LEGISLATURE REBELS FORM ODD ALLIANCE
Ideological divides give way as outliers come together to rail against main parties
That’s a rare image — Robyn Luff, the renegade New Democrat, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Derek Fildebrandt, the equally rebellious conservative.
For a weird moment Monday, the NDP and the UCP united against them. So they formed their own strange alliance.
The episode showed how determined both the government and official Opposition are to quell dissent within their own ranks.
It started with an NDP motion to change committee membership. Luff was kicked off public accounts, one of the two most important committees. Fildebrandt also found himself deprived.
Luff, you’ll remember, went public last month with allegations of harassment against the NDP caucus. She was ejected after claiming that her independence was denied to the point of abuse.Luff asked to be kept on the committee. The NDP turfed her anyway.
You might find that unsurprising, given her rebellion. But opposition MLAs and small-party members are always appointed to these things — including Premier Rachel Notley, when she was in opposition.
Luff ’s exclusion was petty, but the really startling thing was the NDP’s use of Standing Order 49, which prohibits debate or amendment.
The second surprise was that Jason Nixon, the UCP house leader, quickly agreed.
In effect, Nixon endorsed a government closure motion. Oppositions ALWAYS oppose such attempts to limit debate. But this time, the UCP was all in.
Fildebrandt feels there’s a simple reason.
The UCP doesn’t like his constant criticism of his former party and its leader, Jason Kenney.
The NDP obviously isn’t too crazy about Luff, who levelled serious charges that are not proven but are nonetheless politically dangerous.
“The fact that the government and the official Opposition are working together right now to prevent me the opportunity to speak and to provide amendments is absolutely abominable,” Luff told the legislature.
She said it proves the point she’s been making all along.
“I stand on this side as an Independent because I feel that the democratic processes of this house do not work as they are intended to work, and this is absolutely an example of that.”
The Alberta Party’s Greg Clark joined the battle alongside Fildebrandt and Luff.
He said the NDP and UCP “very clearly … had colluded, and they had a plan, this nefarious little plan in the backrooms of this building, the kind of thing that Albertans absolutely hate and reject.”
Nixon and Brian Mason, the government house leader, both say there was no collusion.
Clark also noted that when Notley and Mason were the only NDP opposition members after the 2008 election, they were given places on every committee.
(The PCs of the day had a motive — exhausting the NDP members to the point of collapse.)
Fildebrandt said of Monday’s action: “This is perhaps the most petty and vindictive motion I have ever seen come before this legislature.”
On Tuesday, Fildebrandt even invoked Standing Order 49 himself, to stick it to the NDP and UCP. He thought that was comic retribution. Not everybody got the joke.
This is hardly the biggest issue before the legislature. As Clark said, he doesn’t expect anybody at the Red Deer Tim Hortons to be talking about it when he drives back to Calgary.
Another critic snapped: “We’ve got an economic tsunami going on, and these people want breakfast in bed.”
But this brief uproar makes a point about today’s legislature.
There are now eight malcontents in the opposition benches, all looking sideways at both the NDP government and UCP.
There’s the Alberta Party, with three members; the Liberals and PCs, with one each; Fildebrandt, lone hand for the Freedom Conservatives; and two Independents, Luff and Prab Gill.
They’re the flotsam of upheavals that brought down the PCs and Wildrose, created the UCP and raised the NDP to the point where its own rebels are starting to emerge.
And they’re getting restless. They’re even aligning across ideological divides.
If they unite, they’d reflect a much wider range of Alberta opinion than either the government or the UCP.
What a crazy idea.
Opposition MLAs and small-party members are always appointed to these things.