Number of candidates’ Facebook fans

We now stand at 17 mayoral candidates. Obviously only one of them will be our next mayor.

Several of them probably represent your view of what you’d like Calgary to be. But how do you decide who has a serious chance at winning – and should get your vote – and to which candidate would your vote be a throw-away?

Polls are one way to find out what other Calgarians are thinking. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been asked to participate in a poll. (I don’t have a home phone, so my opinion is automatically ineligible.) Plus, in these polls you can only pick one candidate, so we can’t really tell who else you are considering.

The good news is we have a freely accessible tool that represents the average Calgarian perfectly: Facebook.

The site’s demographics are almost exactly the same as Calgary’s. (Yes, people over the age of 45 do use the networking site, making up about 35 per cent of its users, while 34.4 per cent of Calgarians fall into this demographic.)

On Facebook you can tell who is considering multiple candidates — they are a “fan” of several. You can also tell who doesn’t care — they haven’t joined any candidate’s page. It takes everyone into account. More importantly, you can gauge each campaign’s momentum.

On Facebook it’s clear that Ric McIver is in the lead, and has been for some time. However, what is also clear is that his support has flatlined.

Naheed Nenshi and Barb Higgins, meanwhile, are gaining a following at a rate no other candidate has come close to sustaining. But will either of them have enough time to overtake McIver’s lead before election day? If the current trend continues, the answer for Nenshi is “yes,” and the answer for Higgins is “no.” Things can change over the next 45 days, however so I wouldn’t count either out.

It is also surprising that there is a very clear fourth candidate in this race. Kent Hehr is plodding along at a growth rate similar to the candidates below him, but he has almost double the “fans.”

However, he’s got a long way to go to catch up with the Big 3.

Everyone else has some soul-searching to do. If you can’t even drum up support on Facebook, I’m not confident you’ll be able to bring citizens together after you’re elected.

Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/622474–writing-s-on-the-facebook-wall

Share/Save

You’re in the majority if you said none.

Rest assured, candidates are trying their best to fix that. At least, a few are.

With the summer festival season ending this weekend, the biggest opportunity for candidates to meet you is officially ending, too.

Kent Hehr (with his balloons for the kids) and Naheed Nenshi (with his bright purple signs and t-shirts) were likely the busiest during the season, attending all the major festivals. Wayne Stewart’s volunteers were out in full force handing out brochures, while Bob Hawkesworth was out at some festivals doing the same.

Barb Higgins, Paul Hughes and Ric McIver weren’t big into having a booth and instead chose to fly under the radar by walking the street talking to people they bumped into. (McIver did have a booth at Kensington’s Sun and Salsa, but packed up and left early.)

Craig Burrows chose a different tactic with his “100 communities in 100 days” RV. Many know him only from seeing that big blue and yellow camper.

But those heady days of summer are behind us. Candidates have had their moment in the sun — literally. If they haven’t got a full head of steam by now, it will be a struggle to win the race.

They’ll still try to get your attention by attending events, mostly forums and debates. But this format doesn’t provide much time for one-on-one interaction.

They’ll spend money on impersonal computerized phone calls. They’ll spend time slowly going door-to-door in your neighbourhood or having volunteers make equally time-consuming personal calls. They’ll figure out that Twitter and Facebook really are good places to have conversations with Calgarians.

But most of all, they’ll realize the best opportunities to meet us face to face are gone. And they’ll have to wrestle with whether they have proven they know how to listen to Calgarians when it’s most convenient.

Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/613438–sun-setting-on-face-to-face-time

Share/Save

Following one interview, the cameraman wanted to get images of the different websites they were using. I started by showing him some of the sites that I thought were done well. He then asked to see more from McIver and Higgins.

I took him to McIver’s Flickr page. It hadn’t been updated in over a year. I took him to Higgins’s Twitter feed. Not one conversation. These were bad examples, but it’s what he wanted footage of.

I was disappointed he didn’t want to see more from those who were doing it well. Instead he and I had fallen into the two-candidate trap.

So far there are 13 candidates running for mayor, and another 56 running for alderman.

It’s hard to get to know that many people well enough to be able to decide who you trust the most to ensure you have the services from the City you want, at a price you can afford.
And so the two-candidate trap was created.

It’s much easier to only focus on two options. This or that. The American system has been perfected in this manner. Republican or Democrat, those are your only real options.

The problem is, the two-candidate trap is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once the two main options are selected, all others suffer.

