Prentice just the latest to pledge accountability

Alberta’s new premier is promising to finally make the provincial government truly transparent and accountable.

“I strongly believe that government has the duty to be open, transparent and accountable to the people that it serves,” the premier told reporters.

Oops. Wrong premier. That wasn’t Premier Jim Prentice on Wednesday; that was then-premier Alison Redford in September 2012, promising to hold her own government to account when spending money on travel and food. Let me get the correct quote. “Anything to improve the openness and transparency,” the premier told reporters. “We can’t do it all overnight, but I can assure you that’s our goal. That’s one of our five priorities. It’s something that Albertans have asked for.”

Oops again. Sorry. That wasn’t Prentice talking about his five priorities; that was then-premier Ed Stelmach in January 2007 talking about his. Not only did Stelmach promise to make his government more open, he also promised to make it more accountable through the introduction of a lobbyist registry and a six-month coolingoff period for former ministers, senior civil servants and political staff.

Give me a second. I know I have Prentice’s quote around here somewhere, promising to introduce legislation making the government more transparent and accountable because that’s what Albertans have been telling him.

Ah, this must be it: “The bill was designed essentially on comments from members of the public who said they wanted an access to information act,” the premier told reporters. “We want to say to the public: Is it strong enough? Are we on the right track? Is it weak in certain areas? Where should it be strengthened?”

Oops, yet again. Really sorry about this. That wasn’t Prentice; that was Ralph Klein in April 1993, promising to enact a sweeping freedom of information law to make the government more, you know, yada yada.

Here’s what Prentice said on Wednesday.

“Over the course of the summer, I promised that I would improve accountability and good governance, that I would put an end to the culture of entitlement by enforcing rules of good government by creating the conditions to ensure that the highest ethical standards of accountability would take root among those who serve the public.”

Prentice is promising to introduce legislation to increase Stelmach’s old six-month cooling-off period to one year, and Prentice says he will end the “sweetheart severance packages” so prevalent under Redford’s reign. He also says registered lobbyists will no longer be given government consulting contracts. And he’s looking at tabling new access to information legislation. There’s an eerie sense of deja vu about Prentice’s promises. We have heard similar promises from every premier the past 22 years — and all failed in one way or another.

Klein introduced the province’s first freedom of information law, but ran a government so unaccountable and closed that its narrow interpretation of FOIP laws was a national joke. In 2004, the Canadian Association of Journalists nominated the Alberta government for the sarcastic Code of Silence award for stonewalling media requests for information.

Stelmach promised more accountability and integrity, but in 2011, Frank Work, the province’s information and privacy commissioner, castigated Stelmach for failing to keep his promise.

“The first of Premier Ed Stelmach’s five priorities when he ran for election in 2006 was to govern with integrity and transparency,” Work said. “I cannot let this occasion pass without commenting on what I see as a lack of leadership at the provincial level with respect to access to information.”

For her part, Redford not only promised to end government entitlements on travel, but she also began publishing ministerial travel expenses online. Redford’s career, of course, ended in controversy over her travel habits — and it turned out the government’s online travel disclosures were a bit of a sham. While published documents indicated her 2013 mission to India and Switzerland cost $130,000, for example, a review by Alberta’s auditor general discovered it was actually $450,000.

And now Prentice is saying he’ll make his “new” Progressive Conservative government more accountable, more ethical and more open than the “old” Progressive Conservative governments.

Everything Prentice is promising makes sense and will indeed make the government better and more accountable. It’s just that we’ve heard these kinds of assurances so many times before that he’ll have to forgive us if we’re more than a little skeptical.