Coun. Jeff Davison joins race for Calgary mayor

A third city councillor has now joined the race to become Calgary's next mayor, adding to a growing list of candidates and a growing number of council seats up for grabs in October's election.

Coun. Jeff Davison, perhaps best known for helping ink the controversial and currently paused arena deal with the Flame's ownership, says he sees a lack of collaborative leadership skills in the current slate of candidates.

"I think that's exactly what's needed right now to accelerate investment back into Calgary," he said.

The councillor, who earlier said he'd seek re-election in Ward 6,points to his work with the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund, which provides funds to companies to grow the city's tech sector, as a primary example.

He also says he's the right person to work with an often hostile provincial government and the private sector in order to deal with Calgary's ongoing fiscal challenges.

Jeff Davison tosses his hat into Calgary's mayor race

3 years ago

Duration 7:40

The current city councillor explains why he has decided to run to be Calgary's next mayor in this fall's municipal election.

"When you think about downtown recovery, we can't do that alone, we're going to need to partner with the private sector, we're going to need a partnership with the province if we're going to accelerate that investment," said Davison.

Davison joins fellow councillors Jyoti Gondek and Jeromy Farkas in the race to become Calgary's next mayor. IncumbentNaheed Nenshi announced in April that he would not seek re-election.

In total, there will be at least seven council seats up for grabs in October, plus the mayor's chair, meaning whatever the election outcome, the next council will look very different.

Beyond the three councillors, there are 12 other mayoral hopefuls officially registered with the city.

• Ian Chiang.
• Jan Damery.
• Brad Field.
• Zac Hartley.
• Larry Heather.
• Dean Hopkins.
• Kevin J. Johnston.
• Zane Novak.
• Teddy Ogbonna.
• Sunny Singh.
• Shaoli Wang.
• Grace Yan.

With few candidates actively campaigning in this early stage of the race, there's already been some controversy.

This week, CBC News reported on the prospect of one candidate with a history of racist, hateful and allegedly violent behaviourgaining access to voters' lists with names and addresses of all eligible voters in Calgary.

Kevin J. Johnston has openly threatened Alberta Health Services employees and sought their personal information. He is facing criminal charges in two provinces assault in British Columbiaand hate crimes in Ontario.

None of the charges havebeen proven in court.

The city is not obligated to provide that list to candidates until directed to do so by council. Coun. Gondek has already said she doesn't want the list distributed given the risk.