Top third-party advertiser from Calgary's 2021 municipal election plans rerun for 2025

The third party advertiser (TPA) that spent the most money in Calgary's 2021 municipal election is not planning any major strategic changes for this year's vote.

Calgary's Future was funded by several civic worker unions leading up to the 2021 vote. It collected more than $1.7 million dollars in union donations in the years prior to the last municipal election.

More than $1 million of that war chest was spent on ads before the election year, advocating support for civic services and workers.

The group then spent nearly $506,000 during the election period, which saw it endorse 14 candidates in the 15 council races. Nine of those candidates were ultimately elected to city council.

The director of Calgary's Future, Alex Shevalier, said their strategy is to review and endorse their preferred candidates who are then the focus of campaign-period advertising.

"We always promote the people we think we can work with and the people we think would be best for Calgary," he said.

New rules

Although the provincial government has brought in new election financing rules for 2025, Shevalier said his group will once again be endorsing candidates and spending money to promote those people running for city council.

He isn't revealing how much money the TPA has in the bank today nor will he say how much it plans to spend. But he pledged it will follow all existing rules.

Shevalier pointed out that under provincial rules, there is a limit of $5,000 for individual donations that can be accepted after May 1 of an election year.

As well, he said TPAs have a spending limit of 50 cents per Calgarian.

The provincial department of municipal affairs tells CBC News that it considered Calgary's 2024 population to be 1,306,784 so a TPA could theoretically spend up to $653,392 in the election period.

That figure tops what Calgary's Future spent in 2021.

Ads for candidates

Much of its 2021 spend went toward online ads in support of its endorsed candidates.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek was endorsed by Calgary's Future just days before voters went to the polls.

Its endorsement list also included current councillors Sonya Sharp, Jennifer Wyness, Jasmine Mian, Raj Dhaliwal, Courtney Walcott, Gian-Carlo Carra, Kourtney Penner and Evan Spencer.

A veteran campaign operative, Stephen Carter, is skeptical of the impact this TPA's spending has during an election.

Carter worked as a campaign strategist for Gondek's successful 2021 campaign. In the 2025 election, he's a campaign strategist for mayoral candidate Brian Thiessen.

He said Calgary's Future didn't have a formal slate of candidates or support a slate. Rather, it signalled to voters who supported the types of issues that it stands for, including housing affordability and public transit.

"I don't think it mobilized any votes at all. The agenda wasn't to mobilize votes. I think the agenda was to publicize issues so that regardless of who was elected, those issues would be deemed to be important," said Carter.

"That's what the TPA was designed to do."

Parties now in picture

Overshadowing the role of TPAs in this election is the province's decision to allow municipal political parties in Calgary and Edmonton.

Carter expects there will be fewer TPAs in this year's campaign than the eight that took part in the 2021 vote.

"I think that the largest TPAs are going to struggle to find candidates to support and they're going to struggle to actually have an impact on the outcome of the election," he said.

Do they have any future at all? From his vantage point, that all depends on the rules.

Carter notes that the election rules have changed ahead of each election dating back to 2007 so knowing whether TPAs will be around or even allowed in the 2029 election is just too hard to speculate about.

Calgary's Future is not looking at morphing into or starting a political party.

"We have no interest in being a political party," said Shevalier.

"We're a third-party advertiser. We're not going to pretend to be a political party because ultimately, the amount of work and the amount of effort and the amount of resources it takes to build up a political party is not why Calgary's Future was created."

Under provincial rules, TPAs must register with Elections Calgary. They can start to accept campaign donations on May 1, 2025.

Calgarians go to the polls on Oct. 20.