But why were McIver and Higgins the two selected to be talked about? The answer is simple: name recognition.

Admit it, when Barb Higgins entered the race you immediate said to yourself, “I know who she is. I think she’d be a lovely/terrible mayor.”

Did you have the same thought when Wayne Stewart entered the race? I’m guessing no, simply because you didn’t know who he was.

But this is not high school. We shouldn’t be selecting our leadership based on popularity.

Calgarians are smart enough to pick a Council based on their ideas for Calgary.

I challenge you, the next time a conversation about the election pops up at the office or the dining room table, to not just talk about the candidates you already know, but to chat about Craig Burrows or Kent Hehr or Naheed Nenshi or Bob Hawkesworth. What makes them better (or worse) than the big two?

Yes, you’re going to have to go learn something about them first.

I also challenge the media to give us the chance to learn about those candidates by not taking the lazy way out and falling into the two-candidate trap.

We’re adults. We can handle more than two options.

Original article: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/607813–broaden-your-voting-horizons

Share/Save

However there was a second interviewee for the same article. Bruce Foster, identified as chair of the department of policy studies at Mount Royal University, indicated he was not convinced in the power of social media during an election. The article quotes:

“While (social media) is important, you’re also targeting the segment of the voting population that traditionally has the lowest (voter) turnout,” said Foster, adding many people who use social media fall into the 18- to 35-year-old age group.

I responded to this statement in the comments section, but I wanted to expand upon it here. (And fix the spelling errors a bit too.)

I realize that Mr. Foster’s comments are probably not the entirety of what he gave – just as mine are not – but I did want to point out two potential inaccuracies in what he is quoted as saying.

First off, it is an all too often sprung trap to say that social media is used exclusively or even in majority by 18-34 year olds because this is factually inaccurate. A simple online search will show you that 18-34 year olds make up about only 25-30% of social media users.

The image above comes from a detailed analysis that Pingdom did of social media user demographics in February 2010.

As part of that study it became clear that it was impossible to generalize as Mr. Foster is attempting to do. The breakdown of age demographics varies wildly depending on the social media service you are discussing. For example, the chart below shows that Bebo (a site that to the best of my knowledge no candidates are an active member of) has a about 62% of it’s users under the age of 35. While on the other end of the spectrum you can see that LinkedIn, an online resume and networking site (which I know several candidates are active users of) has about 22% of its user being under the age of 35.

To give more than one source I would also point readers toward The Heavy Chef Project, whose tagline is “demystifying digital marketing”. They point to recent findings by the Nielsen Company (yes THAT Nielsen) on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn demographics, which align with the numbers above.

It is possible to find numbers which have a higher than average 18-35 year old participation in social media (when compared to the population as a whole demographics) but in almost all of those cases the stats tend to be a year or two or more old. Certainly it is fair to say that 18-34 year olds often are the early adopters, but once a social media has gone mainstream – as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter have done – it is by definition going to be reflective of the population as a whole.

If we ignore the fact the first half of Mr. Foster’s statement is false, we have to deal with the second assumption Mr. Foster makes in the Metro article, that we, as a society, have done everything in our power to engage 18 to 34 year olds and therefore it isn’t worth our time to bother trying to engage them further. This is obviously not true.

The basic marketing question goes: do we spend our money on the group buying lots of product from us (who we obviously are reaching) or on the group not buying our product (who we obviously are not reaching). If you have one dollar to spend on marketing you have to choose. In the case of elections, we don’t have to.

The younger demographic has proven they are hyper-engaged within their communities – their Facebook and Twitter activity alone providing chief example. Assuming they don’t want to be part of community engagement is the lazy answer.

Instead, we should start by flipping the question on its head by asking how should we be engaging them?

When we see a block of voters trend so differently than the norm, we must ask ourselves are they not voting because they don’t want to? Or are they not voting because we haven’t done a good job of engaging them? I think in this case, it is the latter.

If the amount of information flowing through Facebook is any indication, one multiple choice question every 4 years is hardly the kind of engagement voters of this generation find beneficial. They obviously want more, and can handle more. Tools that don’t offer the kind of ongoing engagement they want aren’t worth their time. They (we?) are a generation that craves results. Cause and effect is what drives much of our day to day lives. People like to see input create output. This is the rationale behind many of the generational shifts we have seen over the last few decades. It is, for example, what points to younger workers willing to be more transient and less loyal to one corporation; it is also what’s partially at play in the decrease of participation in organized religion in North America.

