Leong: Widespread political failure led to Green Line’s collapse

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If anyone wants a master class in how governments should not behave, the last three weeks of Green Line shenanigans should prove highly instructive.

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Everything that’s happened since Sept. 3 — when Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen penned a letter withdrawing provincial funding from the Green Line project due to sudden concerns about the plan to tunnel through downtown Calgary — has led to politicians trying to make the other guys look bad and attempting to make themselves look like the hero.

Except there will be no heroes.

You have the province, harbouring its own regional rail ambitions, disrupting a long process of consultations and analysis that’s been going on for more than a decade. While this process hasn’t been perfect, you can trace every step for every decision that led to to the Green Line as we last knew it.

And as much as the Alberta government has been eager to bark orders, Premier Danielle Smith has also explicitly said the province has no interest in taking over.

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Meanwhile, you have the city forgetting its place. Municipalities may seem like independent organs but they all exist under provincial law. Provinces are usually reluctant to forcefully impose their will as it’s usually a bad look, but the UCP government has shown no signs it cares one lick about this.

Calgary has no choice but to work with the province, however proud city leaders might be of its existing plans, however things eventually turn out, whatever the whims of that higher order of government.

Suitable Green Line solution could have happened drama-free

The worst part came Friday, when the political actors involved in the Green Line mess appeared to find common ground. At the urging of Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, the province seemed open to the idea of repurposing as much of the existing Green Line’s work as possible for the next version of the light rail project. (For whatever the province’s word is worth these days, anyway.)

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It’s not beyond reason, then, to believe we could have arrived at this point without disruption or drama. In a less messy version of recent history, the province would have worked the city to figure out a way to do this without anyone going for the nuclear option.

Even if things get better from here, the long-lasting and real-life side-effects of this political posturing are simply catastrophic.

We often use sports terminology to describe what happens in politics. We call it a playing field or a hockey rink and speak of horse races, scoring points, taking hits and so on. Gondek herself described her last letter to the province as a Hail Mary pass. Discussing things in this manner has a way of making everything seem benign, maybe even innocuous — as if this were just a silly ball game.

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Sure, it’ll be interesting to see how the various players emerge from this controversy and how they explain to the electorate why they allowed things to unfold as they did.

Except politics isn’t sports, and real life is more than stats in a box score.

Politicians must pay for impact of  Green Line failure

When we observe and attempt to analyze the ramifications of the Green Line calamity, we must remember it goes far beyond the competency and/or re-electability of bureaucrats and officials of all stripes, at every level of government.

Hundreds of people will be needlessly thrown out of work. Many individual construction sites have now in limbo. Dozens of businesses and homeowners are wondering if their lives have been unnecessarily disrupted. Broken contracts will mean millions spent for literally nothing in return.

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Everything that has happened to the Green Line since the beginning of September represents the epitome of destructive partisanship, with politicians forgetting they are not there to play their backroom games but to perform their duties and take actions in our best interest.

Elected officials having forgotten this, taxpayers are now seeing precious money and even more precious time wasted despite most everyone agreeing the Green Line needs to get built.

No one in municipal and provincial public office who has participated in this latest outrage should be allowed to get away with it.

rleong@postmedia.com

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