You would think that our dear UCP government wouldn’t be so brazen in their attempt scuttle the investigation into their dark little web of political hackery. Apparently not. Their solution to being investigated by the Electoral commissioner is well… fire the electoral commissioner.
*blinks*
“The Office of the Election Commissioner has been dissolved and transferred to the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Alberta said in a news release Friday.Bill 22, the Reform of Agencies, Boards and Commissions and Government Enterprises Act, came into effect on Friday, the agency said.On Thursday, the legislature passed the bill, which included the firing of election commissioner Lorne Gibson. Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said Thursday the quick passage of the bill is the mark of a premier and government “consumed by power and unconcerned by the views of Albertans.” Gibson was leading the investigation into the so-called “kamikaze” campaign of UCP leadership candidate Jeff Callaway and had levied fines against 15 people totalling $207,223.
Callaway allegedly entered the race to discredit former Wildrose leader, and Kenney’s chief rival, Brian Jean, only to drop out and endorse Kenney weeks later. Kenney and Callaway deny they worked together to defeat Jean, but emails obtained by CBC News show high-ranking Kenney officials providing resources, including strategic political direction, media, and debate talking points, speeches, videos and attack advertisements, to the Callaway campaign.”
It should be readily apparent to both sides of the political spectrum that an investigation is warranted. We, as a populace, need to be able to trust our democratic institutions. It is bullshit like this that negates all the ‘get out the vote’ and ‘express your voice’ and ‘do your civic duty’ sentiment we are bombarded with before elections.
As a active citizenry we should be taking part in the political process the rest of the time, but that is another blog post.
“Edmonton-Manning MLA Heather Sweet, the NDP critic for democracy and ethics, sent a letter to Resler on Friday asking him to provide a report to the legislature on the steps he will take to preserve the material Gibson gathered during his investigation.
“Public confidence in the integrity of our democratic elections in Alberta has been significantly damaged,” Sweet wrote. “Any loss, misplacement or destruction of the evidence being gathered by Mr. Gibson in his investigations would lead to further irreparable damage to that confidence.”
This investigation is, rather ineptly, being swept under the carpet. Thankfully the NDP is doing what good oppositions do, and not letting the issue be buried.
Source: cbc.ca
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
3 comments
November 25, 2019 at 7:54 am
tildeb
And the latest dishonesty from Kenny is pretending Alberta subsidizes Quebec in federal transfer payments to provinces. Kenny was the Minister under Harper who actually redesigned this transfer system so if anyone knows just how dishonest his portrayal to create division between Canadians is, it’s Kenny! So he knows perfectly well that every Canadian pays into this system from all the provinces… including Quebecers and Albertans alike. Notice that he’s not suggesting for one second that Newfoundland and other ‘Have Not’ provinces have ‘subsidized’ Alberta with over 180,000 educated and capable workers in the oil and gas industries. This level of intentional deceit and dishonesty and misrepresentation for partisan and local political gain is to my way of thinking as unpatriotic as any citizen can be and an abuse of office to use as a platform to sow dissent intentionally. I would not be averse for the deplorable Kenny to be stripped of his citizenship for this anti-Canadian action. The country doesn’t need such execrable people holding any publicly funded and publicly empowered office in the land.
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November 30, 2019 at 7:57 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
The Alberta Austerity continues, as somehow putting more people out of work and not spending in the economy is going to make things better in the end. Today, Calgary announced a 7.5 percent property tax increase to cover the costs of all the provincial downloading of services to the municipal level.
More unemployment, higher service fees, worse services and higher taxes. How is this better? At least with the NDP we had a gradual plan for reducing the deficit AND maintaining the public sector.
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November 30, 2019 at 12:06 pm
tildeb
We in Ontario are also going to be hit with this downloading of costs from the Province to the municipalities. Cities and towns by charter legislation are not allowed to run a deficit and so raising local taxes is most attractive short term solution. Will voters remember this correct order of cause and effect or will local politicians be thrown under the provincial bus as it were they who caused these sudden new costs?
Time will tell.
In the meantime, provinces will make spending announcements and earn some praise as if they are meeting a need while the local municipalities will be forced to keep adding to the expense side of their fixed budgets.
One of the great tricks played on people is to go along with this weird framing and pretend government – regardless of level – is somehow a ‘them’… while real people in real life are one of ‘us’. People who rely on public subsidies – which is almost all of us at some point and in some way or another – often are the most willing to pretend they are not using their neighbour’s money and resources (be they in the form of schools, roads, hospitals, defence, whatever) but the money of those other ‘them’ folk. This helps create an artificial divide between real people based on a mental construct that helps often a majority of people to misunderstand the very real role each of us plays in our communities when it comes to utilizing public goods – like tax revenue.
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