LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Heritage Fund plan needs transparency

In her televised address to Albertans on Feb. 21, Premier Danielle Smith committed to publicly release a longterm financial plan charting a path to a Heritage Fund of between $250 billion to $400 billion by the year 2050.

The premier should be lauded for this long-range fiscal vision, but getting there will be a major challenge.

Albertans deserve a better idea of the extent of the challenge of building up the Heritage Fund, and why we must meet it to secure our financial future.

The details behind this long-term fiscal vision matter to Albertans. BERG Capital Management, now the PNYX Group, was selected in June 2023 by the Alberta Treasury Board to provide investment consulting services, reviews of investment policy and strategy, risk assessments of current portfolios and investment analytics necessary to continue meeting the fund's legislated objectives. This includes putting forward recommendations to further grow it.

To avoid the same controversy surrounding Alberta pension plan deliberations, there should be full transparency with Albertans about the reports prepared by BERG/PNYX on building up the value of the Heritage Fund.

Lennie Kaplan, Calgary

City bureaucrat’s opinion unwelcome

Tim Keane, general manager of the city's planning services, this week presented council with a summary of the public hearing on blanket rezoning.

Keane's job was to summarize the feedback received from citizens.

Instead, after briefly summarizing, Keane shifted into drawing conclusions, which were his interpretations of the feedback.

Keane mentioned his vision for the kind of housing that Calgary needs, the pros and cons of such housing, his interpretation of people's fear of change, and so on. Presenting his vision for a future Calgary was not what he was asked to do.

Keane's job was to provide a summary of the feedback received at the hearing — period.

He did not summarize the myriad solutions presented by the public.

Instead, he presented his opinion and vision as a factual summary of the feedback.

This was a biased and misleading representation of the facts and should be disregarded.

Brian Donaldson, Calgary

Public feels ignored by city council

I have not read the report given by Calgary city staff to council regarding rezoning, as I was unable to find it on Calgary's website.

However, the Herald and other media did summarize the presentation nicely, and I appreciate that.

I note that the articles make no mention of the written submissions that Calgarians were encouraged to submit in lieu of attending in person, to speed up the process.

My spouse and I each submitted opposition and recommendations on various aspects of blanket rezoning. Am I now to assume the city staff did not read or report on those hundreds of submissions?

Coun. Andre Chabot is right, I have never felt less heard than with this council, and the ever more predictable city management.

Gary Bunio, Calgary

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