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Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas does not believe any current or former city council members are at the centre of an RCMP-led corruption investigation, although he says he did not get that information from police.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding at this point is that no member of council past or present is the target of an investigation,\u201d he told reporters outside council chambers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, certain evidence that they may have in terms of text messages or emails they received are being submitted to the RCMP to be able to support the investigation of a third party.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farkas believes allegations have been levelled against a local business, but added that he has not been contacted by the RCMP as of Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The mayor clarified his comments are based on what he\u2019s heard from colleagues, and he believes the investigation should stay at arm\u2019s length from current council members.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take [former] mayor Gondek at her word. I take councillor Chabot at his word as well,\u201d Farkas said. \u201cBut to be crystal clear, I only know what is publicly available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Search warrants and production orders were executed last week on a number of properties, including the homes of former mayor Jyoti Gondek, sitting Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot and former councillor Sean Chu.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Details come from multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation. CBC News has agreed to protect their identities because they are not authorized to comment publicly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement sent to CBC News, Gondek said: \u201cI have been fully co-operative and respect the legal process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chu’s lawyer, Shamsher Kothari, also provided a statement to CBC News, saying, “My client has been co-operative throughout and respects the legal process.”<\/p>\n
Chabot told reporters Tuesday his phone was seized last week, but said he was not questioned and he does not believe he is a target of the investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fully complying. I have nothing to hide,\u201d said Chabot.<\/p>\n
\u2018Huge distraction\u2019 from rezoning hearing, councillor says<\/p>\n
One of Calgary\u2019s new city councillors told reporters the investigation has become a \u201chuge distraction\u201d from the ongoing public hearing on blanket rezoning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating to have to sit there and try to navigate what could or couldn\u2019t be,\u201d said Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really don\u2019t know anything \u2026 right now we \u2019re in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnston said he would like the RCMP to share more information with city council \u201cto ensure that we\u2019re on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n
An RCMP spokesperson has confirmed an investigation is ongoing but declined to provide further comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-561242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}