GOLF COURSE EXPENSES
Are Alberta’s Tories taking a mulligan?
The Tory government says it has only spent $2.3 million rebuilding a flood-damaged golf course in Kananaskis Country before launching this week’s review of the controversial project in light of the province’s fiscal plight.
But the government’s own payment ledger shows Alberta taxpayers have already given the private company that operates the 36-hole facility over twice that amount in the first six months of this fiscal year.
The $5.4-million payment to Kan-Alta Golf Management Ltd. is prompting opposition parties to question whether the true costs associated with repairing the course in the wake of the 2013 floods is much larger than the government’s current $14.6-million estimate.
And critics with the Wildrose, Liberals, New Democrats and an independent MLA are sharply criticizing the Progressive Conservative regime’s continued secrecy about its untendered deal to lease the course to a firm with close ties to the ruling political party.
“The government’s numbers don’t add up and this deal doesn’t pass the smell test,” Wildrose MLA Pat Stier said.
“It seems insane to be spending like a drunken sailor on a golf course at a time when so many Albertans are in a state of poverty or being laid off.”
When the government announced last July that it was rebuilding the course in the floodplain of Evan Thomas Creek, the estimated price tag was $18 million.
But when Municipal Affairs Minister Diane McQueen told MLAs on Thursday that the project was now under review, she said the cost was only $14.6 million, of which only $2.3 million had been spent so far on flood cleanup and salvage.
That number is much smaller than the $5.4 million the province’s Blue Book shows the government paid to Kan-Alta in the six-month period ending Sept. 30.
The government also paid the golf course operator approximate- ly $400,000 in the 2013-14 fiscal year, during which the course was badly damaged by flooding.
Government officials did not respond Friday to detailed Herald questions about the payments to Kan-Alta.
“The government needs to come clean with Albertans about what the total bill of this perk for the privileged will be,” Liberal Leader David Swann said.”
“Their priority should be building and renovating schools and hospitals, not golf courses.”
The decision to review the project comes two days after Environment Minister Kyle Fawcett defended it during debate on the government’s supplementary estimates, which allocated $1.2 million in capital funds and $8 million in operating expenses for the course.
Under questioning from Independent MLA Joe Anglin about the reason for the $8 million in operating expenses, Fawcett suggested they related to maintaining the four or five holes on the course that were not damaged during the flood.
“There’s this stuff called grass ... The grass has to be nice, has to be taken care of. You don’t want weeds in it,” he said.
Later, Fawcett told a Herald reporter the money was to cover heating costs in buildings unaffected by the flood.
“He’s making this up on the fly,” Anglin said. “The minister needs to tell the whole truth about how much taxpayer money is going out the door on this deal and for what.”
Fawcett’s press secretary, Parker Hogan, has said in a prepared statement that none of the $9.2 million allocated in the supplementary budget has yet been spent, pending the results of the review ordered by Premier Jim Prentice.
“Monies allocated through the estimates process are set aside at the moment,” said Hogan, “but will not be spent unless the government is satisfied that the project is in the public interest.”
Archival documents obtained by the Herald show Kan-Alta, whose shareholders included friends and associates of former premier Don Getty, was originally awarded the contract to operate the golf course in 1983 despite the fact the firm failed to make the initial shortlist of qualified proponents and even though their final bid was financially inferior to one by a competing Calgary consortium.
The current agreement with the firm that runs through 2025 was inked by former parks minister Richard Starke and signed off on by the province’s Treasury Board last summer.
While the deal was not publicly tendered, Starke said it offered a good return to taxpayers and was a wise investment at the time.
“Clearly we’re in a different situation than we were in July as regards revenues from oil royalties,” Starke said in an interview.
But New Democrat MLA Brian Mason said he believes the unexplained $5.4-million payment to Kan-Alta is compensation for lost revenue due to the course’s closure in the wake of the flood.
Mason challenged the government to publicly release the lease, so Albertans can assess for themselves whether the sole-source arrangement is a good one for taxpayers.
“Whether they have signed a deal that requires these payments or they’re making them voluntarily, they’re spending millions of dollars in public money to subsidize their Tory friends and that’s just wrong.” Mason said.
“If they put luxury golf courses ahead of money for the Children’s Advocate to investigate why they are dying in care, there’s something fundamentally wrong with this government’s values.”
Brian Bygrave, one of Kan-Alta’s owners, was not available for comment.