The Challenge

In the years leading up to Calgary’s 2022 municipal election, Calgary had grown – a lot. New neighbourhoods were being built and neighbourhoods were being redeveloped – yet not enough new fire halls were being built, and emergency response times were climbing.

When firefighters saw emergency response times rising year after year, they knew families’ lives were being put at risk – and it was their job to do something. But with the mayor retiring and a city election fast approaching, they needed to develop a cross-partisan approach to grab the attention of all mayoral candidates – and a plan to ensure the new council followed through on their election promises soon after election day.

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Our Solution

With finite resources and a noisy political environment, Metric worked with the CFA to build a community of Calgarians who supported better public safety. In short, we put together a posse.
Using the CFA’s existing email list, augmented by a campaign video, online advertising, and email engagement, Metric rang the alarm on the looming crisis. We used online advertising to expand the firefighters’ online community and built buy-in from their existing activists that the rising emergency response times demanded urgent action.

CFA leaders met with mayoral candidates to make the case for appropriate funding increases to improve emergency response times. At the same time, Metric mobilized the CFA’s growing community of activists to launch a public pressure campaign – with activists driving the conversation raising the issue on social media, and directly advocating to municipal candidates through calls and emails on the issue.

After the election of Mayor Jodi Gondak and a new city council in the early fall, Calgary had just weeks to pass an operating budget for the coming year. Despite the public pressure, city staff had drafted a budget without the necessary funding increase.
The CFA worked to confirm the support of council members and to get a budget amendment introduced while Metric set about mobilizing the firefighter’s supporters again, this time reaching out to individual council members en masse to deliver the message that Calgary needs more fire stations and first responders.

Metric also produced and ran a powerful campaign ad in just a few weeks – and leveraged connected TV advertising to make sure that emergency response times were the key issue in the fall budget debate.

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The Results

Despite the challenge of a noisy news landscape during the municipal election, the CFA, supported by their digital activists, was able to secure public commitments from all mayoral candidates for the necessary funding increase for emergency response.
While that commitment was a victory in its own right, the firefighters and their committed digital community rapidly mobilized for the city budget fight, making XXX calls and sending YYY emails to Mayor Gondak and council members in the weeks leading up to the budget.
Thanks to Calgary’s firefighters and their community of supporters, $53 million in new funding has been committed to build new fire halls in 2023 and beyond – and Calgary’s new city council knows that firefighters will always fight for the safety of Calgary’s residents.