I have good news: We did it!

All 14 wards in Calgary have now had election debates. The Sprawl has recorded and livestreamed forums in every single ward. Asad Chishti and I had to organize and run four of them ourselves, but we did it.

In the four outer wards that hadn’t yet had a debate, there are 20 candidates total. We invited them all to The Sprawl’s last-ditch debates this week and incredibly, 16 showed up. These candidates were from across the political spectrum, including independents and candidates from A Better Calgary Party, Communities First and The Calgary Party.

I applaud each and every one of these candidates for making time to gather like this in the final week of the campaign.

There were some strange moments. After Ward 2 incumbent Jennifer Wyness took four days to respond to our debate invitation with her availability, she publicly disparaged our forum, which she didn’t attend (all other candidates did), as “a disservice to the community” because Ward 2 residents weren’t invited to be there in person. You can read more about that here.

A friend messaged me after: “Thank you for your disservice!”

Then there was Ward 13 yesterday, where only one of two candidates, Elliot Weinstein, had confirmed. We heard nothing at all from the incumbent, Dan McLean, even after following up with his party (Communities First). How do you hold an election debate with one candidate?!

We found a way. The show must go on!

You can watch all four last-ditch debates, and all of our forum livestreams, on YouTube. For easy reference, the videos are all embedded in our forum tracker as well.

Yesterday we also added the last bio to The Sprawl’s candidate tracker. It felt like pressing in the final piece of a huge puzzle we’ve been working on for a long time (we started the candidate list last November!).

We now have independently-written bios for every single candidate running in this election, including all school board trustees—even those without websites.

Last night I also updated our candidate tracker with endorsements. Earlier this week, Parents for Choice in Education endorsed five CBE trustee candidates—the five that The Sprawl reported on in September with similar campaign materials.

We also added the endorsements of the Calgary police union (for all Communities First candidates) and Calgary’s Future, the progressive third-party advertiser that city unions put $1.7 million into before the last election.

Our candidate tracker and ward debate videos are useful resources for anyone researching how to vote on Monday. We encourage you to share them widely!

I am incredibly proud of The Sprawl’s election team and what we’ve accomplished. Kelsea Arnett kept our candidate tracker current. Sam Hester has been making delightful daily election comics. Chris Pecora, our designer, kept everything looking sharp (especially our zines!). And Asad Chishti, our roving election reporter, has been the best co-conspirator I could possibly ask for.

Yesterday we all gathered at Sprawl HQ to celebrate. And then Asad and I crashed. At one point I was trying to say something to him, and failing to form sentences, and he said: “Don’t even try with words right now.”

Folks, it has been an absolute pleasure to serve you during this election campaign. We’ve had a blast. We are also very tired!

If you’ve appreciated The Sprawl’s coverage of this election, please pitch in and support our independent Calgary journalism. Here’s why people have pitched in this week, in their own words:

If you’ve found The Sprawl’s election coverage similarly valuable, hit that support button! You can give monthly (preferred!), yearly or one time, as you see fit.

Remember to vote on Monday. Polls are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

From the bottom of my heart: thank you, thank you, thank you. For reading and watching. For sharing our stories and zines. And for supporting our work. I’m so grateful you are part of this wild and wonderful community project that is The Sprawl.

Jeremy Klaszus is founder and editor of The Sprawl.