It is very easy to understand how a voter could say “my vote doesn’t matter anyway so why bother voting” when viewed through the lens of expectations. Especially when compared to the exceptions we see in our day-to-day activities.

In short, times have changed and our style of democracy hasn’t. Access to our governmental system remains virtually the same today as it was in 1867 – the first year of Confederation. Input designed for improvement is still relegated to one vote per person every few years. This is despite the fact that we have greatly sped up the ability to transfer information from person to person to organization. In 1867 the only option to send a copy of something important from Vancouver to Ottawa was to send a messenger via horseback. The journey took weeks. Now I can just attach it to an email and you will have it in seconds.

That is a fundamental shift in expectation from the general public. One our system of government has had major trouble keeping up with.

I agree it is easy to ignore root causes and simply say “18 to 34 year olds aren’t engaged so we shouldn’t even try” as Mr. Foster suggests in his comment. But even a slightly deeper look shows us that we are hardly even trying to engage them.

So should candidates do as Mr. Foster suggests and ignore the 18 – 34 demographic? Or do they follow the lead of David Plouffe, Joe Rospars and Chris Hughes (Obama for America) and create value that encourages a voter to engage in the way they want to?

It is not a question of how engaged a group of voters are, but instead a question of the value that group sees. Social media is the perfect tool to gauge this because social media is all about value. If you have it, you are embraced, if you don’t, you are ignored. And that is the what voting is all about too.

As a result, I think social media is the perfect tool to reach a group of potential voters in a way that speaks to them. If that isn’t a great reason to use social media as part of an election toolkit, I don’t know what is.

Share/Save

Surely, the majority of what goes into their platform are the things that made them want to run for city council in the first place. So shouldn’t it follow that these things would be second nature to them before they declare themselves a candidate?

Barb Higgins recently announced her candidacy without a platform. At her press conference she talked broadly about what she wants to see happen, but gave no details as to how she suggests we accomplish those things. Her response to questions about the Peace Bridge and the auditor debacle? “I look forward to talking about those things.” Apparently, just not that day. And if not that day, then when?

She promised to release her policy platform by Labour Day — although she did announce a high level “framework” yesterday. Until then we just have to guess what her basic opinions on key issues are.

After months of waiting, mayoral front-runner Ald. Ric McIver yesterday released “his vision for Calgary.” This document has been in demand by many as voters try to figure out what the man known as “Dr. No” says “yes” to. McIver’s vision document comes almost three months
after he officially said he wanted the mayor’s job.

With the Internet playing a large role in this election, turn-around time is crucial. Candidates have to be ready to respond to information requests and crises at the drop of a “tweet.” Courage under fire and sticking to your core beliefs are major things we look for in our leaders.

Take McIver’s announcement as an example. After waiting three months, competitor Naheed Nenshi, who has done a very good job articulating his own platform, responded only five hours later with a detailed — albeit somewhat snide — analysis of where he thinks the holes in McIver’s logic are.

For example — “he suggests that we need to enhance transit, but he also voted for the $3 park-and-ride charge, which led to decreased ridership. Which is it — build up the system or discourage people from using it?”

Three months versus five hours.

Whether you agree or disagree with either candidate you can see the problem here. It’s reminiscent of the infamous “3 a.m. phone call” ad Hillary Clinton ran during the last presidential primary in the United States. If it takes a candidate months to come up with something that should be second nature, how long will it take them to rebut legitimate criticism that requires a thoughtful response?

If a candidate doesn’t know what they stand for or they can’t articulate it, they’re going to have a hard time getting elected because voters know what a hard time they’ll have getting anything done if they do get elected.

So far Calgary hasn’t had a good start in this area.

Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/602468–train-s-left-platform-behind

Share/Save

An “oops” to be sure, but no harm, no foul, right? I’ll give you one guess as to what Sections 147.3(1) (a), (b) and (c) of the Local Authorities Election Act deals with. If you have been following the relationship between the municipalities and the Province at all for the past three years you probably guessed right away: campaign finances.

Here is specifically what that section of the act says:

So what does this little “oops” mean?

At first glance it looks like it means that all bets are off and there are no campaign contribution limits. This is however not the case. Section 147.2 of the Act deals with limitations and it is in full effect still.

All this mistake means is that you don’t need to keep your campaign monies in a bank account. Sock it away under your mattress for all the Provincial Government cares.

