LYTLE: A story of when water engineers took their responsibilities seriously...

I once worked at a mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia and was treated to the history of the development of that part of “Down Under.” In the early 20th century, a water pipeline was run over land from Perth on the coast to the new gold mining camp developing in the Australian desert. When the intake valve to the 500-kilometer, large diameter pipeline was turned on, the butterflies in the stomach of the responsible engineer went into overdrive. Would the system work? Three days later, nary a drop of water was showing up and the large men who “moiled for gold” were giving angry glances at the hapless engineer. Sensing failure, and the derision and shame of such incompetence, he committed suicide. (The next day the water arrived in a gush.)Perhaps you know where I am headed with this. The current frenzy over “drought”, water restrictions and broken cisterns is becoming reminiscent of the frenzy and hysteria over COVID. Once again, the authoritarians are dictating terms, and I must urinate on my flowers to keep them holding on. To do otherwise is to face fines and social ostracism. What I notice is that, even as I sprinkle my grey water on the plants, the city is watering its flowers and continuing to test its fire hydrants. And I notice that our mayor seems not to have particularly greasy hair or stubbly legs. We are all in this together. It is déjà vu, all over again.But where is the accountability for those whose incompetence has visited this aggravation on us? Who will be the one to commit ritual hari kari to vitiate the pique of the people? Yes… incompetence. Pipelines don’t wake up one day and decide to break. Pipelines are poorly designed, improperly specified, recklessly installed and/or improperly maintained before they break. You have to cut the pipeline some slack and look for guilt in other areas.“But we will have time when the crisis is over to figure out what went wrong,” they tell us. Except they never do. Figure out who the idiots were and what they did wrong, that is. In true Hilary Clinton fashion we will be admonished, “What difference does it make at this point!” Well Madam Clinton, the families of the people unnecessarily killed in Benghazi might think there is such a need. And Madam Mayor, I want this incompetence to be paid for by a responsible party.But how are we to know who must answer for our anger? We don’t know and for my part, I don’t really care. The Australian engineer did the honourable thing and took responsibility for the apparent failure. In the case of the City of Calgary, I expect Mayor Gondek to do likewise. To be clear, this is not personal, and suicide is not required. I don’t know the mayor and am sure she is a very nice woman. But, I am not a fan of her preaching over a drought that is always imminent but never arriving. I am also not a big fan of three week hearings that send a clear message that is summarily ignored. But being mayor is a tough job. And that is the point. It is tough because it demands responsibility for when the music stops, and the chairs run out. When this happens, you leave the game.My family and I once lived in a large, Colombian city on the Caribbean coast. It was a paradise if you ignored the fact that the telephones didn’t work, water was available sporadically and the power had a nasty habit of going out when you were in an elevator between floors. The infrastructure for the city had been built by the Germans almost 100 years earlier and due to incompetence and corruption, the systems for which people paid their taxes hardly worked. For 100 years no one was held responsible. We don’t demand responsibility for incompetence anymore.No one bore responsibility for the economic crisis of 2008. No one has paid for the millions of unnecessarily dead people (based on the rise in all-cause mortality) from the COVID and injection mania. No one is paying for the current monetary inflation — certainly not he who doesn’t think about monetary policy. If no one is ever required to take responsibility, then we will get more of the same incompetence. It will be like living in a large city on the Caribbean coast, and I will be very grumpy.Sorry Madam Mayor. It is surely not fair, but the game demands a responsible party, and you wanted the job, so you take the good with the bad. The music stopped in your tenure so now you must go. Take as many as you want with you before stepping down but step down you must. We can't wait until an election. Discipline delayed is no discipline at all.

LYTLE: A story of when water engineers took their responsibilities seriously...

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