Peter Guthrie, the former United Conservative Party cabinet minister now sitting as an independent member of the Alberta Legislature, fired back at Premier Danielle Smith yesterday in an open letter suggesting she is using the federal election to raise her national profile.
To what end Mr. Guthrie thinks Ms. Smith might be doing this is not clear in the letter, which he published yesterday afternoon on social media.
“It appears the Premier may be using the federal election as an opportunity to raise her own national profile – possibly at the expense of the CPC and Pierre Poilievre’s efforts to become Canada’s next Prime Minister,” he wrote.
“Recent developments in her political agenda raise legitimate questions about her intentions for Alberta’s role within the Canadian Federation, another area where I find myself at odds with her leadership,” he concluded that section of his letter.
Beyond those intriguing points, Mr. Guthrie’s letter lays out a fairly standard conservative critique of government lack of fiscal restraint, and then moves on to accuse Premier Smith and the government he was part of until he was booted from the UCP Caucus last week of behaving not all that differently from the federal Liberals when it comes to spending.
“I’ve highlighted the troubling lack of fiscal accountability within Executive Council,” he wrote, using the Parliamentary term for the cabinet. “Under Premier Smith, the UCP government has increased its operational budget by more than 24%, including a 14% expansion in the size of the GOA. This erosion of financial discipline – combined with the creation of multiple new Crown corporations – has contributed to a projected deficit of $5.4 billion.”
“In Alberta, we are quick to criticize the federal government for its unsustainable spending, ballooning debt, and inflationary impact on families and communities,” he said. “We cannot, in good faith, denounce that approach in Ottawa while turning a blind eye to similar issues here at home.”
Also in the letter, Mr. Guthrie expands on his problems with Ms. Smith’s approach to what the NDP Opposition terms the Corrupt Care Scandal, allegations that dodgy contracts were pushed on Alberta Health Services by government officials close to the premier. The government’s strategy, he argued, seems to be “designed to conceal wrongdoing rather than expose it – an approach that risks triggering serious accusations of a coverup.”
And he renewed his call for a full judicial inquiry, led by a sitting judge with the power to compel testimony. He closed the letter with a pledge to remain in the Legislature and continue to represent the citizens of his Airdrie-Cochrane Riding as best he can. “My commitment to holding the government accountable and representing the people of this constituency remains steadfast.”
While Mr. Guthrie is certainly right that many of Ms. Smith’s recent statements and activities – including her shenanigans south of the U.S.-Canadian border – have seriously damaged Mr. Poilievre’s and the federal Conservative Party’s chances of electoral success, it is harder to see what kind of a national role she might imagine she could play unless it’s as the leader of the 51st State Party.
Given the events of the past few weeks, one suspects that might be a political vehicle that wouldn’t pass a roadworthiness test.
And to be fair, Ms. Smith’s otherwise pointless curremt junket to Japan and South Korea may have been designed to get her out of the eye of Canadian voters in other provinces and even here in Alberta as much as it was to avoid embarrassing questions about the dodgy contracts affair.
Reading between the lines of Mr. Guthrie’s letter, his welcome discomfort with the Smith Government’s increasingly separatist agenda suggests that disloyalty to Canada may be rampant within the caucus, cabinet and Premier’s Office.
Judge says former AHS CEO must testify about emails – with a qualification
As is well known, claims about officials close to the premier trying to influence Alberta Health Services to accept sketchy contracts for the services of private surgical centres and the acquisition of medical goods and pharmaceuticals first came to light in February when former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos alleged she was fired for launching an investigation into such practices.
She has since sued the government for wrongful dismissal, claiming $1.7 million in damages.
Two weeks ago, the Alberta government sought an injunction to compel Ms. Mentzelopoulos not to share nine emails its lawyers argue she improperly retained as well as to allow the former CEO to be cross-examined about the emails.
On Monday, a Court of King’s Bench Justice granted the government’s request to cross-examine Ms. Mentzelopoulos, with an important qualification.
Noting that Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s counsel argued that the request “is a fishing expedition and that the Defendants simply want to determine what information she may have provided to the Auditor General of Alberta and to the RCMP,” Justice Debra Yungwirth ruled that questioning was appropriate and could proceed.
However, she continued, the government was “not entitled to question the Plaintiff on what, if anything, the Plaintiff has provided to the Auditor General of Alberta or the RCMP or other law enforcement as part of any ongoing investigations. This will protect the integrity of those investigations.”
With the important caveat that your blogger is not a lawyer skilled at reading judicial rulings, this seems to suggest that Justice Yungwirth did think the government was interested in finding out what documents Ms. Mentzelopoulos had provided to the RCMP and the auditor general.