On Day 2 of Calgary’s new council, it suddenly looked just like the old council.
Members were faced with Mayor Jeromy Farkas’ urgent motion to ban other countries’ flags from running up the city hall pole on national days.
It was defeated by an 8-7 vote.
Farkas had been working on this since he discovered that the Palestinian flag had official permission to fly last Saturday.
He drafted a bylaw to keep it from happening again, essentially by flying no flags of other nations on national days.
Then Farkas took the political equivalent of a gut punch.
When the votes were called, he lost.
City hall veterans cannot recall another time when a mayor was refused debate on a matter of urgent business.
It’s usually routine, a simple matter of respect for the mayor’s concerns.
Not this time.
The motion was moved by Coun. Dan McLean. But it was the mayor’s alone, and Farkas has made that clear since the issue erupted.
Farkas spent four years on council and knows his way around. Not until Monday, though, did he learn Lesson 1 for a Calgary mayor.
Never take anything to council unless you’ve got the votes.
Council looked even worse.
Just about every member campaigned on dealing with nuts-and-bolts issues — the roads, the crimes, the zoning bylaw.
And there they were, wrapped up in flags.
A council that was expected to be moderate comes across as ambiguous, at best, about the unchecked demonstrations that have spewed hatred against Jews across Canada for two years.
Antisemitic bile has permeated and poisoned our most crucial institutions, especially the universities.
Now, I’m not so sure about city hall.
The bylaw already on the books could have been used to quash the Palestinian flag-raising.
The bylaw says: “The city may not normally fly flags which may be considered controversial or divisive.”
And: “The city will not fly a flag of an organization whose undertaking or philosophy espouse violence, hatred or racism.”
What more did they need? How clear does a law have to be?
The bylaw also says the city’s protocol office will exercise discretion “in consultation with the mayor’s office” if any exceptions are planned.
There sure wasn’t any consultation with Farkas.
The story I hear is that the flag-raising was approved at a lower level in the waning days of former mayor Jyoti Gondek’s regime.
Another tale is that bureaucrats now say the rules don’t apply to national flags. Due to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ruling on statehood, they claim, the Palestinian flag could not be refused.
The bylaw says nothing of the sort. Any flag can be banned if it’s divisive at a certain time. This is another administration invention.
Besides, none of Carney’s conditions for recognizing statehood have been met. City officials somehow concluded that they have.
Bureaucrats do not have the right to interpret city bylaws to suit their own beliefs and convenience.
A council that doesn’t step on that trend right away is going to fail.
It’s hardly clear that Farkas’ response, cooked up in a near-crisis atmosphere, is the right one in this case.
He’s trying to sanitize flag-raising by refusing everybody, rather than facing up to moral choices that might cost votes.
This may not be over yet.
The vote was, in part, a reaction to the mayor’s haste. Councillors didn’t have a chance to look it over and consult with voters.
They wanted more time and may eventually vote in favour.
McLean said the bylaw will be proposed to executive committee on Dec. 15. If approved, it will be brought forward for full council debate.
But this is all picayune noodling of the sort that became so entrenched by the last council.
The fact is that the current bylaw would work just fine — if anybody had the guts to use it.
