In the 2021 municipal election our members and institutions are focused on engaging with as many Calgarians as possible: not only to enrich our shared democratic discourse but to encourage them to exercise their vote.

 

 

To do this, we are taking action as an Alliance by:

 

1. Coffee with a Candidate Series

Members of the Calgary Alliance hosted multiple Coffees with a Candidate. By running online Zoom 'house meetings' to chat with councillor and mayoral candidates about shared values and their visions for the city, we learned more about these campaigns, shared what we've heard from our institutions on what our membership cares about this municipal election, and also provided training to those members in our Alliance on how to engage with politicians.

In the lead-up to the election, we met with over 40 different candidates from across the city.

 

 

 

2. Mayoral Forum

 

 

In partnership with Action Dignity, we hosted a mayoral forum on Thursday, September 30th. By creating spaces for dialogue to take place, we are able to hear from the candidates about their vision for the city — with more than 3,300 Calgarians registering to attend.

For this forum, we relied on the ranking of preferred candidates that our more than 30 different institutions wanted to hear from, in addition to publicly released polling, to narrow to four candidates to discuss the election. Further to this, we worked with our various Research Action Teams (like the Mental Health Research Action Team, our Environment and Climate Change Research Action Team, and our Truth and Reconciliation Research Action Team), to select a variety of questions to then put to the candidates.

 

 

3. Candidate Survey — Informing Calgarians

 

The Calgary Alliance for the Common Good partnered with several other organizations in the city to ask the mayoral candidates running in the municipal election a variety of questions — learn more and read their responses here.

By working with these other organizations we were able to do a deep dive into the values of the various campaigns and highlight how different candidates would guide the city in the years to come.

 

 

 

4. Mobilizing Voters — Encouraging Voting

 

Campaigns and candidates know who votes: and they definitely know who do not. By having as many Calgarians vote as possible, we encourage a dialogue where all Calgarians are included in involved in our democratic process.

In order to mobilize and encouraging those in our community to vote we have each of our member institutions run their own Get-Out-The-Vote Nudge Campaign. By using printed materials, forums, Coffee with a Candidate house meetings, and email 'nudge' campaigns, member institutions can reach beyond their own membership to influence their communities and city for the better. Learn more about the Get-Out-The-Vote campaign here.

 

 

To join in these efforts or to learn more please e-mail [email protected].