Liberals table e-mails about megamall project

Alberta's Opposition Liberals brought forward government e-mails Monday they say show the province has secretly OK'dwater for a controversial megamall project near Calgary.

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft said the correspondence involving high government bureaucrats and ministers indicates the province was treating the proposed water licence for the $1-billion project as a done deal, even though the final decision is still up to staff in Alberta Environment.

"There is overwhelming evidence the government was bending over backward to get this water transfer approved," Taft told the legislature. "There are extensive meetings with cabinet ministers, there are thousands of pages of documents, there are millions of public dollars involved."

Premier Ed Stelmach said he would review the e-mails before making comments but rejected the accusation the fix was in on the water licence.

"The licence is before an authority for consideration and once that authority makes its decision that decision will be made public to all," said Stelmach.

And he questioned the inferences drawn from the e-mails: "If that was all so true, that water line would have been built from the start."

The project, which includesshopping, gambling and horse-racing venues, has been delayed until next year as local politicians in the Municipal District of Rocky View try to secure the water.

The plan involves taking water out of the Red Deer River, piping it through the nearby city of Drumheller to the complex, which is near Balzac on Calgary's northern outskirts.

The water licence application from Rocky View has not been ruled on because Drumheller officials have refused to participate, saying the project is not within their mandate and does not benefit the community.

The province has already committed close to $5 million toward water for the project, which the Liberals have held up as further evidence that a decision that should be made on environmental criteria has been perverted by political considerations.

But Stelmach said Tuesday thatthe millions of dollars his government has committed to a proposed megamall won't be there if the project doesn't get a water licence.

Local leaders had explored using the nearby Bow River, which runs through Calgary, but Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier has refused to sign off on the plan, saying it doesn't make economic sense for his booming city.

The horse-racing track is expected to open next spring at a cost of $200 million while the shopping centre is slated to begin business in the fall of 2008.

Rocky View is looking for 5,000 cubic metres of water daily for the project, which will feature a dozen anchor tenants, more than 180 specialty stores, 5,000 parking spaces, a movie theatre, a bowling alley, a veterinary college anda casino, and will provide work for more than 4,000 people.

The province has called it the largest project outside of the oilsands.