Finally, we might learn who caused the water pipe fiasco that haunts the city.

City hall spent $2 million on a study into the 2024 Bearspaw blowout.

Now, the province will cough up another $1.5 million to investigate.

But we still haven’t heard a damn thing about who is responsible.

The Kiefer report, while slamming city hall governance, stated that because failure was so widespread for so long, nobody was really to blame.

No politicians or officials wear a failure that led the city to current water restrictions and $609 million in urgent repair work. Key senior officials of recent years are still on the job.

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But the provincial probe announced last Friday might finally tear the mask off city hall.

It will examine secret documents, meetings and notes, focus on decision-making and pinpoint who kept deferring essential repairs.

This inquiry is aimed at the people rather than the pipe. If this makes city hall decision-makers nervous, that’s excellent.

Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams, announcing the study, said he won’t use the investigation as a “bludgeon.”

But when I asked him Monday if individuals could be named and even punished, he said, “Yes — this is absolutely about accountability and transparency. I think it allows us to get to the truth of the matter.

“It is within the government’s power to give orders to the city if the report finds the city acted in an improper and improvident way.”

Williams faces the suspicion that this is a political witch hunt against NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi.

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The UCP caucus regularly attacks Nenshi for failing to deal with the escalating danger that the Bearspaw line would burst.

When I asked Williams if Nenshi could be forced to testify, he didn’t answer directly, but pointed out that the official inspector, David Goldie, has power to compel testimony from anybody involved.

The minister insists that the government couldn’t legally take action against anyone unless the inquiry produces concrete evidence.

But the UCP can’t deny the political context here with any credibility.

Nenshi was mayor for 11 of the 22 years since the problem was first flagged in 2004, with the spectacular McKnight Boulevard blowout.

Yes, he needs to answer. But so does his successor, Jyoti Gondek.

There’s even a case that Mayor Jeromy Farkas should give evidence.

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He was on council from 2017 to 2021. His current role surely gives him insight into what happened in recent years.

Farkas seems to see the investigation as a funding opportunity. If city hall co-operates fully, as he promises it will, he’ll have an argument that the province is obliged to help fix the problems.

Farkas blasted the province only days earlier for the massive education property tax grab from Calgarians in the new UCP budget.

Many Calgarians will pay nearly $400 more every year.

The mayor threatened a citywide referendum and called the tax a form of equalization on the backs of Calgary taxpayers.

That made the provincial announcement of the water inquiry look like retribution. But Farkas seems to genuinely welcome it as a chance to involve the province in the solution.

While the new probe starts up, it is useful to recall choice words from the first report: “The risks that ultimately caused the (Bearspaw) failure were identified 20 years prior during internal assessments that were conducted in response to the 2004 McKnight feeder main failure.

“These assessments had concluded that the PCCP portion of the (Bearspaw) main was vulnerable due to its age, design and material composition, and posed a significant risk to system integrity.”

Other cities dealt promptly with the identical problem, the report said.

“In Calgary, however, risk response mechanisms were not triggered and (Bearspaw line) vulnerabilities were not addressed.”

Those factors led to the disaster.

But whodunit? Who built, ran and tolerated such a lazy, careless, dangerous way of dealing with public safety and service?

Those people need to be paraded before the city. It’s the only way to crack the city hall shell that protects officials from their mistakes.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X and Bluesky: @DonBraid

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