Setting it straight

In politics, truth is a matter of perception, it never ceases to amaze me how when people are confronted with irrefutable facts, they still refuse to accept something as true. I say this as a means to show that I am prepared to accept that people will not believe what I am about to write, however, you should know that it can all be proven with facts.

I have read many letters to the editor, and heard many comments during election campaigns and public forums, and they all contain the same untruth. They all claim that the only reason Alberta is in such good financial shape is because of high oil prices. They make this claim in an attempt to discredit the Government from taking credit for putting Alberta on the right "fiscal path." One person even claimed that it was so simple to move money from pot A to pot B that even a monkey could do it, and he thought himself very clever for such a weak moniker.

The truth is this people, if not for the fiscal restraints and change in policy brought in 1993-94, even with Oil and Gas prices at an all-time high, the Alberta Government would have a $65 Billion dollar debt today.

People should remember that before they so easily shrug off the work that Premier Klein and his government have done.

A Mockery Perhaps?

On Thursday in Alberta's Legislature, amidst the excitement that was going on in the hallways of the illustrious Dome, this little tid bit almost slipped under the radar. Almost, but not quite. Here is something that the Speaker, Ken Kowalski, said which you can also find in Hansard on page 618 right here. But here is what Mr. Speaker said:

The Speaker: Well, hon. members, I want to raise a point this afternoon with respect to tablings. There’s a difficult situation that has developed and is starting to develop, and I’ve used by an example sessional paper 1972006 which was tabled in the House by the hon. Member for Edmonton-Rutherford. Invariably members stand up and say: “I’m tabling here a letter with respect to the provincial government plan for the future of daycare,” or something to the like, and a document is tabled which references the national child care program. In looking at some of these tablings, as the chair does from time to time, there’s absolutely nothing in the letter that has to do with the province of Alberta. But more importantly than that there is no signature on the letter, there is no identification who the letter might be from, and the letter that’s tabled is absolutely unreadable. You can see it as well as I can.
Now, if this is what we’re doing in tablings then I’m going to ask that the House leaders have a discussion and deal with this subject once and for all because if it’s simply a matter of a member going out and xeroxing 150 blank pieces of paper and then standing up and tabling them, our Hansard people are invariably spending a waste of time trying to identify who it is. When we come back on April 3, I’m going to give you some other examples where, in fact, the names mentioned in the House do not correspond with the documents tabled. This is not the honourable way to do things.

So let's take a look at this. What I read out of this is that the Liberals are standing up and tabling documents that aren't even true. They say they have support for, I don't know, pick an issue, and when they table their letters or emails or even petitions it is falsified. And that is so dishonourable. You are not elected to sit in the Assembly of Alberta to make a mockery of the process.

We just celebrated our 100th anniversary of democracy in this province the other day and have a look at what Kevin Taft said here on page 443. Here he talks about how the Members of the Assembly have to be accountable and wanting more change in democracy. Obviously his party is not practicing what it preaches. But should that surprise you? Chanadler wrote an excellent piece on the difference between a Liberal and a Conservative the other day and I think this is further fodder for that discussion.

On April 3rd the Speaker is going to say more about this subject and I hope that it is not shown that the Liberals have made a mockery of our democratic process because if so they should be kicked out of the Assembly for their absolute disregard to the traditions laid down to us from the past.

Edmonton Centre, you are represented by a Liberal. A Liberal who is a part of this. How does that make you feel?