UCP heads out to stump for federal cousins

NDP urged to join in taking aim at Trudeau and federal Liberals

Accused of abdicating their provincial duties by campaigning for their federal Conservative party allies outside Alberta, the governing UCP is chiding its NDP foes for not joining them.

In recent days, Chestermere-strathmore MLA Leela Aheer was stumping for federal conservatives in the Okanagan and made no apologies for it on Twitter.

“It was my honour to door knock with you,” Aheer tweeted last Saturday after campaigning with Central Okanagan-similkameen-nicola Conservative MP Dan Albas.

In the Greater Toronto Area, Calgary-north East MLA and Community and Social Services Minister Rajan Sawhney campaigned for several local Conservative candidates.

It follows a commitment made last spring by Premier Jason Kenney, who said he’ll stump in Ontario to help ensure the defeat of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in this October’s federal election, though without using his government’s resources.

But the campaign efforts in Ontario and B.C. by Sawhney and Aheer drew jeers from foes, including Alberta NDP ethics and democracy critic Heather Sweet, who noted the province had just cut $3.2 million to the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

“What concerns me is that the Minister (Sawhney), who is responsible for homelessness, cut funding for Calgary Homelessness Foundation and was too busy campaigning to be here and answer for it,” said Sweet. “We need our government to be focused on Alberta, not Ottawa.”

Critics on the cabinet ministers’ Twitter accounts were just as scathing.

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about the 14,000 lost jobs under your watch? As opposed to campaigning in another province,” said one man on the social media platform.

The UCP government says Aheer and Sawhney’s extracurricular politicking was being done on their vacation time and at their own expense.

“Minister Sawhney will take every opportunity to reinforce Alberta’s role as a proud contributor to Confederation, and build on the long-standing connection between Ontario and Alberta,” Ryan Hastman, a spokesman for Sawhney, said in a statement. “Our premier has made it clear that he will be personally supporting Andrew Scheer and the federal Conservatives to replace Justin Trudeau and the Ottawa Liberals with a government which supports Canadian prosperity.”

A spokesman for Kenney’s office went further, saying the opposition NDP should follow the UCP’S example and go out of their way to undermine the federal Liberals, whose policies are damaging Alberta’s energy-based economy.

“Considering the Trudeau Liberals’ attacks on our province, we’d also hope that the members of the Alberta Official Opposition volunteer their time to defeating Justin Trudeau and electing a federal party that supports our responsible resource development,” Harrison Fleming said in a statement.

“We are proud of our MLAS and ministers, who on their personal time, including vacations, have chosen to work to support federal election candidates who have clearly stated that they will repeal legislation that targets and hurts Alberta’s interests.”

He said the government’s MLAS choose what they do on such private time and that “we do not ask our MLAS to give us itineraries of what they do in their personal time.”

When reached in the Okanagan on Monday, Aheer — the minister of culture, multiculturalism and status of women — said, “Thanks for calling me on my holidays,” before hanging up.

A central UCP plank in Alberta’s recent provincial election was attacking the federal government’s policies on pipelines and linking then-ndp premier Rachel Notley to them and Trudeau.

Some political observers say that while that UCP’S out-of-province help might aid the federal Conservatives’ cause in B.C., it could well backfire in Ontario.