Calgary mayor's approval rating gets 'rough ride' as term begins, survey suggests

Less than 40 per cent of Calgarians polled in a new survey approve of the performance of Mayor Jyoti Gondek after her first five months in office — a term that's been marked by the collapse of an arena deal, rising property taxes and frequent protests in a downtown neighbourhood.

ThinkHQ's online survey of 1,101 people earlier this month shows the mayor's approval rating sitting at 38 per cent, while 53 per cent of respondents disapproved of her performance. The numbers are "unusually low" for a new mayor this early into their first term, according to the firm's president, Marc Henry.

Henry, who was chief of staff to Dave Bronconnier during his term as mayor, pointed out that Naheed Nenshi finished his first year in office with approval in the mid-eighties. Bronconnier, Nenshi's predecessor, had approval ratings in the mid-seventies during his first months in office, the survey said.

Meanwhile, the ThinkHQ survey, administered from March 14 to 21, showed 45 per cent of respondents approved of their councillor's performance, and only 31 per cent of people disapproved. 

The survey was conducted using an online panel. A margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of this size is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

"Five months into her first term and it's clear that Mayor Gondek is having a rough ride," Henry wrote in an analysis of his survey, which was released on Tuesday.

Henry said those months have been eventful, "but perhaps not in the way a new mayor would want."

He pointed to the the collapse of the arena deal, protests in the Beltline neighbourhood and property tax increases. 

But responding to the survey's results, Gondek said the data is from a "very specific point in time" when Calgarians, including herself, are dealing with uncertainty and economic pressure.  

"I think people are frustrated — and when people get frustrated, they look to their leaders and they express their disappointment," Gondek told reporters.

"And I'll tell you this: If I ran to be popular, I would have done nothing but sit quietly in my first few months. I didn't do that because we were elected as a council with a specific mandate to do a lot of heavy work."

She said council was elected to make difficult decisions in a difficult time, and to bring people out of the troubled times that they are in.

"But there's no one, no single person that can do that in 100 days," Gondek added. "We can do that in the four years that we have a term, and we will do that."

Henry said the poll's suggestion that council has better approval ratings than Gondek could be a challenge.