Not all Calgary city councillors, nor the mayor, feel as though city administration acted quickly enough on a preliminary report in October 2024 from the Bearspaw independent review panel, and that it should have come to council for action immediately.

Councillors got an update on administration’s effort after receiving the Bearspaw South feeder main independent panel’s early recommendations in a High Priority Action Report (HPAR) received Oct. 15, 2024.

This report preceded the draft interim report and ultimately the final report, which highlighted two decades of poor oversight and lack of risk management of Calgary’s water system.

COO Stuart Dalgleish went through a detailed review that was broken into three specific timelines, dating back to the June 2024 Bearspaw South feeder main break.

From June 5, 2024, to Oct. 14, 2025, 29 previous pipe segments were repaired, the line was operated at reduced pressure, emergency repair plans were developed and spare pipe and parts were brought in.  Dalgleish also said that there were multiple condition assessments, and acoustic monitoring was installed.

Further, planned redundancy projects were advanced, and the budget for water infrastructure ballooned to $1.1 billion in 2026, after being $400 million and $500 million in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

Once the HPAR was received, Dalgleish said that the eight recommendations included in the priority document were actioned.

“There has been much that’s occurred since the 2024 June Bearspaw South feeder main break. Our learnings are many, and one of these is that the causes of the break stem from over two decades of systemic and other issues,” Dalgleish said.

“While we’re in the very unfortunate circumstance of dealing with a second break and emergency, we are fortunate to have the independent panel’s recommendations in hand, and our follow-through commitment is our top priority.”

Further, according to Infrastructure Services General Manager Michael Thompson, work on the redundancy water lines is being “supercharged,” and they continue to examine how that work can be done swiftly.

Panel chair Siegfried Kiefer also told councillors that the City of Calgary legal team worked closely with them on the legalities around a mandate for a water utility oversight board, so a bylaw to enact it could be expedited.

“So, the administration was not sitting on their hands as we finalized our report. They were actually actioning things in parallel to the report coming out,” he told councillors on Tuesday.

‘Not fully satisfied’: Mayor Farkas

Several councillors questioned whether the HPAR information should have immediately been made available to the newly elected city council. It’s something that some councillors said could have been acted on at the November 2025 budget adjustments.

Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that material information on the panel’s recommendations should have been made available to city councillors immediately.

“That’s really what this independent panel report found was that material information went through a certain filter. It may or it may not have gotten up to the decision makers of the day, let alone the elected officials on this file, especially if there’s critical existential risk to our city,” he said.

“This is material information. So, I’m not fully satisfied with what city administration’s response has been, but the proof is going to be in the pudding.”

Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston said city admin thought the HPAR was important enough to act on but didn’t bring it to council.

“You saw these High Priority Action Report items, and you believe they were important enough to act on from June until October 14, which is awesome, but within that report that was given to you, (the panel) had recommended that this report be given to council,” he said.

“Curious why you didn’t give it to us, or why we didn’t see this report. I understand it’s a bunch of other reports combined into this, but I’m curious why you didn’t give it to us before budget. Budget could have been a whole lot different had we seen this report.”

Chair Kiefer said the panel did not specifically recommend that administration share the HPAR with Calgary city council.

Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness said that city administration has been moving faster, but, at times, it’s been a challenge to move work ahead.

“I look at the north water servicing option. I have been on administration for the last four years, and we broke ground in January,” she said.

“There was a battle between my office and administration to fast-track that and build a redundancy in the system. I understand the push and pull. We had to debate it out, and it got done.”

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said that through the Bearspaw report, there’s a heightened need to recognize that some of Calgary’s infrastructure is aging.

“It’s something I think that we didn’t have that knowledge prior to this report, but we were already proactively moving on creating redundancy and investing in some of that core infrastructure that we knew was aging,” he said.

Chabot said that despite the fact they may not have received the HPAR to council, administration had been working on long-term fixes.

“I would say even prior to (the HPAR), the former council had looked at the failure that occurred in 2024 and proactively started moving towards a plan to mitigate any future failures,” he said.

Executive Committee members approved receiving the administration report for the corporate record.