Presumably these clauses have not been proclaimed because incumbents (and potentially others) who were fundraising for a run before April 22, 2010 would find it difficult to undertake the full letter of the law if they had already been spending funds prior to that date. 147.3(1) (c) being the hardest to do if you’ve already spent money on non-campaign related expenses prior to that date.

I expect the Premier to ask the Lieutenant Governor to proclaim these clauses within days of the October 18, 2010 municipal elections so as to ensure no more ‘gray periods’ can exist.

Read the entire Local Authorities Election Act visit the Queen’s Printer here: http://www.qp.alberta.ca/574.cfm?page=L21.cfm&leg_type=Acts&isbncln=9780779747795

Learn more about the process/history of 2010 Bill 9 including reading dates and Hansard links here: http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_status&selectbill=009

Cross-posted to CalgaryPolitics.com

Share/Save

Share/Save

This is the big question I learned to ask myself as a result of my time in Leadership Calgary. I find the question helps zero your efforts in on the most important aspects of whatever project you are working on and has the added benefit of stripping away the seeming importance of anything extraneous. Those who spend a lot of time with me have probably heard me ask myself, and others, this many times over the last few months.

It is also the question I had to ask myself following my “If you want me to run for alderman…” blog post.

The response to the post was incredible. We had about 100 people sign up telling me exactly what it was that they were willing to do to help out, others responded via email and phone willing to lend their time and services to the campaign (including a few people I’ve never even met before) and we had many offers of donations. With this kind of outpouring from nothing more than a blog post and an email, I’m confident we have enough volunteers and funds to run the kind of campaign my team wants to.

But I have to ask myself “What most needs doing?” Is the answer: DJ on city council?

The more I examined this question over the past month, the more I realized that what most needs doing is not only having people who believe in the kind of public engagement I believe in sitting in City Hall, but also having people who believe in the kind of public engagement I believe in helping create more people who want to, and know how to, become engaged. Politicians will try to tell you this is their job, but even a tertiary look will tell you they are forced to spend the majority of their time managing expectations and making decisions. Meaningful public engagement may be something they want to do, but it rarely is something they have time to do at the level I believe we need.

After thinking about it long and hard for the past month, I believe I don’t need to be on council to help improve Calgary in a meaningful way. I believe I may be able to do more good for the City of Calgary and Calgarians by filling the role of community leader and engaged citizen.

You’ll be hearing more from me following the election about what kinds of public engagement activities I plan to undertake in the future, but I imagine what most people want to know right now is “if you are not running for alderman, then what will you be doing?”

It’s an excellent question. I plan on leaving my job this month as originally planned, and I will be dedicating the next two and a half months to raising awareness around issues I think are important and holding candidates to task by helping raise the level of discourse around the election. I have had a number of very interesting opportunities present themselves and I am eager for what lies ahead.

Some of the details of the projects I’ll be working on are stilling being ironed out, but here is a sneak peek:

1. I have accepted an offer to write a weekly column about the municipal election with Metro Calgary. Look for the first one in this Friday’s edition. In my column I’ll try to take a slightly different angle on informing voters than you might have come to expect from traditional media.
2. CalgaryPolitics.com is taking off with considerable force and becoming a premier site for insight and thoughtful commentary and critique on the election. We are getting multiple requests for interviews each week and the importance of the type of detailed investigation we hope to do on this site can’t be replicated elsewhere. I’ll be building out CalgaryPolitics.com into a major information source leading to Election Day. We have all kinds of great plans for this group, which will be announced in the coming weeks.
3. I have returned to the CivicCamp Governance group where I plan on helping lead the organization of one mayoral and 14 aldermanic forums. This is a massive undertaking and I can’t think of another group who has tried to do such a thing in the past; nor a group that is better suited to do it.

I am excited about the future and new opportunities, and want to thank everyone who encouraged me to run for Alderman. I would have loved the challenge of a campaign, engaging one-on-one with voters and most importantly bring a new type of civic engagement to city council. I certainly am not ruling out a future campaign; however I believe that at this point in time, we need this high level of engagement across Calgary and not only within a single Ward. I look forward to working with and for Calgarians, increasing public engagement and putting my passion towards these and other projects.

For those of you that were interested in being involved in my campaign, I urge you to get involved in the election, stay engaged and informed on the issues, and most importantly get out to vote on Election Day. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you in making Calgary a great place, to live, work, play, and be a citizen of.

