CALGARY—With the clock ticking before the provincial election, the city has inked a deal with the Alberta government to fund the first phase of Calgary’s massive Green Line LRT project.

Wednesday’s announcement doesn’t come a moment too soon as the 2019 election could theoretically be called any day now. The election must take place between March 1 and May 31, and once the writ drops, parties will have 30 days to campaign.

The Green Line is Calgary’s biggest publicly funded infrastructure project ever, with the first 20-kilometre phase of the full LRT estimated to cost $4.65 billion. The city, province and feds are each on the hook for about a third of the costs. The first leg runs from 16 Ave. N. and Centre St. to Shepard in the southeast, with expected completion by 2026. The full line will stretch from North Pointe to Seton in the southeast.

While all levels of government had previously announced the amount they would pay, this deal locks in a total of $3 billion in funding from the province and feds, according to Premier Rachel Notley. Funds will flow from the coffers over eight years to support the LRT’s first phase. Getting the funding agreement on paper now means the city can move toward hiring a company to build the transit line.

Notley has warned that without the carbon levy providing the province’s $1.53-billion contribution to the Green Line, the massive transit project will be no more, an idea the United Conservative Party dismissed as “ridiculous.” Party leader Jason Kenney has said he will kill the carbon tax, but he still supports Green Line.

“This project is getting built,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Wednesday — regardless of who forms the next government. “In reality, this train has left the station.”

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Later in the afternoon, Kenney tweeted Nenshi’s statement on the Green Line, adding, “Agreed!”

But speaking in front of one of the construction sites preparing for Green Line work, Notley maintained that Kenney has been “vague” about how he will fund the Green Line without a carbon tax. Without it, she said, “what we’ll end up with is a hole here in this part of Calgary.”

“If he’s prepared to come out and commit that he will absolutely fund it through another imaginary pot of money that he’s also suggesting he’s going to reduce the size of, so be it,” Notley said. “It will add to the debt if you remove the fund from which it would otherwise have been paid, and they claim that that’s also something they’re going to reduce. It doesn’t really add up, I would say.”

Kenney twice publicly questioned the Green Line plan in recent weeks, asking why Calgary is currently planning to build just the first phase of the full 46-kilometre line when he saw plans for the whole length of the track when the former Conservative federal government offered up funding in 2015.

City councillors say they don’t want to see the Green Line become an election issue. And Nenshi has criticized Kenney’s comments, noting that the federal funding was announced without the full information about the engineering work necessary for the Green Line.

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Nenshi on Wednesday said he has made numerous requests to meet with Kenney to answer questions about the LRT, but there’s nothing set up so far.

“My phone is always available,” he said. “You don’t have to wait until you’re premier to ask questions.”

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