Ring Road Deal

So it seems we finally have a deal for the southwest Calgary ring road. More specifically, a deal for the portion that crosses Tsuu T’ina land. Of course, we are years away from having an operational road, but this is the first actual progress in essentially half a century. No, “almost” deals do not count as progress. Now we have actual real progress. And now we can let the armchair quarterbacks and backseat drivers get on with the hand wringing about the cost and how our tax payer dollars are going to waste and so on. Since I feel like it, I’m going to take apart some of the arguments they will make.

First up, there are complaints about the cost. Yes, it is expensive. But consider the fact that the Tsuu T’ina own the land we want to use. (I’m sure there are some legal confusions involved there, but whatever confusion is there, they essentially own the land.) They were at least part of the land for some purpose and those uses will have to be relocated at some cost and inconvenience.

Some people are arguing that it is not reasonable for the members of the band to benefit financially from the arrangement or that the magnitude of the benefit is too high. That’s simple jealously at its root, I think. After all, who wouldn’t be jealous if his neighbor suddenly had several tens of thousands of dollars?

Let’s take the fact that it is the Tsuu T’ina out of the picture. Suppose the land in question crossed a big estate owned by you on which you operate dozens of rental complexes, provide services, and generally rely upon it for your livelihood. Would you still agree that you shouldn’t be paid for your land and for your inconvenience? Would you still agree that it is unreasonable to compensate your residents? Would you still agree that you should not gain materially by the transaction? Would you agree that you should not be allowed to negotiate the best possible deal for yourself? Exactly. If it’s reasonable for one landowner in the context, it’s reasonable for any landowner in the same context.

There is a reasonable argument to be made that the Tsuu T’ina themselves will benefit from the road and that, as a result, the compensation is too much. And that is true. They will benefit from the road. But that will not happen immediately. There will be much disruption as the road is constructed and longer yet before anything can be done to exploit the traffic. But even accepting the argument as reasonable, who benefits more from the road? Almost certainly the citizens of Calgary and other traffic passing through the region. The Tsuu T’ina do not have a large enough population that they need major roads to support it. Calgary does. The population differential is three orders of magnitude, after all. So is it not reasonable that those deriving the most benefit from the project pay for it? (Let’s leave aside the fact that it’s provincial money involved which means other Albertans are on the hook too. That’s a whole other argument.)

I’ve read a few comments by ignoramuses who think that we should never, under any circumstances, direct any resources toward any First Nations simply due to the fact that they don’t bother using it to improve their houses. Well, first off, except for corruption, that’s not actually the case. And you see the same sort of corruption elsewhere. But let’s assume it isn’t corruption. Could it simply be that the people themselves value different things than we do? Perhaps they value common meeting areas or other things? Or, perhaps they have had a significant infrastructure debt inherited from previous years and it has turned into a money pit? Whatever the situation, none of it justifies denying a deal simply because it might benefit the people directly. Flip it on its head. What if they wanted something from us? We would think it perfectly reasonable that we benefit from a deal with them, right, especially if the benefit to us was relatively minimal?

Now, we haven’t seen the full details of the agreement yet. That is supposed to be released tomorrow. Until then, there is no way to accurately judge if it is fair or not. My first reaction is that it likely is fair, or at the very least, the very best deal that could be negotiated in the absence of the ability to expropriate (which applies to ordinary land owners but not First Nations. I’m not entirely certain I agree that expropriation is a reasonable power in the first place but that’s another argument altogether).

For the moment, I’m pleased that decades of brangling over a road are likely done and we can get on with things.

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