Here we go…

Share/Save

I’ve been very blessed over the past few years to be part of some great projects, which do that very thing. I’m active in:

• the Winston Heights-Mountview Community Association,
• the Calgary Professional Arts Alliance,
• the Mayor’s Evening for Business and the Arts,
• the Bob Edwards Award Luncheon,
• PechaKucha Nights,
• CivicCamp,
• Reboot Alberta, and
• Leadership Calgary.

I’ve had the pleasure of helping re-brand and build two theatres, the most recent being Lunchbox Theatre after their move to the Calgary Tower. I’m also working hard to help create Nuit Blanche Calgary, and bring a Poet Laureate and open data to the City of Calgary. Not to mention the time I spend on my blog and CBC Radio column where I get to talk about all kinds of initiatives that inspire me.

Most of these projects have been civic-minded in some way. I have even called myself a “civic advocate” – which is to say I like doing the kinds of things that make my city better.

Over the past year, friends, colleagues, and even relative strangers have been asking me to do more. Because of my civic-development focus I have been repeatedly asked to run for Alderman.

A year and a half ago I half-laughed when people asked. “Me? Surely there must be someone better.” I would think. Then as time progressed I realized people were serious and they really wanted someone like me, who was real and not just another stereotypical politician who cared more about ideology than what they thought, to represent them. I was flattered but still didn’t take the idea too seriously.

But as time has passed, and more and more people have asked me privately and publicly to run, I’ve begun to feel like I would somehow be letting them down to not do it. There is a real thirst for something different and these people really do think I can provide it; and they cared enough about it to approach me and say it.

It’s important to note I’m just a Calgarian like anyone else out there. I don’t harbour a life long ambition to be a politician. I love my life AND I see how poorly we treat our elected officials. But I do have an intense sense of duty and of right and wrong. I see many areas in our municipal government that can use fixing and I feel responsible to help fix them, both as an individual citizen, and as a community leader.

My friends and colleagues have worn me down by showing me the good I could do.

My wife, Christine, and I have talked about this for some time and we have decided that we are willing to make the sacrifice to help improve the City we love so much.

However, unlike every other candidate for public office I’ve ever heard of, I’m instead announcing that I will let my name stand for Alderman if YOU really want me to do it. You will have to be the one to decide if I run; I won’t decide for you. If you want me to run, you will have to make a sacrifice too.

I can’t do it alone. It takes a small army of volunteers to do a campaign right. (The only way I’d be willing to do it.) If you want me to run, we’ll need to run as a team. This team will need everything from doorknockers to organizers to fundraisers. I also want to know what special skills you might have which you think might be able to help.

If you want me to run, and are willing to help even for just a couple hours, please add your name to the list here: http://bit.ly/IWillHelpDJ.

If you are willing to make a small commitment to me, I’m willing to stand up and run for you. And I promise if you make that commitment, you will see all of the energy I’ve split across each of the projects I’ve listed above come together into the singular goal running for Alderman on your behalf. If you ask me to do this, I will give it everything I’ve got until election day and beyond.

If you want me to represent you, you have a role to play. If you’re not committed to playing that role, I’ll happily continue working on all the great civic projects I’ve got on the go. But if you think I can provide something better than what you see right now at City Council and in the declared candidates then let’s work TOGETHER to make it happen.

In 2009 Avenue Magazine said this about me: “DJ Kelly appears to be giving our stateside leader a run for his money as a community organizer. Like Barack Obama — Kelly brings passion and commitment to his cause. And that cause is making Calgary a better place to live. DJ Kelly is committed to the big picture — a better Calgary — through a more vibrant arts community, a more accountable political system and more transparent communication. And he is involved hands-on in making change.”

How “hands-on in making change” I will be is up to you.

Share/Save

Today I want to announce a project that I’m working on that draws on both of these.

Last year I had the good fortune of pitching the idea of Open Data to a couple aldermen who liked idea so much they presented it as a notice of motion, which eventually passed Council and will be piloted this summer and fall. (If you’re interested, details are here.) Much of the feedback I received about this project from aldermen revolved around the fact they didn’t remember the last time an idea from a regular citizen came forward like this and they wished it would happen more often. Buoyed by that successful experience I decided I would try to get one more notice of motion passed before council breaks for the summer.

I want Calgary to have a Poet Laureate.

