WILDROSE TURNS DOWN STARRING ROLE ON TORY TV
Opposition says premier just trying to co- opt them in pre- election tactic
Premier Jim Prentice will address the province on TV next Tuesday on the state of the economy and the looming budget — but not with the Wildrose opposition in tow.
“It will be on the fiscal situation the province is facing,” Prentice spokesperson Emily Woods said Thursday evening. “The premier won’t be giving away any budget details but it will set the stage for what’s coming on Thursday ( budget day, March 26.)”
Premiers have made such provincewide appearances before, but Prentice tried something highly unusual with this one.
He offered the Wildrose official opposition time to make its own statement at the end of the broadcast, with all production costs paid by the government.
“We extended an offer to the opposition to also provide an update at the end of the address,” Woods said. “We thought it was a friendly thing to do. It’s unfortunate they’ve declined.
“The extra time was booked because initially the opposition had agreed.”
Shayne Saskiw, the Wildrose house leader, said the offer was considered “but in the end we felt very uncomfortable about using taxpayer dollars to respond to an address we would not even have seen in advance.
“This is the kind of campaigning on the taxpayer dime that we’ve long criticized the government for. We felt it was just not right.
“At a basic minimum, we could not take the money. It implodes the government’s argument that times are tough if they can blow this money on a campaign ad.
“This is the premier of Alberta — he can get his message out to Albertans for free at any time. He can call up and just get a press conference.”
The premier’s office said the offer was only extended to the official opposition, not to the NDP and Liberals.
By inviting Wildrose, the premier clearly wanted to show nonpartisan solidarity in the face of fiscal crisis. But Wildrose critics say he was just trying to co- opt them as cover for pre- election campaigning with public funds.
Earlier Thursday, the premier also sought peace in a meeting with leaders of just about every union representing public sector workers.
He pleased them by saying he’ll repeal Bill 45, the most singularly mean- spirited act of the Redford era. It would have levied heavy penalties for even talking about strikes.
The law was doomed anyway because the courts would never uphold it. But it remains on the books, awaiting proclamation. Unions naturally worried that it could still be dusted off and used to levy fines of up to $ 1.2 million a day.
“I’m glad he did that,” said Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. “It set a good tone.”
The leaders were also encouraged that once again, Prentice said he will not break or otherwise tamper with existing contracts. That’s a firm guarantee.
But the labour leaders were expecting an obvious question from the premier — will you voluntarily re- negotiate existing contracts?
“But he didn’t ask that,” Smith said. “It didn’t come up at all.”
Prentice is leaving a great many questions hanging as the budget nears. He says high public sector wages are unaffordable, insists that $ 2.6 billion of “baked- in” raises are a big problem, but gives no clear sign that he’s going to tackle union pay directly.
Among people who were involved in the cuts of the Ralph Klein era in the early 1990s, there’s talk that Prentice will use similar tactics.
Klein didn’t break any contracts. His labour minister, Stockwell Day, negotiated concessions from unions whose employees worked directly for the government.
For the rest — nurses, teacher and others not directly employed by the province — he simply cut funding to their employers by five per cent, with the strong suggestion they take it out of pay.
Prentice may or may not talk about some of this on TV Tuesday night. We can be sure Wildrose won’t talk at all.