Proposed new provincial changes grease the wheels on Calgary’s road to a wholly owned water utility, as prescribed in a recent Bearspaw feeder main independent review.

Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs Dan Williams presented the proposed Bill 28, Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 2026, on April 2, 2026. It’s an omnibus bill that looked at 25 different items across five themes.

The bill overall looked at municipal governance rules, housing growth, municipal accountability, assessment and property tax, and public institutions. The public institutions aspect is where the UCP government is proposing changes to the oversight of and access to public library materials, along with plans to clarify governance rules for municipalities to transfer control and operations of a utility to a public entity.

One of the long-term recommendations of the Bearspaw South feeder main Independent Review panel was to pursue an independent water utility commission and eventually have Calgary spin off water services into a public company.

That recommendation was made after the report concluded that the factors leading to the repeated failure of the Bearspaw South feeder main include more than two decades of poor management and oversight of the system.

“Bill 28 also creates a framework for how municipal utilities can be governed, including oversight to establish corporate or regional structures where appropriate situations, like we have seen with water infrastructure in the City of Calgary, demonstrate the need for this change,” Minister Williams said.

Williams noted that the Municipal Government Act (MGA) already allows municipalities to spin off their utility services into public entities.

“What this power of the MGA does is it allows cabinet to, as you say, compel municipalities to either put that utility or asset into a municipal control corporation or a municipal commission of some kind across multiple municipalities,” he said.

“To be fair, this is not far off the mark from what the Kiefer report wrote in the independent report that came to Calgary earlier this year. and what I believe Calgary has already said publicly that they’re interested in doing. This is the legislative ability for us to direct a municipality to follow through and do just that.”

Provincial inspection underway

Along with the City of Calgary’s Bearspaw review, the independent panel review, and the APEGA review, the province has also initiated its own third-party review of the Bearspaw South feeder main break.  That review is being conducted by former Alberta Energy Regulator board chair David Goldie.

The province also summoned more than 20,000 pages of documents relating to the management of the feeder line over the past 20 years.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that he’s seeking a bit more clarity on what the province is suggesting and how a decision like that might be made.

“We understand, based on the inspection by Mr. Goldie, that he may be making certain recommendations about the course of action that the City of Calgary should be undertaking. We want to let that process play out,” he said.  

“Certainly, I support having a relatively arm’s length review over our local municipal response. I’m very confident in our city staff; our team has been executing very well to manage the immediate crisis, but also to implement the longer-term fixes.”

Mayor Farkas said he didn’t read the legislation as saying Calgary must follow the path of a separate water utility.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said more autonomy, not more rules, is what larger urban centres are looking for – not just on issues like the libraries or a water utility.

“If they want to take over the municipal operations, they might find it’s a little more daunting a task than they think,” he said.

“The ability to self-govern is something the province is looking at with regard to federal oversight. We have the capacity in-house. We don’t need big brother watching over us. I would say, leave the larger municipalities alone.”

Calgary recently finished repairs on the Bearspaw South feeder main, relaxing Stage 4 outdoor water restrictions and voluntary water conservation.

Work continues on the replacement line, with it still on schedule for a December finish.