Rod Sykes

In 1984, he was nominated by Alan Clarke, Calgary East Federal Liberal Riding Association Vice President, to run for the Liberal Party for a seat in the House of Commons, in the riding of Calgary East. At the time this was the largest riding in Canada.

Sykes was leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party from 1980 to 1982. He quit as party leader in 1982, frustrated by the party's internal and financial problems.

Sykes served as mayor of Calgary from 1969 to 1977. He was defender of the underdog and the importance of financial safety nets for the needy, attacked corruption among the rich and powerful, and left office after ensuring Calgary would begin on LRT construction. During his time as mayor, Calgary switched from the pro-rep (STV) system to plurality election in single-member wards.

In Calgary, Sykes established and ran the CPR's real estate arm Marathon Realty, which Sykes named after the short story The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. The planned relocation of the CPR tracks was a joint project between the city and the railway, and early on Sykes had a strong relationship with Mayor Harry Hays. When Hays quit municipal politics to run federally in 1963, he was replaced with Grant MacEwan for two years, whom Sykes had a challenging relationship with. While Hays had strongly supported the redevelopment, MacEwan believed the final decision should be sent to the residents of Calgary.

Sykes joined Canadian Pacific Railway as the Supervisor of Economic Projects in 1959 at the invitation of Ian David Sinclair. His role was to better utilize the CPR's non-transportation assets such as oil, gas, forestry, real estate, chemicals and metal holdings. Sykes spent much of his time traveling between his home in Montreal and Calgary, where the CPR was considering move tracks out of the city's downtown and use the land for real estate development. Sykes moved to Calgary in 1962 as the CPR's Project Manager for the Calgary land use study.

Sykes father returned from the Second World War when he was 17, and Rod soon moved out of the family home due to animosity with his father. Sykes considered a career in law, but attended Sprott Shaw College to take classes in business, and began working in an apprenticeship at a small accounting firm. At 19, Sykes reported the principal of the firm to the Institute of Chartered Accountants after he was forced to present falsified figures for a client to a bank, the Institute arranged for Sykes to continue his career at Price Waterhouse. With Price Waterhouse, Sykes lived in Montreal for 8 years from 1954–1962, and in Zürich, Switzerland for a short period of time.

James Rodney Winter Sykes (born May 19, 1929) is a Canadian politician from Alberta. He served as the 30th Mayor of Calgary from 1969 to 1977 and as leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party from 1980 to 1982. He ran as a Liberal candidate in the 1984 federal election.

Sykes was born in May 19, 1929 in Montreal, Quebec, to Leslie Sykes an electrical engineer, and Muriel, a stay-at-home mother. The Sykes family moved shortly after his birth to Sooke, British Columbia. Sykes father was largely absent from the home, working out of the community, and Sykes did not attend a formal school until the family moved to Kent at the age of 8 in 1937. Instead Sykes learned to read and write from his mother. The Sykes family returned to Victoria, British Columbia a year later after the death of his grandfather James Sykes to live in his inherited home.