Calgary-Shaw finally gets a byelection date
Calgary-Shaw finally has a byelection date, and crews are heading to 15 storm ponds.
Calgary-Shaw has a date to circle, and the City is quietly touching 15 ponds you probably walk past. Plus a park plan asking for your opinion and a ranking Calgary keeps winning.
Calgary-Shaw has been without a representative in the legislature since May. That is when Rebecca Schulz, a former United Conservative Party cabinet minister, resigned her seat. Smith has now called a byelection, with the vote set for Sept. 14. For people living in the riding, months without a sitting MLA are coming to an end. Provincial files that normally run through a constituency office have had no local member attached to them all summer. The date is fixed now, and the campaign runs through the back half of August and into September.
The city wants your opinion on the land east of Max Bell
The City is planning to redevelop a stretch of greenspace and trails on the east side of Max Bell Arena. Right now it is asking Calgarians what they want built there. That is the stage where a park plan can still change shape. The land is not a showpiece. It is the ordinary kind of connector people cross on foot or on a bike without ever learning its name, which is exactly why the details matter to the people who use it. Feedback is open through the City while the plans are still being drawn.
Three straight years at the top for tech hiring
For the third year running, Calgary leads North America in the growth of its tech workforce. That comes from CBRE Group's new Scoring Tech Talent report, which ranks the top 50 tech employment markets on the continent. Eight Canadian cities made the list. Growth is not the same as size, and Calgary is not the largest tech market on that map. But three consecutive years at the front of the growth column starts to look like a pattern rather than a good year. For a city long described through oil and gas alone, that is a real change in the story.
The Chamber says the U.S. trade file has reached a tipping point
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce is calling the current round of trade talks with the U.S. a tipping point in the relationship. The question it says members keep raising is whether this is the new normal. That framing matters more than it might sound. A business can plan around a hard rule if it believes the rule will hold. It cannot plan around one that might shift again in a few months. The Chamber speaks for a broad group of local employers, so when it stops calling the disruption temporary, hiring and contract decisions tend to follow.
Fifteen storm ponds are getting safety work
The City is adding safety measures at 15 storm ponds this year, with the work starting this month. Staff reviewed ponds across Calgary and flagged these 15 as the highest priority for upgrades. Storm ponds are part of the city's stormwater infrastructure, and they sit in many communities here. That is easy to forget when one is just the water at the end of your block. The City has not framed this as a single neighbourhood project, so the work lands in pockets across the map. If one of the 15 is near you, expect crews on site over the coming weeks.
The design-and-safety conference comes back to Calgary this fall
Thirty years after the International CPTED Association was founded, its conference is coming to Calgary. The Canadian and U.S. chapters are scheduled to meet here from Oct. 2 to 4. CPTED stands for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. The idea is that how a place is built changes how safe it is and how safe it feels. Sightlines, lighting, where a path bends, whether a wall creates a blind corner. Organizers are framing the 30th anniversary gathering as coming home, which puts the people who make those choices in other cities on Calgary sidewalks for three days.