We still don’t know who was in charge of Alberta when Governor Jason Kenny was on vacation last summer-maybe no one-rabble.ca

2021-12-13 10:48:02 By : Ms. Yanli Dong

The NDP opposition party called on the UCP government to disclose who will be responsible during the upcoming holidays.

So, during those disturbing weeks of last summer, when it became clear that the fourth wave of COVID-19 was raging and the prime minister had disappeared somewhere abroad to "charge his battery", who commanded this ship? Good boat Alberta? 

This is still a mystery, almost as mysterious as the never-answered question, namely where Prime Minister Kenny went on vacation for three weeks in August as the number of COVID cases tripled. 

If someone is actually responsible. 

The new documents disclosed through the freedom of information request submitted by the opposition New Democratic Party show that it is not Travis Toews who is holding the post of prime minister, as many might reasonably assume, because of the cabinet released the previous month. The order states that the Minister of Finance will normally act as the acting prime minister in the absence of the prime minister. 

But the Toews calendar, accessed through the New Democratic Party's FOI request, indicated that he had never served as prime minister during Kenny's absence. He serves as Minister of Employment, Economy and Innovation, which will not be so difficult, because the Ministry was basically set up to give Doug Schweitzer a cabinet title, and to take him further from the important point of August 2020 in Kenny. Judicial portfolio.

Where is Sonia Savage? The Minister of Energy has been designated as the second replacement for the missing prime minister. Well, we don't know yet. The NDP has not yet received an FOI request for her calendar. But no one in the government has shouted how she came to power, it seems she is not. 

At the same time, we learned from Kenny’s Facebook Live performance after the holiday on September 3 that he claimed not only to recharge during the holiday, but also to rest and reflect, sleep, hang out with friends, and indulge in some nonsense. Government reading. 

However, when his prolonged disappearance in the middle of the pandemic became embarrassing after his return, Governor Kenny changed his statement and claimed that he had been in contact with his senior officials. However, as the New Democracy Party pointed out, the record contradicts that story, and there is no note in the Prime Minister’s calendar about scheduled calls from the country. A statement issued by the opposition party said yesterday: “The executive committee also confirmed in writing that there was no email communication between the governor’s office and the chief health officer’s office during the Kenneth holiday.” 

In mid-September, Calgary-Fish Creek UCP MLA Richard Gotfried (Richard Gotfried) stated on social media that he had advocated stricter measures behind closed doors, but his efforts yielded nothing. He apologized for not handling the crisis with proper urgency. 

He said the government "obviously notified 30 days in advance that the crisis was imminent...and we did nothing without a man at the helm," he said. 

New Democratic Party health critic David Shepard said yesterday that “being the governor of Alberta is not a part-time job, especially when the province is facing a fatal crisis.”

"If Kenny needs to rest and recharge, he needs to appoint a senior cabinet minister to take action in the event of a crisis," Shepard said. "But no one seems to be responsible."

We do know that when the current Minister of Health’s vacation during a major public health crisis overlaps with the Prime Minister’s vacation, the Minister of Education Ariana LaGrange was left with Tyler Shandro’s investment Combining. 

However, this choice has been criticized as not a good choice because Lagrange is widely regarded as one of Prime Minister Kenny’s least efficient ministers-at least if one defines efficiency as dealing with problems, rather than passively ignoring them. . In any case, she did very little. 

As a result of earlier NDP FOI documents, this interesting fact was also revealed. 

As for Kenny's mysterious and relaxing vacation, the popular theory-never confirmed or denied-was that he was in Europe. The Ottawa Frank Magazine, Parliament, and media tips only appeared behind the paywall, saying that he was in a playboy ranch in Colorado. 

The New Democratic Party calls on the UCP government to disclose who will be responsible during the upcoming holidays. "We must not be in a position where the government cannot protect Albertans," Sheppard said, arguing that this was exactly what happened when Kenny disappeared from the radar last summer.

Well, as some people have recently observed, who among us did not take a few days off and came back to find someone broke into our house and painted the bedroom the color we wanted? 

Of course, I’m talking about the recent trouble with Lakeland Council Member Shannon Stubbs, who was accused of bullying staff and supervising a “tragic, unhealthy, and toxic” workplace in her council office. 

These allegations were forwarded by no less than Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole to the Human Resources Office of the House of Commons. Stubbs denied all this, accusing O'Toole of revenge for her poor assessment of his leadership. 

Nevertheless, she admitted that her staff did enter her house in 2016 to paint her bedroom. 

"The painting of the house is a wonderful surprise, I don't know," she explained to the Globe and Mail. "This is a wonderful gift from the staff. I have never asked or instructed the staff to paint my bedroom."

I want to know how they know what color to choose? Who pays for the paint? One certainly hopes that no one gets yelled at for putting the furniture back in the wrong place. 

Seriously, people, you can’t make up these things, and in Alberta, in 94% of the province’s electoral districts, everyone needs to be elected to the House of Commons. This is a Conservative nomination and you never need it. 

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The author of the Alberta Diaries blog, David Climenhaga, is a journalist, writer, news teacher, poet, and union communicator. He once held senior writing and editing positions for the Globe...

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