There’s another shoe that needs to drop before the United Conservative Party’s embarrassing Skybox Scandal goes quiet and Alberta can go back to sleep as Premier Daniel Smith and her political advisors doubtless profoundly wish we would.
To wit: Did UCP ministers or political staffers avail themselves of corporate flights to NHL playoff games in Vancouver and perhaps in Sunrise, Florida? And if so, who paid?
Thanks to the reporting of The Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait, we already know who bought skybox tickets – at least some of them – for well-connected members and employees of Ms. Smith’s government.
Ms. Tait’s July 18 report confirmed some of the rumours heard on social media and in political circles about cabinet members and senior staffers accepting corporate skybox tickets during the playoffs.
But if the Calgary Stampede rumour mill, at least, had it right, the skies over B.C.’s Lower Mainland and perhaps around Miami International Airport too were a free-flight zone during the Stanley Cup finals.
So inquiring minds want to know: Who was on those corporate jets? What did they pay, if anything? And if passengers didn’t pay, who did?
Premier Smith, it would seem, is just as determined that it’s none of our business. Which, naturally, raises suspicions that some well-connected folk didn’t take WestJet and pay for their flight themselves, as Ms. Smith told reporters she did.
This has led to some interesting exchanges between Ms. Tait and Ms. Smith, a journalist and a former journalist who by the sound of it are not members of a mutual admiration society.
On Monday, Ms. Tait tried at a news conference about Calgary’s heavily subsidized project to build a new arena for the Flames NHL franchise to pry more information from Ms. Smith, who tried just as hard to skate away from any clear answers.
The premier’s carefully parsed answers may have had the sound of the truth and nothing but the truth – but certainly not anything approaching the whole truth.
“No rules were broken,” Ms. Smith said testily to Ms. Tait. “I did not take a private plane anywhere. I fly commercial. I flew WestJet to get to Vancouver. It was the only game that I visited outside the province …”
Ms. Tait responded: “Are you aware if any of your staff or cabinet ministers taking a flight?”
Ms. Smith: “As I said, all have their own ethics disclosure requirements …”
Ms. Tait: “That’s not a no, premier.”
Ms. Smith: “Well … if you have anyone you want to pose this question to, you should do that.”
Ms. Tait published a longer transcription of this exchange in a series of tweets on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. This, in turn, led many commentators on social media to mockingly conclude that the premier of Alberta thinks what her own cabinet ministers and political staffers get up to is none of her business.
Yesterday, at an otherwise not very interesting Alberta Government presser about education funding, Ms. Smith and Ms. Tait tangled again about who paid for the flights.
When the floor was opened for journalists’ questions, the reporter asked the first one:
Ms. Tait: My first question is for the Deputy Premier, Mike Ellis. … Minister Ellis, yesterday the premier had disclosed she’s gone to three hockey games as a guest of others, and she had said it’s up to staff and ministers to disclose their own information, so I’m wondering how many games you went to and who hosted you?
(It must be noted at this point that neither Mr. Ellis nor Ms. Smith appeared to be particularly pleased by this line of questioning.)
Mr. Ellis: One game. Hosted by the Edmonton Oilers.
Ms. Tait: … Thank you very much, minister. For the premier, yesterday you had said that you are responsible for your staff when we had asked them, and you basically said if we had questions for other people such as ministers and your staff that we should ask them. We have been asking your staff repeatedly. We have been asking cabinet ministers, if you aren’t responsible for the actions of your staff, who is?
Ms. Smith: Well, let me tell ya how the ethics rules work. So, first of all …
Ms. Tait: You know, I understand …
Ms. Smith: No, I don’t think you do. So, first of all, no government money has been spent on any of the enquiries that you’re making. That’s No.1. No. 2, what private individuals choose to do with their private money is not governed by the Ethics Commissioner. No. 3, MLAs do have disclosure requirements, no MLAs are allowed to take private flights. An expense under 250 does not have to be reported. Expenses of 250 to 1,000 dollars do have to be reported in an annual disclosure to the Ethics Commissioner, and anything above 1,000 dollars has to be reported within 60 days. And so, those are the rules, and I expect every staff member, and I expect every MLA, to follow them.
Ms. Tait: Premier, you wrote the rules. You re-wrote the rules. You made them easier to accept gifts. And your staff does not have to disclose stuff …
Ms. Smith: The staff have to disclose to the chief of staff, correct.
Ms. Tait: Right, but not …
Government staffer: OK, Carrie, we’re going go to out next quest …’
Ms. Tait: …but will you disclose to the public what gifts your staff has accepted?
