The mayoral debates were held last night and I must say I found it quite enjoyable. You get a wide range of characters up on stage at things like this (“all my clothes are recycled except for my pantyhose“).

The debate featured some lively exchanges between Alnoor and Dave on taxes, secondary suites, and accountability. Anything else I could add would just be subjective so, instead, I’ll turn things over to the Better Calgary Campaign who, I might add, have already endorsed Dave Bronconnier (with reservations…growing reservations one imagines):

To quickly recap, a member of the audience complained that the Tourism Calgary, an agency partially funded by the city, had promoted Calgary as a friendly destination for gay and lesbian tourists prior to the North American Outgames, which were held in Calgary earlier this year. The Mayor, to our astonishment, did not defend Tourism Calgary, but went to great pains to distance himself from their actions (i.e. advertising to the gay community). In fact, he actually said that if the decision were up to him, he would not have ran the same advertisement. David Bertram, on the other hand, spoke passionately about diversity and the positive economic impact that reaching out to gay and lesbian tourists had on our city.

At the Better Calgary Campaign, we believe a vibrant city is a city the celebrates and promotes diversity. We are profoundly disappointed that Mayor Bronconnier, when faced with the opportunity to stand up and defend Tourism Calgary’s admirable attempt to reach out to the gay and lesbian community, couldn’t bring himself to do the right thing. We expected better.

You can read their full debate recap here.