BREAKING: Unredacted watermain report indicts Former Mayor Nenshi’s lazy leadership style
For over a decade, Calgarians were sold a false vision by former mayors Naheed Nenshi and Jyoti Gondek.
For over a decade, Calgarians were sold a false vision by former mayors Naheed Nenshi and Jyoti Gondek. They claimed Calgary was a model of progressive professionalism. We were told our government was process-driven, expert-led, and well-managed.
The final redacted independent review into the Bearspaw South Feedermain failure tells a different, more indicting story.
It describes a City Hall, under the watch of Nenshi, that bloated unnecessary management, raised taxes, and funded symbolic priorities while failing to act on known, catastrophic infrastructure risks.
The collapse was slow, but most importantly, it was entirely avoidable.
Problems were identified as early as 2004. Yet, under the subsequent mayorship of Nenshi (2010–2021), the Water Utility managed to spend its full capital budget only twice. Money was collected, but the contingency work was not done.
The Nenshi administration was defined by a governance style that prioritized image over actual competence. It’s the same approach Nenshi would like to apply to the entire province if given the chance.
The report also notes that critical inspection recommendations for the feedermain made in 2017 and 2020 were deferred or redirected. The last Tactical Asset Management Plan was issued in 2017 and then left to gather dust. While the Mayor’s office perfected the art of narrative control and consensus-building, the “culture of deferral” became the safest career move within City Hall. It’s a classic case of kicking the can down the road.
As the technical oversight waned, an inefficient bureaucracy grew that took the place of competent experts.
Management layers thickened, and executive compensation climbed, yet accountability vanished into a “consensus-driven” void. We saw a city where money flowed freely to DEI initiatives, consultants, and communications teams, while the North Calgary Water Servicing Strategy, first proposed in 2011, was allowed to slip for over a decade.
The transition to the Jyoti Gondek administration (2021–2025) did not break this fever. Gondek had an opportunity to prevent disaster but instead, her lack of leadership only made things worse.
The report is explicit: the organizational restructuring completed in 2022, which split the Water Utility across multiple departments, exacerbated the lack of accountability. By 2024, leak rates reached 22%, nearly double the industry median. Even as the system neared a breaking point, the City continued to extract annual dividends from the utility to fund general spending (read more: anti-racism initiatives), a move the report calls “inconsistent with best practice.”
Physics does not care about DEI. Pipes and plumbing do not respond to progressive rhetoric.
The report spells an institutional failure where the Water Utility was treated as a cash cow rather than a critical service. By the time the watermain first ruptured in June 2024, the “systemic gaps” created a literal flood.
The Panel’s findings avoid individual malice and do not allege corruption but document something perhaps more dangerous: a profound indifference dressed up as governance. You may call it “performative governance”, where the appearance of activity replaces technical know-how.
Incompetent leadership prized symbolism over substance. Raises, bonuses, and anti-racism funding over critical infrastructure spending.
For Calgary, the bill for twenty years of lazy leadership has finally come due. But Nenshi has absconded to Edmonton, and we are the ones left to pay for his failure.
Both Nenshi and Gondek are useless as a teet on a bull. Incompetent and big-talk with no action, typical DEI driven left-wing nutjobs.
Makes me question the mental capacity of the people who voted them in.
And now, Nenshi being the "leader" of the "official opposition", always opposes any and all common sense political decision, especially those made by Premier Smith. Looks like his whole miserable political existence is not about what's best for the people of Alberta but what's best for Nenshi.
The arrogance of this pompous buffoon has no limits. Imagine the world where the majority of the parents want their kids back in classrooms and protected from perverts and groomers, while Nenshi openly admits the whims of the unions and gender-benders supersede those of the parents. And his minions applaud. Sadly, you don't have to imagine this; it happened.
And why was Gondek elected? Another DEI hire with oh such useful degree in sociology.
Her own words for her and Sohi's win: "We have normalized now the idea of women and people of colour being in senior leadership positions. I am happy that the population sees itself reflected in its local government."
If that doesn't scream DEI, I don't know what does.
The risk of water pipe failure was identified going back to 2004. Nothing was done to fix it. It critically failed twice in under a year and a half.
The Green Line fiasco is another shiny example of a mutant child of poor planning and wishful thinking. And that's from a mayor who supposedly was all about infrastructure, transportation, and extensive experience in urban planning.
This kind of incompetence is a trademark of both NDP and Liberals yet people keep putting these idiots in charge.
So, as in Toronto, it makes a person wonder where all the tax money went. Toronto is now mired in infrastructure repairs plus condo development making it nearly impossible to get around or figure out what detours the TTC is taking today. Those repairs were put off for years and years. Better late than never I guess, but please don't use the planned-demic as an excuse.