Bell: Danielle Smith explodes over Calgary water pipe explosion — and Nenshi

Premier Danielle Smith is peeved off, riled up, steamed, incensed, livid.

Smith says as much.

“Frustration doesn’t begin to describe what we’re seeing,” says the outraged Alberta premier.

What she’s seeing and what we’re seeing is an exploding water pipe that went kaboom in the summer of 2024 and again a few days ago.

What Smith is seeing and what we’re seeing is a Calgary city hall doing a pathetic job for many, many years in making sure the city water pipe didn’t get to this sorry state, where even they admit any section of the pipe could blow at any time.

Smith takes aim at Naheed Nenshi, former mayor of Calgary and now the Alberta NDP leader.

The premier tells your scribbler on Friday afternoon how Nenshi wears a lot of the blame and is ultimately the one most politically responsible for this water pipe fiasco Calgary once again faces.

She says “the seeds of the problem today” began in years past.

Smith asks who the mayor was after the 2013 flood, the one person who should have been making sure the water pipe system was up to scratch, the one person who should have had his eye on the ball in those years where the pipe’s condition was already a calamity just waiting to burst.

Her finger points directly at Nenshi.

“How on earth could he have avoided that one major role the mayor has and that’s municipal infrastructure?”

Good question.

Smith does not stop there.

The premier says the province might have to step in and oversee the water operations at the city.

Calgarians, wake up.

This just shows how incompetent the elected and unelected mucky-mucks who have been running the city hall circus are seen to be. This column has been warning you countless times over countless years.

Big Blue Playpen. Cowtown Kremlin. Silly Hall. It wasn’t a joke. If it was a punch line the taxpayer was at the end of the punch.

The chickens have come home to roost.

“I’m looking at whether or not we need to have more direct oversight over utilities.”

When it comes to water, there could be a provincial body looking over the shoulder of the city.

“We like to allow for cities to exercise their areas of jurisdiction but when we see a massive failure like this again and again…”

Smith is looking at “whether or not we can have repair orders we issue.”

The premier says Calgary ratepayers paid the city water utility to make sure the pipes were up to standard.

If that wasn’t enough …

“Calgarians also have seen a massive increase in the amount of property taxes.”

Smith adds she is watching for an outside panel’s report on their probe of this tragedy of errors, on how Calgary ended up in this mess that could have been and should have been avoided.

She wants city hall to “cough up” the report sooner rather than later.

The look-see’s findings are expected in a few days.

“Then we’ll see what kind of additional oversight we need,” says the premier.

She is far from finished. She is far from amused. She is fed up.

Smith says if cash flows from the province the Alberta government will be sitting at the table with all eyes on what is done with the dough.

She compares Calgary and Edmonton and the capital city wins this Battle of Alberta.

Smith tells us she’s phoned Edmonton and the folks up there tell her they do not have Calgary’s water pipe problems because “they have a proactive policy on monitoring their pipes.”

Imagine that. It ain’t rocket science, folks.

The premier wants to make things crystal clear.

Calgary’s poor oversight has caused the problem.

“This has got to be unacceptable to the residents of Calgary,” says the premier.

Smith is confident Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas understands the seriousness of the situation.

“I’m going to see what the councillors have to say. I’m hearing about a lot of really frustrated council members being kept in the dark,” she says.

Smith wonders if city council has problems even being able to do proper oversight of the city hall higher-ups.

Failure. The premier says the word a few times.

Failure. A city hall failure.

rbell@postmedia.com