Ms. Smith: Look! I have arranged a meeting, I have asked for a meeting with the Ethics Commissioner, as has the chief of staff to me, and if there are any interpretations that he needs to give me, so if there are any modifications to policy, I’m looking forward to getting his answers. But as I said, I expect all staff, and all MLAs, to follow the rules.
Government staffer: Thank you, Carrie. Let’s go to our next question here.
Trust me, there was nothing more of interest in that particular news conference.
We can be pretty sure, though, that there will be more efforts to answer this particular very interesting question.
And, sooner or later, it almost certainly will be answered, whether the premier, her ministers, and her political staffers like it or not.
NOTE: I transcribed these exchanges myself from YouTube videos, so I am responsible for any transcription errors. Thanks to readers for already spotting one, which has been fixed. Also, I expect there will be no post tomorrow on this blog, even if something worthy of commentary takes place, because the innards of this old WordPress site need to undergo some repairs, and tomorrow’s the night. This may also mean some delays in moderating and posting comments, for which I will apologize to my readers in advance. DJC
This begins a long process of trusting journalists again. Thank you Ms.Tait, you are certainly on to something. The Premier and her bad cop are squirming. Although Albertans do not want to hear the truth, at least their neighbours can giggle on the other side of the fence.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
It appears that there are not ethics because the rules don’t require ethical behaviour.
Carrie Tait is an outstanding journalist, as is Emma Graney. Danielle Smith is trying so hard to cover up what she did wrong, and isn’t successful at it. This mess is on Albertans who voted for the UCP. Unfortunately, all Albertans have to suffer the consequences of the UCP’s very bad decisions.
Same as it ever was. Alberta voters are not very sophisticated, like all modern “conservatives”.
The Smith government is only in it to fill their pockets and those of their cronies as fast as possible. Changing the rules and the ethics commissioner to accept more lavish gifts was the writing on the wall. I though Kenney was bad, but Marlaina lies with such ease that it’s best to assume that she is always lying. At what point does her and her government’s unethical, corrupt behaviour cross over into criminal acts? And would they ever be charged (especially if Smith gets her own police force like she’s pushing for)?
Now that political graft has been elevated to an art form, how long until Smith weakens conflict of interest rules so they are virtually nonexistent?
Free flights to and from the games? Of course, there were provided.
And I’d like to know about the trips Queen Danielle made to Dallas and Miami. Did Abbott and DeSantis even show up at those lobbyist-sponsored soirees in those nice corporate boxes?
When David Parker declared that Smith was deep into the corruption, he may be onto something.
Queen Danielle maybe taking that short walk to the chopping block sooner than later.
It appears that Carrie Tait has taken on the role of the Official Opposition in Alberta. I hope her back does not get sore carrying the Alberta NDP on this.
Take care of yourself and get well soon.
Lefty: If this is directed at me, I’m fine. It’s my WordPress site that needs care. Thanks, though. DJC
May you survive many decades more.
Well, at least more than mine!
How kind of you to refer to Danielle Smith as a journalist, in a past life. I choose to remember her riding the manure spreader off her acreage during the High River floods. That’s as good a summation of her past career, as I could muster.
It’s really fun to see the press get under Smith’s skin about the shady deals she is trying to pass off as alright when they are clearly not. Remember, it’s flip-flop season, but really when is it not with these UCP clowns.
There is a lot of smoke these days and a lot of fires. Smith seems to be bracing for something, like a person before an accident happens expecting what is about to happen.
Yes, the rules were already carefully changed so Smith could say no rules were broken. Convenient, flexible and revionist ethics are bad enough. Millions wasted on unused and unnecessary medicine because it looked good politically at the time is bad enough too. Being again reminded of this again is certainly not good politically for her and I suspect her communications team knows that. However as Steve Jobs used to say – but wait there’s more.
The language Smith is using in response to the questions here seems a bit odd and reeks of misdirection. She is talking about rules for MLAs when the rumours are about others. She then claims ignorance about others, yet mentions impending meetings with the Ethics Commissioner, and seems to be fairly up on some process unfolding. She seems to be trying to manage something, but not get ahead of it by publicly saying what it is. I believe in plain terms that is what is called a cover up.
Yes, this reminds me somewhat of Kenney’s Sky Palace debacle with the day drinking on the patio, but it reminds me even more of all his MLAs and staff travelling internationally at Christmas time a few years ago when it was advised against due to COVID. Perhaps because travelling was involved, but I feel this was also really the beginning of Kenney’s downfall. When voters stopped seeing him as a populist and instead as a leader of an entitled elitist gang who got and kept their perks while asking the rest of us to sacrifice.
Is “look” the new “well, look”, because everyone caught on to the fact that “well, look” meant someone’s nose was growing?
