Prior to the 2010 civic election, I recall sitting in a Denny's style restaurant with a friend I'd known since high school. We were discussing politics & the coming election in Calgary. Long time mayor Dave Bronconnier had stepped down & the current favourites to win the mayor's seat were Ric McIver, a long time alderman & Barb Higgens, a media personality from CTV Calgary.
The person I was sitting with commented how she hoped that she had met Nenshi & hope he would win. I commented that his support was in the single digits & he was unlikely to even register with the voters.
As the election neared the unlikely happened; Nenshi started getting support. At the time I was living in the north area of Mission on 17th Ave. The day of the election, I set out to walk downtown & the corners had "Vote Nenshi" scribbled in chalk on the sidewalk. The same was written on the walls of buildings, at bus stops & on every other public place one could write in chalk & do it without fear of getting fined.
After work I headed over vote. My polling station was on 18th Ave just up the street from where I lived. I arrived to find a line that came out the door and headed down the street. The typical municipal election gathers little interest to voters but today it was clearly the opposite. I set out to wait in line, finally getting inside after about 45 minutes to vote. I knew something was up.
Nenshi won, beating out second place Ric McIver by over 28,000 votes. Calgary entered a new era in politics and a new era in Canada.
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