Your faithful GayCalgary craftspeople have done it for you! We’ve answered the burning question on every Calgarian’s mind about our internationally-renowned mayor: pets?
"I have never had a pet; I find pets confusing. Except for the time I brought the hamster home, in Grade Six, but then he escaped from his cage, and I spent the entire Sunday night thinking I had killed the classroom’s hamster."
#PetlessNenshi!
His Honour takes the reins: "Maybe I can start off a little generally... In my first year as mayor, right at this time of year – so exactly five years ago – I was asked if I would be the marshal of the Pride Parade. I said Yes! I didn’t even think about it. It’s a big parade.
"When it came time for the actual march, the people in my office were sort of preparing for what kind of a backlash we were going to get for this – first [Calgary] mayor to be in the Pride Parade, and so on.
"Not only did we not get any backlash at all... the most interesting phone call we get in the office... was a person who said ‘I’m calling to see if the mayor’s getting any backlash for being in that Pride Parade’. And the receptionist said ‘No’ and the guy said, ‘I don’t much like the gay agenda’ – whatever that is – ‘but he is the mayor for everybody, and good for him for doing it’. So to me, there is something about living in this place that talks about that opportunity for everyone.
"A good friend of mine just posted online, after Orlando, that despite all of the tragedy in the world, with homophobia and so on, we live in a province where all three orders of government have our back. And I thought that was a very interesting, and a very touching, thing to say.
"For me, I feel that so many big civil rights victories for the LGBT community have occurred in the last little while. It’s happened fast: same-sex marriage is only 10 years old in Canada, and one year old in the U.S. I don’t really know any trans people very deeply; I wish I did. But I do think that the fight for equality and acceptance of trans people is probably the defining issue of our generation, and one that I hope we will actually see happen soon and quickly."
GC interrupts, describing the mayor as clearly an alien android with plans to overthrow the Earth, because clearly this is not an Albertan politician speaking to a member of the press.
"Here is one of the things about the real Alberta: Ronnie Burkett, the puppeteer, I remember 20 years ago, maybe 30, that he had a puppet character which was an older rural Albertan lady. She was a founder of the Reform Party and spent her time volunteering for AIDS organizations. [GC and Nenshi both laugh] To me, that’s very Albertan, because most everyone here – other than our Indigenous brothers and sisters – has come from somewhere else. To build a barn on the prairie, you didn’t get a barn unless the community built the barn, and I think there is something about Alberta that is very misunderstood by people away from here; which is that we may have our political views, but we also really believe in giving people a fair shake.
"It may come out a little more openly now, in public policy, but I think it actually speaks to something that’s really deep about who we are. You know, when I first was elected, a lot of people were very interested – in places all over the world – about how can a Muslim be the mayor? And, in fact, it never, ever mattered during the election. Everyone just said Oh, he’s from Marlborough! We want to know what he wants to do with public transit!
"I think there’s something special about this place, and I’m not just being a Polyanna. We still have Islamophobia and xenophobia; we still have racism; and, of course, we still have homophobia. But the optimistic part of me says, ‘I would much rather be facing those issues and having those conversations here, than just about anyplace else in the world’.
GC brings out one of its formalized mayor questions: Rainbow crosswalks are fine, but what about schools, workplaces and the media – what are some constructive plans you have for our cities?
"The reason that I was so active, and so was Mayor Ivrson by the way, in the debate over Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs) in schools, was a very simple thing for me. A public school has to accept everyone, and every student at that school has to be safe, everyday, at school. We know that GSAs not only help the students feel safe, but we also know that we have got a group of people that have very high issues of mental health and very high rates of suicide, and that’s LGBTQ teens. So if we know what works to make them feel safe, to make them feel better about themselves and to live their best life, then why the hell aren’t we doing it everywhere? That was really my point: that people require this place of safety, and it’s the government’s role to make sure that people have this safety, so that they have this chance to lead their best possible life. To me, that’s very simple; that’s why we do government."
GC is a little speechless. Mayor Nenshi to the rescue: "Rainbow crosswalks are also lovely!"
GC brings out another of its formalized mayor questions: With events like Orlando on everyone’s minds and hearts, do you think it’s possible to learn productively from such an incident?
"That shooting happened on a Saturday night, and on the Sunday we had hundreds of people in Olympic Plaza, and we had all the landmarks of downtown Calgary lit up in rainbows. It SOUNDS hokey, but that lighting up the city, and having the community gathered all together in that place, spoke to me more volumes than the violence itself. It’s about the reaction that people have, and how we come together.
"The best thing I saw online was something like ‘Oh, you gun activists are going to rue the day this happened, because now you’ve mobilized the LGBTQ community against gun violence. Because these people of LGBTQ persuasion (using a word that started with ‘Q’) know how to get things (using a different word for ‘things’) done!’"
GC: I guess what strikes us is you’re saying that, with the mobilization that occurred, it’s a few creating a terrible incident which mobilizes the many into realizing who really matters, and where the community is.
"That’s it. It’s about mobilizing, as you say, ‘the many’. I’m very, very aware of my position in life, and the fact that I come from a position of privilege. I’m a straight, cisgender male."
Here Mayor Nenshi decides to show off his gender politics know-how. For those of us unfamiliar with this newly applied adjective, ‘cisgender’, as defined by dictionary.com, is "a prefix meaning on the same side of, referring to the alignment of one’s gender identity with one’s biological sex assigned at birth." Slam-dunk for Naheed!
Referring to the orientation question, Mr. Nenshi continues: "Whenever anyone asks me I say No, but who cares? Unless you’re asking for a date, it doesn’t matter. And I come from that place. But I’m also an ethnic minority, and a religious minority, and I think I understand a little bit about what it means to be a minority, particularly what it means to make sure that everyone in our community has opportunity.
"So to me, that’s the most important part of this work. It’s not just about mobilizing people in the LGBTQ community, it’s also about helping other people be better allies."
GC clarifies that this writer’s legal blindness perhaps increases my sensitivity to others’ vulnerabilities, and I ask how much Mr. Nenshi thinks his minority background has affected his approach to being mayor.
"I’m not sure I have ever met anybody who doesn’t feel isolated, or an outsider, in one way or another. There might be people who feel the world is at their feet, but I don’t know those people.
"I grew up in a first-generation Canadian family that didn’t have a lot of money, in the working-class part of Calgary. But the community really gave me an enormous opportunity, through many different prisms: excellent public education; public transit so I could explore the city; the public library was always a great place of refuge for me; I learned to swim in a public pool very badly... I should perhaps stop telling that story, as people keep reminding me that I RUN the public pools now.
"The big lesson for me, in that, is that the community was willing to take a chance on me, and help me succeed, and so it’s my job – my requirement in my life – to make sure that I provide that opportunity to other people as well."
Lastly, GC interrogates the mayor’s office line that Every single person has the opportunity to live a great Canadian life right here.
"It’s where I live, but it’s also something we have got to fight for. Every. Single. Day. It is really, really fragile. And it’s important that good and decent people stand up and have their voices heard every single day."
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