Smith Calls Calgary’s Closed-Door Council Habit ‘Not Good Practice’ — and Farkas Once Called It the Chamber of Secrets

Premier Danielle Smith has told Calgarians their city council spends too much time behind closed doors. After Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston leaked preliminary budget material pointing to a potential 20.2 per cent property-tax revenue increase in 2027 if every ask in the multi-year cycle were funded, council voted 12–2 to have Mayor Jeromy Farkas write the province about a Municipal Government Act breach. Johnston separately asked Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams to review when financial and policy advice can legally go in camera. On radio, Smith said closed sessions should be “very rare,” that she would be “hard pressed” to find times her caucus goes in camera as a full body, and that choreographing votes privately then voting in public is “not good practice.”

The irony is that Farkas built part of his brand attacking that same culture. As a rookie councillor in 2018, he dubbed the closed room the “Chamber of Secrets,” walked out of in-camera sessions, and tabled reforms for recorded votes, paper trails, sunset disclosure, and independent oversight — arguing many closed meetings were used “for political reasons rather than just clear legal reasons” and that “what happens at city hall belongs to Calgarians.” His 2025 mayoral platform, Open by Default, promised the most transparent city in Canada. As mayor this year, he co-sponsored an annual in-camera summary with Johnston himself, with quarterly reporting set to start in 2027.

That leaves City Hall in a bind of its own making: a mayor who long opposed secrecy is now the face of a complaint about a leak from a closed session, while the premier who rarely uses in-camera at the Legislature says Alberta is “very much looking at” whether Calgary’s habits need a provincial rewrite.