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EDMONTON – It could cost at least $2.1 billion to end work on Calgary’s first phase of its long-sought $6.2-billion Green Line light rail transit project.

City officials and Green Line board members say more than $1.3 billion has already been spent on land acquisition, utility work and new rail vehicles, and a wind down could cost another $850 million.

The numbers were revealed at a city council meeting Tuesday, as members discussed the fallout of losing Alberta government funding for the project.

Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen has said the province will pull its $1.53-billion portion from the project if the city doesn’t rejig the line’s route and extend it farther south.

Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen penned a letter to Gondek in early September saying the province would pull its $1.53 billion in funding from the $6.2-billion project if the city doesn’t rejig the line’s route and extend it farther south.

City chief administrative officer David Duckworth said Tuesday that pausing work to wait months for other alignment proposals is untenable at this stage in the process, and the city can’t afford to take on the risks.

He said Dreeshen’s announcement earlier this month has left the city no other option but to bring work to a halt.

If the project is shut down, more than 1,000 staff and contractors would be off the job by the end of the year, although some construction work would need to stretch into 2025.

Coun. Sonya Sharp said before the meeting that she wanted to see the project better handled and communicated among elected officials before it reached an impasse.

She said council owes it to Calgarians to consider the province’s proposal.

“Let’s just pause and think — let’s not knee jerk reaction this. Let’s maybe take 90 days or three months, whatever they need, to work this out, and let’s think of a proper work plan and get everybody at the table, including the federal government,” she said.

“We can’t just walk away and not be a part of this.”

Mayor Jyoti Gondek has said it’s clear the province isn’t willing to budge on rerouting demands, and the city is also mulling over how it might transfer costs to the province.

“(The province) has the ability to impose, really, anything they want on us. And by imposing the wind-down of this project, they have saddled us with costs that I don’t believe we should have to bear,” Gondek said in an interview Monday.

Among other changes, Dreeshen wants expensive downtown tunnelling off the table.

Gondek said such proposals have been studied and rejected, and subsequent meetings with Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government haven’t moved the two parties to a compromise.

Dreeshen has declined to say whether the province would backstop liabilities for delayed or cancelled contracts, but reiterated that he is working to get alternative proposals from an independent engineering firm.

“We will continue to collaborate with the City of Calgary and our federal partners to ensure an orderly transition from an expensive and high-risk project with extensive tunnelling to a new and longer above-ground alignment that will benefit many more Calgarians,” he said in a Monday statement.

Council approved an updated, shortened line in July, with an added $700 million in costs to municipal coffers.

The premier has called the Green Line “the incredible shrinking project” and said it needs a complete rethink to be more cost-effective.

Speaking on her radio call-in show Saturday, Smith said she wants more direct political oversight of mega projects.

“I’d be looking to be quite a bit more involved than we were in the past,” the premier said.

Gondek said the only way forward is for the provincial government to oversee whatever project proposals it comes back with.

“In the world of the UCP government, it’s power and control. And they will leverage it to get what they want,” said Gondek.

The mayor said the city can’t afford to wait for more reports to begin another approval process. It’s too late for tweaks.

“If (the provincial government) wanted to delay things to figure out a solution, the time for that was July,” she said.

She added that the funding agreement for the Green Line with the federal and provincial governments expires March 31.

The dispute has become highly politicized, as former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, who left city hall in 2021, became leader of the Opposition NDP in June.

Dreeshen has labelled the Green Line project the “Nenshi nightmare.” He has said the former mayor is responsible for mismanaging the project from the start and that it was never properly engineered.

Nenshi, in turn, has blamed Dreeshen for turning the project into a political football and putting jobs at risk.

Nenshi told a Calgary Chamber of Commerce event that the province is wasting money with its “petulant, toddler decision.”

“They lit $800 million on fire. Why? So they could insult me,” he said

The Calgary Construction Association has said the UCP’s decision undermines confidence in the reliability of government funding for major infrastructure developments across the province.

It has urged the province to reconsider.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

EDMONTON – Observers are criticizing Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean’s suggestions on how the province might clean up its thousands of abandoned oil wells, saying they favour industry and lack input from the public.

“Albertans are owed a better explanation than they have received so far about why this is necessary,” said Martin Olszynski, a professor of resource law at the University of Calgary.

