Check It Out: Repercussions of exposing corruption

By Joan Janzen

Here’s some wisdom from a five-year-old: “I’m going to sleep with my mouth open so the tooth fairy can just grab my loose tooth out of my mouth.” It was such a great plan, and I hope the tooth fairy cooperated and ensured it worked out for her.

Four men from Chestermere, Alberta, had a plan. They saw some strange things going on in their city of 30,000, located near Calgary, so they got elected in October 2021. Jeff Colvin was elected Mayor, along with three retired businessmen who were elected councillors. Laura-Lynn Thompson invited them to share their story on her online show.

Jeff had a background in developing condos, office buildings, subdivisions and water and sewer development for over twenty years. “With that background, I started seeing things in our city that weren’t making sense,” he said. In 2016, voting residents had signed a petition to investigate the council for corruption. “The petition went to Municipal Affairs and they did nothing with it which seemed odd.”

“Coming into office, we had a platform of reducing corruption and looking at ways of saving taxpayer dollars. I wanted to introduce standard business principles to government,” Jeff acknowledged.

Stephen Hanley said before being elected, he had noticed some “crazy stuff happening” in Chestermere. Because he was a retired senior partner of Canadian Railways, he had time to look into what was happening.

“We were only in office for two weeks when Municipal Affairs had obtained a legal opinion, drafting a letter asking what steps can be taken to remove the city council. They were told there are no steps. The election didn’t go their way, and some people were upset with us and the types of things we were uncovering,” he said. After just two months of being in office, Municipal Affairs investigated the newly elected Mayor and council.

Upon coming into office, Jeff was told the city was broke and needed to raise taxes by 25%. Because of his business background, he wanted to look at the numbers, but he said, “We were getting extreme resistance from our staff who didn’t want us to look into the numbers.”

The new Mayor couldn’t find any paper or electronic files in his office, and the IT manager had deleted all the emails. “We brought this up to Municipal Affairs, but they weren’t interested in looking at it,” Jeff said.

“When I was in business, I didn’t pay attention to what was happening in government. But when I got in office, I was surprised by the apathy employees had towards residents,” he observed. “They just wasted money.”

Some examples of what they found were sixty Visa cards and 300 cell phones for 120 staff. They cut up 54 of the cards and kept forty of the 300 cell phones.

Jeff asked for a quote to purchase a TV for the board room so they could do presentations. He was shocked when he was given a quote for $100,000, but they were serious. Jeff and the CAO went shopping and bought a TV for $1300. However, he noted they had spent $100,000 on the previous TV and were proud of it.

“Our previous administration had put in a new bylaw called a civil discourse policy, giving them power to go after citizens who offered criticism. We repealed that when we came in. Senior staff and Municipal Affairs raised questions and wanted to have this policy,” Jeff explained.

It soon became apparent why they wanted the policy because they discovered the interim CAO had paid out $600,000 in hush money. “There’s a lot of hush going on there,” Jeff said.

“We had a dog park come to us that we wanted to build. Staff came back with a quote of $475,000,” he recalled. He solicited bids and best prices and built three dog parks for a total of $175,000.

During the two years they were in office, they were able to triple their performance in their city with twenty-five percent less staff. They reduced the budget by 30 percent, added four new RCMP, hired six new firefighters plus equipment, reduced taxes by 25 percent, and were able to put money aside.

But what was their reward? In December of 2023, Jeff and three councillors were removed from office by Municipal Affairs.

Because of all the corruption they had discovered, the new council had started a lawsuit in Calgary. “A few days after we were let go, one of the first things they did was terminate that lawsuit,” he said.

When asked if it’s possible for Jeff and the councillors to get back into office, he replied, “ We can, but they’re coming up with a manufactured reason why we can be disqualified. We can win in court, but it would be after the by-election. The whole idea that we’ve done something wrong is nonsense.”

After working 12-hour days for the past few years to help taxpayers, Jeff advises people to stand up for justice. “If you divide the budget by the number of people, it tells you how much is being spent per person. That will tell you if you’re doing well.”