Calgary city councillors and Mayor Jyoti Gondek are furious with the Alberta government after the province announced they would pull $1.53 billion in funding for the city’s Green Line LRT project.
In a Sept. 3 letter, Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen called the revised Green Line plan “unacceptable,” stating that the project had become a “multi-billion-dollar boondoggle that will serve very few Calgarians.”
Dreeshen also criticized former Calgary Mayor and current provincial NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi.
“To be clear, we recognize your and the current Council’s efforts to try and salvage the untenable position you’ve been placed in by the former Mayor and his utter failure to competently oversee the planning, design, and implementation of a cost-effective transit plan that could have served hundreds of thousands of Calgarians in the city’s southern and northern communities,” he wrote.
Calgary city council spent much of Wednesday debating the uncertain future of the Green Line LRT project, directing their frustration at the province.
“I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the province for not doing their work and having appropriate conversations with the experts that we have working on this project to understand what it is we are delivering and how we can best deliver it to meet everybody’s goals,” Calgary Councillor Kourtney Penner said.
“The cost to do this and the cost to wind down this project is likely going to be more than what the potential provincial contribution would be to fully fund the Green Line, to Shepherd, and they have not bothered to have those conversations with our experts,” she added.
Penner noted that her frustration stemmed from the province treating the project as if it were still in planning rather than already underway.
“We’re continuing to go back to the drawing board. And that is not effective. That’s not good governance. That’s not good fiscal management. It is poor political acting. And it’s deeply frustrating,” she said.
Councillor Courtney Walcott echoed the disappointment saying he was “angry that we’re here because the province just pulled the rug out on us,” he said.
Councillor Evan Spencer said that the municipality should not be carrying the risk. As the chair of audit, he would like to see the risk transferred to appropriate levels of government.
“It’s time for us to put our two feet on the ground, stand up for Calgarians, and say we’re tired of being bullied and pushed around by a higher level of government,” said Spencer. “Let’s stop the dilly-dallying around on this. It’s time to send a strong message to the province.”
Gondek said that the council had a responsibility to Calgarians to manage the public purse wisely.
“We are the partner at the table with the least amount of tools to fund and finance this. We are the partner at the table that cannot run a deficit and, dare I say, we’re the partner at the table that does not have a multi-billion dollar surplus for us to take on the risk when the change that’s desired is coming from another partner,” said Gondek. “Any delays we have, if it’s days, if it’s weeks, if it’s months, if it’s years, costs us money.”
She called on the province to work collaboratively with the city to determine the next steps.
“This is no longer our project. It’s not the one we approved in 2020. It’s not the one that we established a Green Line Board for. This is now the province’s project. They need to be the ones to hold the risk on this. And if we cannot outline that for them, then we haven’t done our job as a good partner,” said Gondek.
Dreeshen told True North that the Green Line was initially supposed to be 46 kilometres with 29 stations and cost $4.6 billion. It has since been reduced to 10 kilometres with seven stations, costing $6.2 billion.
“In short, with this plan, Calgarians are getting less for much more,” he said. “We look forward to seeing a new alignment from the independent third party, separate from the City of Calgary, before determining the next steps. Throwing good money after bad is simply not an option for our government.”