The Government of Alberta issued a request for proposals (RFP) for a $200,000 contract in February to have a consultant analyze public decisions regarding the management of Calgary’s water assets.

This contract was issued Feb. 19, 2026, with a closing date of March 3, 2026, which is nearly three months after the province initially announced they would be reviewing the Bearspaw South feeder main rupture and Calgary’s water system.

Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams formally ordered the official municipal inspection on March 13, 2026, with David Goldie assigned to lead the investigation. It was initially announced in January 2026.

However, this RFP for the records review was issued through the Ministry of Transportation and Economic Corridors – not Municipal Affairs.

The RFP calls for a review of up to 7,000 publicly available records on topics such as design, operating specifications, risk management policies, feeder main type, technology, and geotechnical conditions. It also asked for a review of the Calgary city council’s decisions on policy, funding, resourcing, or governance related to the Bearspaw South feeder main.

The province, in an emailed response from a department spokesperson, said that the goal of the work was to identify factors that led to the failures of the feeder main.

“Calgarians need to know why more wasn’t done to identify and mitigate the risks related to this critical water main before it failed,” they wrote.

“The history of risk-tolerance, decades of deferring action, and a governance system that kept Councils past and present in the dark are key factors in why we are in this situation.”

The consultant was hired to review the documentation requested by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the spokesperson said.

“The review will focus on records, documents and decisions made for the Bearspaw Feeder main that may have led to the catastrophic failures we have seen to date,” the spokesperson said.

The search for the ‘smoking gun’

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said, in looking back at past decisions, there wasn’t much more council could have done from a decision-making perspective to have prevented the Bearspaw feeder main ruptures.

He said workloads in the past, with multiple standing policy committees that not all members could attend, plus abbreviated briefings from admin, may have led to incomplete information coming to council.

“What I used to do, and Dale Hodges as well, is we used to bring supplementary information to council specifically as it related to the committee work, because oftentimes the reports at committee were more comprehensive than the pared-down version of the reports that ultimately made it to council,” he said.

Chabot said that practice has changed over time, with all reports provided at committee now made available to a full council meeting. He said that a systemic issue that existed before has been resolved over time.

“I guess you might be looking for a smoking gun or somebody to blame, but ultimately I’m not sure what more council could have done outside of some of the reporting and how it was handled from committee to council,” Chabot said.

Former Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, who spent 15 years on Calgary city council, said that he welcomes the governance oversight – provided that it’s done with the right intentions.

“I think that we absolutely should be reviewing the decisions that we make, testing them against the reality that’s unfolded and hopefully learning lessons,” he said.

He said that unfortunately, that might not be what’s at play.

“I don’t think we live in a world that’s governance-forward and that’s much more politically motivated, and that is into picking political fights rather than doing what the work of government should be focused on, which is serving the public,” he said.

Carra believes the UCP wants to target Nenshi

Critics of the provincial review, which some believe would ultimately come to similar conclusions as the Bearspaw Independent Panel Review, believe that the province is looking to pin the blame for the state of the water infrastructure and the subsequent Bearspaw rupture on former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi — now leader of the Alberta NDP.

Paul Salvatore, a member of the Society of Local Government Managers, wrote an op-ed in the Calgary Herald right after the provincial review was announced, arguing that the province shouldn’t be hunting for a scapegoat and that the culture of Calgary decision-making was focused on tax restraint over asset management.

Calgary’s initial Bearspaw Independent Review also didn’t pinpoint the ruptures on any specific group of city governors; instead, it said that it was the culmination of more than two decades of poor oversight and asset management for the pipe’s failure.

Carra said he believes the province is looking for a political scapegoat.

“This is a government that lit billions of dollars of money on fire regarding the Green Line,” he said, referring to ongoing delays through provincial reviews of the $6.25 billion transit project.  

“(It’s) political retribution, or an attempt to sort of create a narrative about bad governance from a very, very good mayor who was a very good governor.”

LWC asked the province specifically if they were looking for evidence that would show a decision, or lack thereof, that pointed to Nenshi’s city council tenure as a culprit in the degradation of the Bearspaw South feeder main. They did not respond directly to that question.

The province said that a report has been submitted on the document analysis, and it’s currently under review.