Wildrose would scrap golf deal, sell or lease Kananaskis course
Wildrose leader Brian Jean says the Tory government shanked the ball deep into the rough by signing a secret deal last year with a party- connected company to rebuild a taxpayer- owned golf course and compensate the private firm for losses while the flood- ravaged facility was shuttered.
During a campaign stop at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course, Jean teed off Wednesday on the ruling Progressive Conservative regime for agreeing to spend $ 18 million reconstructing the damaged links and handing over at least another $ 5.8 million to cover expenses and forgone profits as part of an untendered agreement made after the 2013 floods destroyed most of the 36- hole facility.
Taxpayers are also covering over $ 145,000 in property tax relief for Kan- Alta Golf Management Ltd. and the government has set aside another $ 8 million for further payments to the firm.
Jean said a Wildrose government would rip up the 10- year deal inked with the firm last July and sell or lease the course to the highest bidder.
“While Albertans are suffering and worrying about their jobs, we have a PC party doing what they’ve done for years, which is give their friends special perks,” he said in an interview.
“If the government can’t make this crony contract public and if it commits taxpayers to shovel money into this money pit, then let’s be done with it.”
Faced with public anger about the expenditure as he prepared to cut spending in the recent provincial budget, Premier Jim Prentice announced a review of the controversial deal by an independent expert.
While that expert has yet to be chosen or a timeline for a report established, Prentice has said the review would look at lease agreements with Kan- Alta stretching back decades to ensure the public interest was protected and develop an alternate private business model that would not require public ownership of the course.
Officials with the Progressive Conservative party did not respond Wednesday to a Herald request for comment on the Wildrose plan to dispose of the facility or an update on the government’s promised review.
Constructed at a cost of $ 25.5 million in today’s dollars, the world- renowned course was leased to Kan- Alta in 1983 during Premier Peter Lougheed’s rule despite the fact archival documents show the firm failed to make a short list of qualified proponents and its offer was financially inferior to another bid.
At the time, the firm’s shareholders included friends and associates of Don Getty, a former teammate of Lougheed’s with the Edmonton Eskimos, his once energy minister and soon- to- be- successor in the premier’s chair.
Retired Eskimos running back Jackie Parker, the team’s former general manager Norm Kimball and Brian Bygrave, the former pro at the Derrick Golf and Country Club, where Getty often played, each owned 20 per cent of Kan- Alta’s shares. Elmer Kraft and Wayne Bygrave also owned one- fifth of the company’s shares.,
Earl Francis, who headed a competing group on the shortlist, was disappointed but not surprised when his firm lost out.
“Our group had experience running another mountain golf course at the Jasper Park Lodge,” said Francis “but we had none of the political connections that the Bygrave group did.”
Elections Alberta’s donations database shows the firm’s connections with the Progressive Conservatives continued. In a recent six- year period, the firm or its shareholders gave over $ 2,600 to the party or its local riding associations.
New Democrat Leader Rachel Notley said the government needs to come clean on the “insider deal” with Kan- Alta and vowed her party, if elected, would work as quickly as possible to get taxpayers off the financial hook.
“Kids are a priority, classrooms are a priority, hospitals are a priority,” Notley said. “Luxury golf courses are not priorities.”
Selling the course outright is complicated by the fact it is situated within a provincial park where legislation requires that all property be retained by the province. Government policy for the larger Kananaskis Country recreation area also says public land will not be sold.
Of the repair bill, $ 3 million is allocated to protecting the greens and fairways constructed next to a naturally- meandering portion of Evan- Thomas Creek from future flooding.
Carolyn Campbell, spokesperson for the Alberta Wilderness Association, said returning the golf course to its natural state might make the most sense from both an environmental and financial standpoint.
“It’s an ecological mistake to try to reroute a mountain river prone to flash flooding away from a golf course,” Campbell said. “To spend scarce public dollars battling Mother Nature makes no financial sense at all.”