary on July 6, 2026.<\/p>\n

Smith meddling in city business is obviously a sore point for Farkas.<\/p>\n

Farkas says growing up in east Calgary he learned “you don’t stab somebody in the back.”<\/p>\n

“Some of the most entitled politicians thought they could swoop in and score easy political points.”<\/p>\n

We hear certain voices chirping in the corridors of Calgary city hall.<\/p>\n

The voices say Farkas and the city planned a city-wide campaign against the province’s 21 per cent property tax hike.<\/p>\n

The voices also say there would be big signs all over the city and letters to every home spelling out how the Smith government shafted Calgary taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The campaign was pulled as a gesture of good will to the premier. The city dropped the full-court press.<\/p>\n

Then Smith comes after the city over tent noise.<\/p>\n

Farkas points out Calgary will decide the Alberta election next year. It is the battleground.<\/p>\n

The mayor mentions the two people who want to win that vote.<\/p>\n

“It seems like the major party leaders are taking Calgary for granted. My job as mayor is to make damn sure neither Naheed Nenshi nor Danielle Smith get the chance to take Calgary for granted.”<\/p>\n

“I want to work with these people but we’re not going to roll over. We’re not going to let anyone push around Calgary.”<\/p>\n

rbell@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Catch up with the day’s headlines, curated by our editors and delivered to your email inbox at lunchtime on every business day. Sign up now for the Calgary Herald Noon News Roundup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve been looking for the fiery Jeromy Farkas. I found him Thursday. “They’re much more afraid of me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,15809,3178,1812,3180],"class_list":["post-123946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-stampede","tag-danielle-smith","tag-jeromy-farkas","tag-naheed-nenshi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}