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He's a champion of the right, riding a populist surge driven by anger at his long-time rival, the mayor. He is also a veteran of city council, where he's known for his fierce critiques of loose-spending colleagues, but likes to frame himself as an outsider, because voters are fed up with the very group he is a part of.
And it's working. He has jumped out to a wide lead among a long list of candidates vying to be elected mayor next month.
Toronto's bombastic Rob Ford? No. Meet Ric McIver, 52, the prickly, mustachioed arch-nemesis of outgoing Calgary Mayor Dave (Bronco) Bronconnier and the front-runner to replace him.
At first glance, Mr. McIver and Mr. Ford are doppelgangers. Each is the furthest right in his respective race; each has ridden a wave of frustration with an outgoing mayor (New Democrat David Miller in Toronto, Liberal Mr. Bronconnier in Calgary); each has built a platform on no-nonsense cost-cutting (in booming Calgary, budget woes aren't quite so bad as in Toronto, but they're close); and each is winning.
But while Toronto's establishment is scared stiff by the prospect of Mr. Ford in the mayor's chair, the more polished Mr. McIver is the toast of conservative Calgary. "In a city in the most conservative part of Canada, we've had a string going back years and years of Liberal mayors," says Sam Armstrong, who, along with Devin Iversen, is running his campaign.
Mr. McIver's team is a who's who of the Stephen Harper political machine. Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Iversen are veteran backroomers who wrote the Harper campaign playbook, a strategy described by opponents as "deep mining": Instead of pitching a big tent, they identify right-wing voters, find wedge issues and drive those people to the polls. And they're being aided informally by Tom Flanagan, Mr. Harper's former chief of staff.
Will it help the Harper government to have an ally in the Calgary mayor's chair? No, observers and opponents of Mr. McIver say - in the same way the Conservatives, who hold 27 of Alberta's 28 federal seats, weren't hurt by Mr. Bronconnier.
But the strong ties have no doubt helped Mr. McIver's fundraising efforts. Likewise, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's appearance alongside Mr. Ford lends the candidate some federal gravitas.
Calgary's right wing has rallied behind Mr. McIver, who has plastered the city with his billboards, which are blue and read: "Common Sense. Conservative. Leadership." Yet he has run a surprisingly moderate campaign.
"I think he's the populist candidate, and of course there's a right-wing tinge to his populism, but he's been careful. He doesn't bring up right-wing positions," says David Taras, a professor of communications and culture at the University of Calgary. "He's not been like, 'Look at me, I'm the redneck.' It's not like that at all. He's moved for the centre."
Mr. Ford, on the other hand, has embraced his inner redneck. And observers say that while it's working in Toronto, Calgarians would demur over Mr. Ford's tactics.
"This is tough to say, but Rob Ford is a lot more conservative than Ric McIver. It's a bit of a paradox," says Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. "I don't think [Mr. Ford]would succeed [in Calgary] I think [voters]would look at him and would just say: 'You're tying into every stereotype of this city and this province that we don't want you representing.' "
UNDERSTUDY
After a career in food distribution, Mr. McIver ran for city council in 2001 - the same year Mr. Bronconnier first won the mayor's chair. Almost immediately, the married father of four made waves as the fiscal hawk on council, proposing a tax cut that was rejected and refusing to give his support to a routine motion to open a line of credit, one that left the city precariously close to insolvency. Fellow councillors criticized his move as stupid; others would later lament his reckless rhetoric.
But he didn't stop. He tried to get yellow "support our troops" ribbons on the city's emergency vehicles (in a debate on Wednesday, he wore such a ribbon, the only candidate to do so) and he supported a panhandling bylaw, calling begging "just plain harassment of the public."
During his second term, he began to oppose most everything Mr. Bronconnier, who was once an ally, proposed. Recently, he led a revolt over an approved $22-million pedestrian bridge, calling the spending wasteful. He was dubbed "Dr. No," but his attitude proved popular within his ward.
And as Calgary underwent unprecedented growth - the metropolitan population has spiked 30 per cent since Mr. Bronconnier took office - council has struggled to keep up. It rapidly annexed land and expanded the city's congested Deerfoot Trail freeway. But traffic remains a nightmare, downtown parking rates are the highest in the country and the city faces still more growth.
If Mr. McIver wins, he will inherit a city in financial straits. The mayor must find $60-million in annual savings, in addition to a 6.7-per-cent tax hike, to balance his budget.
Frustrated with rising tax rates, Calgarians have rejected much of the current council and coalesced around its most vocal and long-time hawk, Mr. McIver. But his support may be short-lived, says Stephen Carter, the campaign manager for rival Naheed Nenshi. "If you've just broken up with your long-term girlfriend, and she's sweet and she's nice, and the bad girl comes up to talk to you, you're gonna sleep with the bad girl," Mr. Carter says.
His implication is clear: a frustrated electorate may flirt with the right-wing Mr. McIver, but settle back down with a more moderate candidate come election day.
CAN THEY PIVOT?
Like Mr. Ford in Toronto, Mr. McIver will face a bitterly divided council if he wins. Can Dr. No play peacemaker and can Mr. Ford fight the well-organized left wing at Toronto city hall?
Prof. Taras suspects that Mr. McIver can pull off the switch from critic to leader, as municipal politics is, by definition, less ideological than provincial and federal politics. "A mayor is not health care, a mayor is not foreign policy, a mayor in a place like Calgary doesn't control the purse strings," he says. "The issues he advocates - whether it's more police on the street, not supporting the fancy bridge, no parking fees - are things that are tangible to people."
Mr. McIver is an insurgent riding a wave of populist support in a city that has history of electing populist mayors, such as Mr. Bronconnier and Ralph Klein, who went on to become Alberta's premier. "He is zeroing in on municipal issues and a lot of them have [political]crossover. But it is populism in a populist city," Prof. Taras says.
But the races are far from over. It remains to be seen whether Toronto voters will actually go for Mr. Ford. And Mr. McIver is in a 15-person race - his "deep-mined" approach might not prevail against a big-tent strategy.
Chief among his challengers are Mr. Nenshi, an academic, former business consultant and one-time newspaper columnist who has run an effective campaign and seen his support grow, and Barb Higgins, a former CTV anchor who entered the race late to initial fanfare, only to see her support stagnate. Ms. Higgins is derided by opponents for her lack of political experience and Prof. Bratt says her campaign has collapsed.
If elected, Mr. McIver promises fiscal responsibility. He has offered some centrist or even liberal policies - such as dropping a parking fee at transit stations to encourage use of public transit. He clearly sees Ms. Higgins as his only serious opponent (his staff was seen videotaping her answers at the forum on Wednesday), and he offers a key distinction between the two. "Oh, experience. Qualification to do the job, just by knowing how things happen at city hall," he says.
Asked how he thinks he compares with Mr. Ford, he replies: "That's for you to decide."
Mr. Nenshi offers a different perspective. "Rob Ford is highlighting a certain angry Tea Party Canada point of view and he was never expected to win. McIver tries to embody that Tea Party point of view, but he actually hasn't done anything in his nine years on council. McIver is actually the ultimate insider. He's the ultimate insider insofar that he gets to blather a lot, he gets to scream a lot, but he hasn't accomplished a thing."
Josh Wingrove is The Globe and Mail's correspondent in Edmonton.