NDP focuses on distinctions between Kenney and Notley
Jason Kenney’s plan to reduce the minimum wage for less-educated and younger Albertans is “incredibly elitist” and “goes against the fundamental values of Albertans,” says Premier Rachel Notley.
Notley slammed the UCP leader Thursday over his proposal of a lower minimum wage for “people of a modest level of human capital.”
“In my world, there are no second-class citizens,” Notley said.
With her comments, the premier doubled down on what seems to be the NDP strategy going into the 2019 election — highlighting the sharp distinction between her and Kenney.
NDP’S MASON UNVEILS ANTI-KENNEY WEBSITE
With an election creeping ever closer, the two major parties are jumping on one another every chance they get.
Take Thursday, when veteran NDP MLA Brian Mason, retiring this year, unveiled a website called The Truth About Jason Kenney.
Mason billed it as a detailed and fact-based account of Kenney’s career as a politician working against the interests of everyday people, serving instead anti-abortion activists and anti-LGBTQ groups.
But, he said, the website wasn’t about “getting into a bunch of mud-slinging rhetoric.”
“People need to know the character and the record … of candidates to be premier of Alberta,” Mason told media in downtown Edmonton.
“(Kenney) recognizes that some of his deeply held views are no longer very fashionable, and have become inconvenient for him in trying to get the support of Albertans, and I think Albertans need to judge for themselves whether or not he has changed his spots.”
Kenney dismissed the website as “politics of personal destruction, fear and smear.”
“They’re desperate to talk about anything but the carbon tax, their failure on the economy, and so it’s going to be politics of personal destruction from them,” he said.
‘INCREDIBLY ELITIST’
Asked Thursday what he meant by “people of a modest level of human capital,” Kenney said he was referring to Albertans with lower levels of education and training.
“A 14-year-old taking his first job doesn’t have the same human capital level in training, education and work experience as a 30-year-old experienced worker with a university degree,” he said.
Kenney took issue with the fact he was asked about his comments at all, dismissing it as “fabricated outrage.”
Notley spoke with reporters after a re-announcement of a $12-million investment in the Aurora Project at the Telus World of Science Thursday morning — a program to increase capacity with new exhibition spaces and redevelop programs with a northern focus.
She said the notion that people shouldn’t be protected by the minimum wage if they don’t have enough education “is incredibly elitist and goes against the fundamental values of Albertans.”
“In my view, all work has dignity and Albertans don’t accept the values of that kind of elitism,” she said.