Calgary Herald

Gifts to council range from Flames tickets to socks

- BRYAN PASSIFIUME bpassifium­e@postmedia.com Twitter.com/bryanpassi­fiume

Present and accounted for.

Hot on the heels of last summer’ s revision of council’s ethical conduct policy, a list of gifts received by councillor­s has been made public by the city — revealing an eclectic mix of Flames tickets, cookies, ties and socks, bottles of olive oil and event passes.

In July, council agreed to changes to the city’s ethics rules that restricted policies surroundin­g gifts received by members of council, and requiring the disclosure of all gifts — regardless of price.

Prior to this, councillor­s were only required to report gifts worth over $150.

Coun. Shane Keating — who received 13 gifts for a total of $1,865 — favours the old policy, saying the effort needed by city staff to search out the price of small-ticket items adds little to the policy’ s mission of stamping out corruption.

“It has to be in place, without question,” he said of the policy.

“Often we take policy too far, and I think that’ s what we’ ve done here.

“I thought the old policy was good enough — you’d register a hockey game ticket, you don’t know what the value is because you never see it, but if you register that and register who gave it to you, it keeps things above board.”

Despite the rule changes, the 2017 registry shows some councillor­s with long lists of gifts without prices attached.

Former councillor and recent mayoral candidate Andre Chabot received 19 gifts in 2017, including hockey tickets, dinners, theatre tickets and golf games but with no dollar values listed.

Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart listed receiving six gifts last year, including a Women in Energy Day Stampede Suite for he randa guest, framed art and holiday-related treats and gift bags, but only listed the price of one item: $240 Global-Fest passes.

Those same passes were also the only item priced out by Coun. Richard Pootmans, whose seven gifts included the downtown economic summit, the annual Immigrants of Distinctio­n Awards, passes to the Calgary Stampede, and set of bocce balls from the Glendale Community Hall.

Ward 2 Coun. Joe Magliocca reported the highest total gift amount of any councillor in 2017, receiving $6,470 in freebies.

But Magliocca was also among the most diligent in listing the value of each of his gifts — 28 of 33 gifts had prices indicated.

Council rookie Jeromy Farkas was the only councillor to include values on all of his 19 gifts, which amounted to $1,320.

He was also the most generous of his colleagues, giving away all but five of his freebies, including a $5 package of three cookies, a 250 mL bottle of olive oil, a $10 box of chocolates and a box of pastries to the food bank.

Farkas also donated Calgary Zoo passes worth $635 to Inn From the Cold.

Farkas did keep two calendars from the Falun Dafa Associatio­n of Calgary and a pair of men’s dress socks courtesy of Tourism Calgary.

“I feel I’m pretty well compensate­d, I shouldn’t be looking for perks above and beyond,” Farkas said, adding he’ d prefer councillor­s not be permitted to receive gifts while in office.

“I wanted to make an effort to actually do it right, I think it’s really important to follow the spirit of the rule, and not just the letter.”

The largest gift received by councillor­s in 2017 were hockey tickets in the Saddledome Foundation suite at the arena, valued at $1,260.

All councillor­s except for Ray Jones, Jim Stevenson, Gian-Carlo Carra, Chabot, Colley-Urquhart and Farkas took advantage of that perk.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi received the most gifts of anybody on council — a haul of more than $12,000 that included boxes of chocolates, handmade clothing in his favourite colour, a 3-D image of himself on a rug, pens, coffee mugs, and numerous theatre and event tickets.

 ??  ?? Shane Keating
Shane Keating

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