Taxpayers sitting in the rough as Kananaskis fiasco plays out
Tory leader McIver left holding the bag for Notley and Jean to flail away
It’s said the sun never sets on a Robert Trent Jones golf course.
The late, great architect designed more than 500 of them across the globe during his long career, but the shadows are lengthening at one of his greatest creations — the 36- hole Kananaskis Country Golf Course.
It’s nothing to do with either Jones’ work or the surroundings. The architect himself deemed it “the best natural setting I’ve ever been given to work with” when it opened back in 1983.
The devastating floods of 2013 turned his work of sporting art into a swamp — only four holes escaping serious damage — and since then, golfers have looked elsewhere in the Bow Valley for their fix.
But the floods didn’t just wash away all that white, bunker sand, lovingly imported by the provincial government using Heritage Trust Fund cash more than 30 years ago.
It also laid bare a generationold deal that also stretches back to the days of former Premier Peter Lougheed.
The Kananaskis course was controversial from the very start. Many questioned why $ 25 million from the Heritage Fund’s energy royalties — supposed to diversify the economy or be saved for when the oil runs out — was going instead to build a luxury golf course during a time when Alberta was bleeding from the effects of the National Energy Program.
Time hasn’t healed those wounds, nor has it answered questions about the awarding of an initial and abiding contract to run the course to Kan- Alta, whose original shareholders included associates of former premier Don Getty. That decision came despite the firm even failing to make an initial short list of bidders.
Fast forward through many a Tory premier since then and we find Jim Prentice caught up in the Kan- Alta contract controversy after millions of dollars of taxpayer cash was doled out to the company to compensate for flood losses and to start rebuilding work.
This week we learned, even though restoration work on the golf course was supposed to have been halted, the bills kept arriving, with the result that taxpayers have so far shelled out more than $ 10 million to Kan- Alta since the floods.
Now auditor general Merwan Saher is investigating if the contract to operate the golf course provided value for money and followed correct practices. Let’s hope he’s an Edmonton Eskimos fan, given the background of the initial shareholders.
Regardless of those findings — most likely a long ago “jobs for the boys” deal, rather than anything too smelly — there’s a much more interesting aspect to this golf course fiasco.
It symbolizes the huge shift in Alberta that’s occurred with a new government.
To lay this brouhaha on Prentice would be unkind, except, because of the long duration of PC rule, he had to carry the can for his forbears. But that’s what 44 years of same party government brings.
So the current PC leader, Ric McIver, faces the impossible task of somehow defending a deal done 32 years ago that’s still relevant
because his lot never lost power until May.
Unlikely bedfellows Premier Rachel Notley and Opposition Leader Brian Jean will have a field day with this one. Both can pillory the Tories, although it’s Jean who stands to gain most by driving a stake through the PCs and positioning himself and his party as the only right wing alternative to the governing NDP.
Who would have thought, back when Lougheed trucked in U. S. sand to Kananaskis and awarded a contract to run the course to some former Eskimos buddies, he’d be handing whips to both the right and left to flail away with gusto.
Meanwhile, the broken Kananaskis course lies moldering in the summer heat. Likely for not too much longer, as it slowly reverts to its original, natural splendour.
It’s sad, but the sun will indeed set on a creation of Robert Trent Jones.