The main lesson Calgarians are learning is don’t vote for leftist governments that spend all kinds of their tax dollars on fluffy woke causes and ignore the most important issues. Pictured: Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek. Photo Credit: Jyoti Gondek/Facebook.
The ongoing water crisis in Calgary is something that never should have happened in an advanced country such as Canada, but does contain object lessons for other municipalities and perhaps all other governments in the country. Accidents will always happen, but a look at the facts suggests this serious event could have been avoided if municipal employees and politicians had been more on the ball.
One of the causes of this mess is negligence, as always seems to be the case with these situations. Initially officials claimed the infrastructure involved was supposed to be good for 100 years and this particular pipe in question was only 50 years old. But when more experts weighed in it turned out that the life expectancy was actually 50 years after all. So city bureaucrats overseeing this should have been tracking it and doing preventative maintenance or planning for replacement, especially considering the line that originally broke was a major conduit that enabled water to move across the city.
After the main pipe was repaired, it was found that there were a bunch of other “hot spots” – sites of future leaks – that needed attention. It certainly appeared that the entire system had not been effectively monitored for some time. Some of the parts needed to fix the problems were not available, and a request had to be put out internationally to see if any other countries had the required parts. Wow – talk about poor planning. At this time Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek was urging all of Calgary to “get through this together.” Kumbaya everyone! Local politicians were all encouraging a focus on reducing water consumption. Fire bans were also in place. Water parks and swimming pools remained closed. There was a boil water advisory in Bowness, Alberta.
Businesses were threatened that if they did not reduce their water usage, then their water access could be cut off. Residential consumers were not subject to this threat, as more votes always reside with the residential taxpayers than the ever punished and over-taxed business taxpayers. After about a week into the crisis, Calgarians were once again asked to curtail their water use as, despite earlier success in reducing water demand, water use had begun to creep up once again. Neighbours began snitching on each other as to who was using water “recklessly.” Despite all of the inconvenience of this mess, taxes have still not been reduced because of the lower quality of this public service. They should be. If the city suffers a revenue loss perhaps they’ll be more motivated to maintain essential services next time.
If the situation had not been so serious, it would have been comical. At one point Mayor Gondek suggested that people should not shower, nor worry about how they looked or smelled. Gondek also appealed to the oil and gas sector for assistance. It must have been difficult for a far-left leaning person like Gondek to admit that the Alberta oil and gas sector contains lots of very knowledgeable and competent people that could help in a situation like this. Despite this, no doubt sure the oil and gas sector came through for her, as the responsible citizens they are. Gondek was also quick to appeal for help to her much-hated provincial conservative counterparts, which must have been tough for her. However, the Danielle Smith government promptly stepped up to the plate to assist.
Hopefully, all other Canadian municipalities are looking at this fiasco with a view of “There but for the grace of God go I.” This author imagines there will be a big demand for water system pipelines and inspection services over the next little while. There should be. Municipalities have consistently in past years become embroiled in issues over which they have absolutely zero jurisdiction or influence in their zeal to be, one supposes, relevant. Boring stuff like maintaining services such as water, roads, sewage facilities and the like are just so tedious. Instead, weighing in on the Israel-Gaza conflict, rejecting clean natural gas as a future energy source, getting into gender identity and critical race theory absurdities are much more fun, despite the fact that municipal governments have no jurisdiction over these issues. And many more tax dollars are wasted pursuing these foolish causes instead of doing the job municipal politicians are elected for, which is maintaining basic infrastructure.
Increased population in Calgary was also a cause of the watermain problems. It’s no secret that Alberta has been attracting people from other provinces and from outside Canada because of its healthy economy. Also, the federal government has raised immigration number to absurd and unsustainable levels, putting pressure on provincial infrastructure all across Canada. These developments are not exactly new, and should have been taken into account by municipal bureaucrats. Governments typically view issues in the time frame before the next election – four years or so. But the supposedly skilled bureaucrats working for government are the ones that can take a longer view. They certainly did not do their job in this Calgary debacle.
We also can’t forget how the ubiquitous presence of public sector unions serves to degrade public services and delay action in the case of emergencies. Unions build clauses into collective agreements that make overtime work – necessary in a crisis – hugely expensive for cities and other governments, which mean governments try hard to avoid doing this even when needed. Public sector unions also ensure that their wages and benefits are excessive as compared to their counterparts in the private sector, ensuring that taxpayers pay an absurd amount of money for government services that are mediocre at best. As well, unions are notorious for protecting bad workers and not sufficiently rewarding good workers, which means service quality is consistently inferior.
This crisis in Calgary is very much a “first world” problem. For many countries around the world, having readily available, clean water on demand would be a miracle, not an everyday accepted reality. Still, this should never happen in any Canadian city where very high taxes are being paid and government employees are extremely – some would say excessively – well compensated. By taking measures to prevent this kind of emergency other municipalities can hopefully avoid having to repeat it in their neck of the woods. As for Calgarians, the main lesson they are learning is don’t vote for leftist governments that spend all kinds of their tax dollars on fluffy woke causes and ignore the most important issues. All Canadians should learn that lesson.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
