Background
A third generation Calgarian (his great grandmother was born in Calgary in 1895), he grew up in the southwest community of Glenbrook and attended Viscount Bennett High School.
A third generation Calgarian (his great grandmother was born in Calgary in 1895), he grew up in the southwest community of Glenbrook and attended Viscount Bennett High School.
Bronconnier served on Calgary"s city council as the Alderman for Ward 6 for nine years. He was first elected in 1992 and then served 3 terms before deciding to run for mayor. In 1997, Bronconnier ran in the federal election as the Liberal candidate for Calgary West.
Bronconnier was defeated by a landslide in this election by Reform Party candidate Rob Anders.
Long serving and very popular mayor First Rate (at Lloyd's) Duerr was retiring leaving the position open. Bronconnier narrowly defeated Bev Longstaff, Duerr"s protégé, winning the mayoralty race of 2001.
He became Calgary"s 35th mayor. Bronconnier was re-elected in 2004 with nearly 80% of the votes.
Only 18% of the population voted, making it the lowest voter turnout for a municipal election in Western Canada.
He campaigned for re-election in the 2007 Calgary municipal election and was re-elected with 61% of the votes. On February 23, 2010, Bronconnier announced that he would not seek reelection in the 2010 municipal election. He was among the finalists for the 2010 World Mayor prize.
In November 2011, Bronconnier was named by Premier Alison Redford to be Alberta"s trade commissioner in Washington, District of Columbia for a temporary nine-month term.
Environmental leadership
Mounting international, domestic, and celebrity criticismof Alberta"s underdeveloped Green technology infrastructure prompted former Premier Editor Stelmach"s government to commit $4B Computer-aided Design to a province wide green capital projects plan in 2009. city consulted with Pembina for technical advice.Pembina scholars compiled the "Options for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Calgary" to advise the city on how to implement infrastructure projects for environmental protection. The city acted on these recommendations through city owned company Enmax decided on a series of public works facilities such as the "Shepard Energy Center", and a 12 Turbine wind farm that supplies wind power for Calgary Transit"s C-trains, and the District Energy Centre a heat capture energy plant providing heat and energy for the downtown core.The city publication of the "Greening the Grid" was entitled "Calgary Climate Change Action Plan: Target (down arrow) 50" (Target Minus 50)
The "Greening the Grid" program"s objectives are to empower city facilities by renewable sources by 2012.
Calgary Transit"s C-trains" electrical needs were partially provided by wind power in 2001, by 2009 the inception year of "Greening the Grid", the C-train were fully empowered by "Ride the Wind" a program launched by Enmax and wind power engineers "Vision Quest Windlectric. committed $250M Computer-aided Design on the "Greening the grid" program Key events of mayoralty.