Abs: Yes. Either that or, “also.” DJC
This woman is so arrogant I literally cannot believe it and I knew she was extremely arrogant going in.
What a bunch of losers. Sucks to suck.
The nature of the claims involve and contain both subjective beliefs and substantive components. Further, the claims themselves are a transactional process involving an all important audience response and the opposing ideals of a hoped for rational public justification and a separate rationale that is justifiable only to insiders.
The current drama itself also involves all of the usual dialogic components of public justification (PR, spin) as well as issues, such as, integrity, legitimacy (i.e., a function of what people believe), public confidence, the mirror of accountability, relationships with public perception and their feedbacks, authenticity, power and power relations, the public interest vs narrow loyalty to individual self interest as an honest assessment, the technique and finesse of political influence peddling (“being connected; knowing what’s really going on; getting in touch with the right people; knowing how to develop a reputation as trustworthy, competent and discrete. Making yourself valuable if not indispensable. They become members of strategically important social networks. . . . When people complain about corruption, they often mean this kind of insider politics. And they are onto something that shouldn’t be dismissed, because insider politics may be legal, but it’s also another manifestation of political and social inequality.”), ect.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/neal-milner-bribery-is-shameful-but-legal-influence-peddling-is-a-bigger-problem/
The talk show host/lobbyist seems unaware, does not care, or perhaps does not understand fully that the fulfillment of the ethical requirements in a well ordered society and their reasonable appearance of compromise based upon probability, possibility, and or likelihood should not be the subjects of further opacity and evasiveness, unless of course, further opacity and evasiveness serves her particular self interest and the interests of her gift giving benefactors and its unstated reciprocity.
Quack, quack. It looks like a duck.
Carrie Tait is indeed doing the province a favour as being one of the very few who are actually asking the tough questions. The problem is if this continues the UCP will simply go back to answering 3 questions and only from their prescreened sycophants (Bell, Staples etc). And their mindless supporters will see nothing wrong with it whatsoever.
It’s funny, after the Hockeygate story broke I was reflecting on the fact I was overjoyed when Redford got punted for her excesses all those years ago. Finally one of the entitled swine would pay the price for their poor judgement! Flash forward to today and the same crap is happening all over again. Speaking of which, when is our dark overlord Davey Parker finally going to follow through on his threat to pull his support for Smith? Maybe she’ll be taking her own walk in the snow sooner than later?
So going by the X-weets , I suppose the proper response would be..
“Mr. Parker , if you would show us those emails ” now would be the time.
Don’t know if they are relevant to Hockey-gate, but it sure adds to the speculation.
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And going by the social media posts, Marlaina/UCP is getting alot of attention for the cuts to the wildfire fighting crews.
Too late, again, asking the Federal government for help, now that structures are already lost in Jasper.
For all the local residents/ seasonal workers, words cannot express the sorrow,
and we sincerely hope that all the firefighters are okay. The news reports sound terrifying.
I seem to recall Ms Smith taking a family vacation on some private island in the Caribbean owned by some gazillionaire a few years ago who she claimed was a long time acquaintance. I don’t understand why nobody is hopping on that…oh wait a minute, that was Justin Trudeau.
Being disingenuous is a well known trait of alt-right extremists.
“[W]hat private individuals choose to do with their private money is not governed by the Ethics Commissioner”. Hmmm … so, if I as a private individual decide to offer some of my own private money to, say, a cop or a judge or a Crown Prosecutor to make a decision I like, it’s nobody’s business but mine? Is that really where we are here in Oilbertastan?
What about Section 121 of the Criminal Code of Canada? Is that a matter for the Ethics Commissioner? It’s not like any of Alberta’s compliant Crowns will take up any cases against this corrupt government and its ministers. Maybe a federal Crown will …
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-22.html#docCont
Jerry: This is an example of Ms. Smith’s typically (and presumably intentionally) ambiguous language. Clearly the impression given is that all political staffers spent their own money to sit in the luxury boxes, which in my opinion is highly unlikely but nevertheless possible, but her wording also conveys the alternative meaning that you and I both picked up on, which comes with the problems you have remarked upon. There are more chapters of this story to be written. DJC
There’s nepo baby Sam Blackett lurking in the background.
Correct: That’s Mr. Blackett, who was acting as the moderator of reporters’ questions, in the skinny trousers. DJC
Well, finally a name to the face— Sam Blackett….
He does get around.
Former press secretary to Nicholas Demetrios….?
Used to work for Jeff Ballingall@ Mobilze Media (aka Canada Proud) ?
Interesting people that Marlaina has on her staff.
So those who make considerably more than minimum wage get freebees? Where the heck are the free tickets for those who cannot afford tickets to go to even regular games?