The City of Calgary Poet Laureate would be an artist officially appointed by City Council, for a two-year term, to compose and present poems for official City of Calgary events, to help raise awareness of local issues, and to raise awareness of the local arts community to citizens and the City of Calgary.

Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal all have a Poet Laureate. But this isn’t just about wanting what bigger cities have. Edmonton, Victoria, Halifax and St. John’s have one too. Heck, so does Sackville, NB, Brantford, ON, Owen Sound, ON, Sudbury, ON, Cobourg, ON, and even Cobalt, ON (which I’ve never even heard of before). The provinces of Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island have an official Poet Laureate; so too does the Yukon Territory, as well as the federal Parliament. (Click here to see who the current poets are.)

Responsibilities for the Poet Laureate within these cities include being an advocate, champion or ambassador for poetry and the literary arts in the community, with the intent of the position being to raise the profile/status/public awareness of poetry, writers and literary arts. They are asked to produce new works that reflect the life of the city, either per year or per term, and are invited to attend a variety of civic functions, both informal and formal.

What does this have to do with openness and transparency in government however you may ask? As we well know, the biggest key to unlocking the door of institutional secrecy – whether intended or not – is to have someone who isn’t afraid to speak up looking around. Officially endorsed Poets Laureate have trained eyes to unveil what is hidden often from plain sight. And they can tell you more about the place you live in than you ever thought possible.

Case in point, the very first moment Canadians commonly shared together at the recent Winter Olympics was courtesy of a poet. The beat poetry of Shane Koyczan’s “We Are More” at the opening ceremony was a communal moment when all Canadians reflected together on what it means to be a citizen of this great country. It primed the nationalist pump – so to speak – leading to an even greater sense of pride when Alexandre Bilodeau and Jon Montgomery won their gold medals. “We Are More” became the underpinning theme to all effort from Canadians at the Olympics. Whether they be the athletes trying to show we can win gold on our own soil for the first time, or the volunteers proudly showing off their city and country in a manner all Canadians would be honoured by.

(Heck even our greatest beer commercial of all time is nothing more than a passionate delivery of a poem telling us what the writer – and Molson – think it means to be “Canadian”.)

As much as I might wish that open data was the beginning and end point for a truly open government it is not and cannot be. I know there is a role to be played by artists and that is why I work in the arts. They can do things no data set will ever be able to do.

And I think the time is now.

The City has tried to get a Poet Laureate before but they haven’t been able to get it done because of one major stumbling block: money and administration. I decided – in true citizenry-style and spurred by seeing it is possible for one person to make a difference – I would try to solve both of those problems and propose to them a Poet Laureate program that wouldn’t cost them, or taxpayers, anything.

Below is the proposal I put together. So far The Calgary Foundation are on board for $15,000 from the Small Grant program. Calgary Arts Development has also committed approximately $15,000 of in kind support to administer and promote the program. Both groups have committed to three years of support. (Click here to read a PDF letter of support from TCF and here for one from CADA.)

What I am looking to do now is to get five corporate donors to agree to donate $1,000 per year for 3 years. I feel strongly it should be five partners and not just one, to show the strong commitment of Calgary’s business community to the arts in Calgary. There are already a couple potential groups who have said yes, but the details are being finalized so I can’t tell you anything about them yet. However there is still plenty of room to get involved!

Of course individual donors are welcome too! If you’d like to donate to the program just drop me an email at blog@djkelly.ca.

I believe it is time we stop waiting for our elected officials to do everything for us, so I’m happy to go out and organize everything for them to rubber stamp. I’ve mentioned this project to a few different people and received nothing but positive reactions. Even the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation has offered their support and I think that is absolutely amazing. (Click here to read CTF’s PDF letter of support.)

I think this is a simple and very affordable way to place the arts on the agenda of the City in a BIG way and to open the City of Calgary up a little bit more. But I need your help to make it a reality.

Click here to read the proposal. And please let me know if you’re able to help.

And if you don’t believe in the potential of a Poet Laureate, I invite you to scroll back up and watch Shane Koyczan’s “We Are More”. That is what a Poet Laureate could do for us.

PS – I won’t be sitting on the selection committee, so I thought I could share with you an example of who I think would make a great Poet Laureate for Calgary. Most might suggest Sherri-D Wilson, who would be great for sure, but I’m more partial to Dragon Fli Empire, who was first introduced to me by Sarah Blue. Rap battle with Edmoton’s Poet Laureate Roland Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon) anyone? Here is DFE’s ode to our hometown “CGY”.

Share/Save