Alohagate pales next to some other scandals
Political scandals are strange things. Some that can be described as bordering on criminal barely make a ripple in the public consciousness, while other comparatively minor lapses in judgment bring politicians down.
On Monday, Grande Prairie MLA Tracy
Allard resigned from her cabinet post because she travelled to Hawaii for Christmas with her family, despite her own government's guideline that asks all Albertans to avoid non-essential travel. It's being called Alohagate.
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said she's never seen a greater outpouring of rage from Albertans. Sources within Premier Jason Kenney's government say the same thing, which is undoubtedly why he reversed course from Friday, when he said he wouldn't sanction members of his government who chose to leave the country because he hadn't issued a clear directive beforehand.
Three days later, he asked for and accepted the resignations of Allard and his chief of staff, Jamie Huckabay, who visited the U.K. over the holidays. Five other MLAS lost parliamentary secretary roles and legislative committee responsibilities, which leads to significant cuts in pay. The glaring hypocrisy and entitlement of these government members flouting their own government guidelines was so obvious, it's astonishing that it's come to this, with more than 20 politicians from virtually every major federal party being caught in the same situation.
But, compared to, say, the use of taxpayer money to fill party coffers or the bank accounts of family members, it's small potatoes. The anger and disgust is justified, but is not proportionate to more serious scandals.
Why do some political scandals stick and others don't? Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt says if it's relatable and easy to understand, public outrage is higher.
“A lot of scandals are quite complicated and there's a lot of nuance,” he said. Those are tough. But everybody knows what the price of orange juice is.” Bratt was referring to cabinet minister Bev Oda, who charged a $16 glass of orange juice to her London hotel tab and ended up resigning her cabinet post in 2012 and leaving politics altogether.
“In this particular case of travel, people knew what the travel restrictions or guidelines were. So if you have personally sacrificed — forget about going to Hawaii, if you haven't crossed Calgary to visit your brother, or mother as we did in our family ... that's the difference,” said Bratt. “Those are the scandals that stick.”
The WE Charity controversy is far more egregious. Justin Trudeau's federal Liberal government gave WE Charity a sole-sourced $543-million contract to run the Canada Student Service Grant while his mother, brother and wife received $500,000 in pay and expenses from the charity. The charity was broke and on the verge of collapse, which would have ended the lucrative speaking gigs for the Trudeau family. Then, magically, this new program was dreamed up. Afterward, Trudeau prorogued Parliament to shut down the committees investigating the scandal. It's convoluted, and as a result whole swaths of the public either didn't follow it or quickly lost interest in the details.
The same is true of the Snc-lavalin scandal that revealed that Trudeau interfered with the independence of then-justice minister Jody Wilson-raybould to offer the Quebec engineering firm — a big political donor — a deferred prosecution agreement rather than a criminal trial.
When former Alberta Premier Alison Redford used government planes for vacations with her daughter, or filled in flight manifestos with names of colleagues (ghost riders) so she could use the plane with one or two aides, that may not be relatable for most Albertans but it is easy to understand. It helped end her political career. By contrast, remember the Sponsorship Scandal or Adscam, when the federal Liberals under thenprime minister Jean Chretien funnelled $100 million of taxpayer money to Liberal-friendly advertising agencies for little to no work, to have a portion of those funds donated to the party or to keep Liberal staffers on the payroll? What about Shawinigate? These are bona fide scandals of political corruption but are also complicated so few know much about them.
The hypocrisy of government officials insisting all us peons refrain from visiting family members on pain of sanction then jetting off to sunny locales to work on their tans is galling. It's also easy to understand, but it doesn't come close to being as serious as some of these other scandals.