Jean’s department is opening consultations on how to deal with Alberta’s nearly half-million oil and gas wells, two-thirds of which are not producing. Estimates of the potential cost vary wildly into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

In an interview, Jean suggested that although it’s not his preferred solution, some form of public assistance may be needed to clean up the mess despite industry’s legal obligations. He also suggested municipalities may have to take a haircut on their tax levies and that industry’s regulatory burden may need to be lightened.

But Olszynski said many energy companies are thriving. Any kind of a publicly financed bailout would raise serious questions, Olszynski said.

“There is no rational explanation for this support when you realize this industry is not a monolith. In the absence of a better explanation, Albertans are properly left to wonder what’s going on.”

Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said using public resources on the problem doesn’t address how it came to be in the first place.

“We can look at the short of what needs to be done immediately, (but) we also need to be looking at how do we prevent this. I don’t see anything in what (Jean’s) been talking about so far that’s going to prevent the situation from happening over and over.”

Rural Municipalities of Alberta president Paul McLauchlin said municipal taxes are well down the list of a well owner’s expenses and that 94 per cent of companies pay their taxes just fine.

“This narrative that (reducing) municipal taxes is what’s going to save the industry is a completely ridiculous notion,” he said.

He said business groups such as the Alberta Enterprise Group — once headed by now-premier Danielle Smith — have been lobbying for municipal tax reductions for years.

“The government’s going to do this on the backs of rural Albertans,” McLauchlin said. “Rural MLAs need to speak up.”

Opposition New Democrat energy critic Nagwan Al-Guneid said reducing environmental liabilities for energy companies with public resources amounts to breaking the law.

“It is unacceptable to use public money to clean up the legal obligations of companies to clean up the environmental damage they cause,” she said.

Olszynski also questioned Jean’s statement that the Alberta Energy Regulator’s footprint is too large. He pointed out the province’s auditor general found in a January report that the regulator underestimated cleanup liabilities and didn’t have a good handle on pipeline reclamation or the state of Alberta’s 59,000 pieces of energy infrastructure.

“It’s hard to square the auditor general’s concerns with the idea of a lighter regulatory burden.”

If anything, the regulator’s reach should be stronger, said Al-Guneid.

“I think we have great regulations,” she said. “They’re not being enforced.”

Both Olszynski and Morrison criticized the lack of public input in Jean’s consultations.

“It’s often that (this government) looks at the industry perspective and the economic perspective but not at the whole picture,” Morrison said.

Olszynski said leaving the public out of such discussions is how Alberta wound up with such a large liability in the first place.

“Surely, by now, you would think maybe we should bring the public in.”

Richard Wong of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said government moves have helped operators reduce the inventory of inactive wells by 18,000 from 2018 to 2023. The overall percentage of inactive wells has fallen from 21 to 17 over the last four years.

“While there is more to be done to further accelerate the process for well closures, (the association) is looking forward to working with other stakeholders on potential regulatory, policy and fiscal measures that may be needed to address the challenges in regions of Alberta with mature oil and gas-producing assets through the province’s mature asset strategy consultations,” Wong wrote in an email.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

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OTTAWA – Next week could be the first opportunity for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to introduce a non-confidence motion asking the other parties to topple the Liberal government.

Poilievre promised he would bring such a motion at the first chance he had, after the NDP ended its supply-and-confidence deal with the Liberals earlier this month.

It now appears that chance will come on Sept. 24.

Opposition parties can introduce motions, including those declaring non-confidence in the government, on specific days designated in the House of Commons calendar.

The number of opposition days and which party they go to is determined at the start of a session, and the actual days are scheduled by the government.

During a meeting of House leaders on Tuesday, the government told the other parties that the first of five opposition days for the Conservatives this fall will be next week.

That means a debate on the Tory motion is likely to happen Sept. 24 and the vote would be the following afternoon.

The schedule for next week will be confirmed in the House of Commons on Thursday.

Poilievre brought a non-confidence motion in March, asking opposition parties to join him in triggering a “carbon tax election,” but the NDP and Bloc Québécois joined the Liberals in voting the motion down.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has said that without the supply-and-confidence deal his caucus will take each vote as it comes. He has also repeatedly said Canadians have lost faith in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.

The NDP wants pharmacare legislation to pass before the next election. The bill in question is currently before the Senate.

The Conservatives would likely need support from both the NDP and the Bloc for a non-confidence motion to succeed.

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Tuesday he doesn’t intend to be the one to trigger an election but he expects the Liberals to provide something in exchange.

Blanchet’s party wants the government to increase the Old Age Security pension for all seniors by 10 per cent. In 2022 the Liberals increased the amount for seniors over the age of 75.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.