Williams faces the suspicion that this is a political witch hunt against NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi.
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The UCP caucus regularly attacks Nenshi for failing to deal with the escalating danger that the Bearspaw line would burst.
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When I asked Williams if Nenshi could be forced to testify, he didn’t answer directly, but pointed out that the official inspector, David Goldie, has power to compel testimony from anybody involved.
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The sign outside Enmax substation 5 was photographed with the Calgary Tower in the background on Tuesday, August 16, 2022.
Braid: Farkas wants Enmax to run city hall's blundering water utility
A section of damaged Bearspaw South Feeder Main pipe is loaded onto a trailer on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026.
How did we get here? A timeline of events as Calgary enacts citywide water restrictions — again
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The minister insists that the government couldn’t legally take action against anyone unless the inquiry produces concrete evidence.
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But the UCP can’t deny the political context here with any credibility.
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Nenshi was mayor for 11 of the 22 years since the problem was first flagged in 2004, with the spectacular McKnight Boulevard blowout.
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Yes, he needs to answer. But so does his successor, Jyoti Gondek.
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There’s even a case that Mayor Jeromy Farkas should give evidence.
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He was on council from 2017 to 2021. His current role surely gives him insight into what happened in recent years.
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Farkas blasted the province only days earlier for the massive education property tax grab from Calgarians in the new UCP budget.
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Many Calgarians will pay nearly $400 more every year.
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The mayor threatened a citywide referendum and called the tax a form of equalization on the backs of Calgary taxpayers.
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That made the provincial announcement of the water inquiry look like retribution. But Farkas seems to genuinely welcome it as a chance to involve the province in the solution.
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While the new probe starts up, it is useful to recall choice words from the first report: “The risks that ultimately caused the (Bearspaw) failure were identified 20 years prior during internal assessments that were conducted in response to the 2004 McKnight feeder main failure.
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“These assessments had concluded that the PCCP portion of the (Bearspaw) main was vulnerable due to its age, design and material composition, and posed a significant risk to system integrity.”
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Other cities dealt promptly with the identical problem, the report said.
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“In Calgary, however, risk response mechanisms were not triggered and (Bearspaw line) vulnerabilities were not addressed.”
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Those factors led to the disaster.
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But whodunit? Who built, ran and tolerated such a lazy, careless, dangerous way of dealing with public safety and service?
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Those people need to be paraded before the city. It’s the only way to crack the city hall shell that protects officials from their mistakes.
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Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
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X and Bluesky: @DonBraid
It’s impressive how Braid managed to type this all out while simultaneously holding a pitchfork and torch. #yyc #yyccc #ableg