THE PRICE OF HYPOCRISY
Long after the colour has faded from former Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard's Hawaiian tan, Albertans will remember her Christmas 2020 vacation. They will also not soon forget that at least eight other UCP members and senior staffers jetted off to foreign locales while their constituents dutifully hunkered down at home following emergency directives laid out by the very government those office-holders represent.
As Premier Jason Kenney was quick to point out, his MLAS and officials didn't actually break any law. But for Albertans who scrubbed their own travel plans and sacrificed family gatherings to help save lives, they violated the spirit of the restrictions. Those recommendations include an advisory on the Government of Alberta website urging Albertans to “avoid non-essential travel outside Canada until further notice.”
Judging by the fury across the political spectrum, many Albertans feel betrayed that members of their government are asking them to do as they say, not as they do. The Kenney government is being eviscerated by not just the usual critics on the left but conservatives and ordinary Albertans. As if underscoring the moral failure, even Pope Francis condemned vacationers who travelled abroad.
Already, pundits are comparing Aloha-gate to past provincial scandals featuring similar issues of entitlement and elitist arrogance, such as the sky palace, the opulent suite built for then-premier Alison Redford, and the use of phoney passenger lists so she could fly alone on government planes. This latest imbroglio has the potential for much more dire consequences because lives are at stake. The moral authority that the Kenney government must wield in convincing Albertans to obey public-health recommendations is now severely diminished by the apparent double-standard followed.
Will Albertans be so willing to comply for the public good when Kenney and chief medical officer of health Deena Hinshaw unveil future public-health restrictions and appeal for personal responsibility? And the next time Kenney scolds young Albertans for partying or lectures ethnic communities he feels aren't respecting public health restrictions, they will only note the hypocrisy of his initial hesitation to hold his own MLAS and staffers to account. Albertans who demanded consequences finally received them Monday with the resignations of Allard and chief of staff Jamie Huckabay as well as the demotions of MLAS Jeremy Nixon, Jason Stephan, Tanya Fir, Pat Rehn, and Tany Yao. It may have taken some time, but at least Kenney finally held them accountable. Whether that's enough remains to be seen since it's often not tangled political scandals that voters remember at the ballot box, but the ones they take personally.