Nenshi claims innocence regarding Calgary's troubled water infrastructure

Alberta NDP leader and former Mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, claimed innocence of any wrongdoing regarding Calgary's troubled water infrastructure in a press conference held on Tuesday. "No, it doesn't say that," said Nenshi when asked by the Western Standard to comment on him and other city officials being aware of critical water infrastructure issues while he served as mayor. The question stemmed from a report on Calgary's June 2024 water main break, which stated the city had known for 20 years about major water infrastructure issues. "What it says is that there were systemic failures over about 20 years, and in fact, senior decision-makers and politicians were not informed of this stuff," Nenshi said. .Although the report does not explicitly name Nenshi, it outlines systemic issues in reporting and information under his watch that limited the Council's ability to make critical, informed decisions on the matter.The report states that, "Despite repeated identification of this risk, the city prioritized other critical needs and initiatives, repeatedly deferring Bearspaw South Feeder Main (BPSFM) inspection, monitoring, and risk mitigation.""This deferral was a function of underestimated likelihood of failure, not appreciating the significant impact of a failure, emphasis on other priorities and occasional periods of operating budget constraints."Nenshi has said that, even though he feels the report makes clear that he had no wrongdoing regarding the issue while serving as Mayor, there is still an issue that needs to be resolved."So, even though the report completely clears me and all previous city councils of any kind of wrongdoing or incompetence, I still think that the mayor and council today are reading it correctly, which is, even though it clears people, it doesn't mean everything's perfect," Nenshi said."It means that things still have to get fixed, and I think they do have to get fixed.".Premier Danielle Smith has criticized Nenshi and other previous mayors, placing significant blame on them for getting Calgary's water infrastructure to the critical, unstable state it is in now after December's break along the BPSFM line."So when you look back on who is ultimately politically responsible for making sure that taxpayers of Calgary are having this critical infrastructure invested in, they have a water utility run by the City of Calgary, and all of this should have been identified early, so that now subsequent mayors are not having to deal with this," said Smith on January 2.The UCP caucus has been direct in targeting Nenshi following the report and suggests it is an indictment of his leadership ability."These weren't random accidents. They were results of years of neglect under Nenshi," said MLA Chantelle De Jonge, Chestermere-Strathmore, in a video on Jan. 14."Albertans deserve leadership that takes responsibility for basics, like water. But instead, he claimed, just this week, that he didn't know our system was at high risk of failing.".On Tuesday, Nenshi claimed that the UCP government is hunting for ways to pin the blame on him."Would the premier be blaming me if I wasn't leader of the over the New Democrats today? Of course not," Nenshi said. "This government's doing what this government's doing. They're looking for blame, and they're looking for political insight.""They've gone on this giant fishing expedition of 1000s of documents just to see, 'Is there anything in there about Nenshi?' Never mind that the report completely clears politicians. They're still on this fishing expedition because they're looking for political gain."With connections back to Calgary city hall and as a resident of the city, Nenshi has reached out to the current mayor, Jeromy Farkas, and other city officials to offer his support for what the city is doing.As a former Calgary mayor, Nenshi also offered Farkas some ideas on how the city could move forward, which he called "free advice, worth what he paid for."