Klein grew dissatisfied with the direction of Calgary City Council, urban sprawl and Mayor Ross Alger's proposed civic centre. The enormous proposed city centre required City Council to purchase properties in a five block radius, purchasing historic and small buildings one-by-one. Klein voiced his dissatisfaction through a monthly column in "Calgary Magazine", his topics included his displeasure with the city's heavy-handed "block busting" and expropriation tactics, the polluted state of the Bow River, transportation planning and the Ctrain, weakness of open government and freedom of information, but always ended his columns with a note of optimism and a challenge to his readers to think of how to improve the city. Through his articles, Klein was able to grab the attention of Calgary voters highlighting the issues they faced. Finally Klein was alerted by former Mayor Rod Sykes to a film crew and actor portraying a "bum" digging through garbage in a downtown alleyway, Klein rushed over and filmed the event. The film crew belonged to an advertising agency which admitted to producing an election television advertisement for incumbent Mayor Alger. Alger had previously noted his new "civic centre" would remove undesirable populations, and the CFCN report on the advertisement showed Alger as cynical and manipulative, eroding his support. Klein's final documentary "Dreams, Schemes and Sandstone Dust" brought the human element to the civic centre debate, interviewing the bar regulars, hotel tenants and small business owners who were set to be bulldozed, creating a narrative that the areas historic but rundown buildings were worth preserving.