Thomson: Political Twilight Zone.
Kennedy-Glans resignation was doubly harmful And then there were 58.
That’s how many MLAs are left in the Alberta government caucus after associate cabinet minister Donna Kennedy-Glans abruptly announced her departure Monday.
As departures go, it was dignified, even polite. No slamming doors, no going out in a huff. That made it all the more damaging to Premier Alison Redford.
When Calgary MLA Len Webber angrily departed caucus last week, he took potshots at Redford on the way out, calling her a bully. Webber understandably managed to make headlines, but his personal attack was dismissed by Redford supporters as crass political opportunism by a backbench MLA who had already announced he was leaving provincial politics to run federally.
They can’t so easily dismiss Kennedy-Glans.
For one, she didn’t attack Redford personally. She barely mentioned the premier’s name. Instead, KennedyGlans said she was leaving caucus because she is deeply disappointed the government is not fulfilling the promises for change made in the 2012 election.
She said as a backbencher, she was routinely kept in the dark about many of the policy decisions being made by her own government.
“I’m concerned about topdown decision making,” said Kennedy-Glans, who pointed to the government’s strategy to impose a wage freeze on 22,000 members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. She had no idea that strategy was being considered until it was announced to caucus members as a fait accompli. Same with the government’s decision to use billions of dollars from the Heritage Savings Trust Fund to set up new endowment funds.
“I don’t know what they are,” said Kennedy-Glans, who sounds as confused about the new endowment funds as many reporters. “It’s very alarming to have that all of a sudden show up. It’s those kinds of things that irritate my constituents and they feel like they’re not at the table.”
Now, Kennedy-Glans is leaving the table altogether to sit as an independent.
Her departure is an indictment not only of Redford’s leadership, but also of government strategy.
And then there’s KennedyGlans’ polite yet devastating comments that touch on criticism of Redford’s jetsetting lifestyle.
“Definitely there’s an issue about a culture of entitlement and we’ve seen that over the past few months and I hear it at the doors all the time,” she told reporters. “People don’t like a culture of entitlement. They’re egalitarian in Alberta. They want this to stop.”
The question everyone is asking themselves at the legislature these days is when will the departures from caucus stop?
In any other universe, having 58 seats in an 87-seat legislature would be a comfy majority, a veritable downfilled cushion of extraneous MLAs to ensure the government never loses a vote in the legislature.
But this is the universe of Alberta politics, an upside- down place where the usual laws of political physics don’t apply. This is a universe where the premier of a 58-seat majority is in danger of being forced from office.
It is a universe where on Monday members of the government caucus gave a standing ovation for a premier many don’t particularly like or respect.
It is a universe where members of the official Opposition joined in that standing ovation.
Things are so topsy-turvy political observers must be suffering from vertigo. Redford must think she’s entered the Twilight Zone.
Caucus met as a group on Monday where sources said they had the usual “frank” discussion where cooler heads tried to convince the mutineers that “we’re all in this together.” In other words, we must hang together or we’ll hang as a divided government next election.
That seemed to have the desired effect, at least optically.
During question period, government members—even potential mutineers — gave Redford that standing ovation after NDP leader Brian Mason asked her if she had enough support to continue as premier. It was an odd scene. Making it even odder was the sight of Wildrose MLAs getting to their feet to join in the ovation.
Wildrose MLAs were being a little cheeky. They would dearly love to have Redford to stay on as premier, not because they like her but because they think she is easily defeatable next election.
They’d also like to see more MLAs quit the government caucus to sit as independents. If another 15 were to leave, the government would find itself in a minority position and on the verge of collapse.
That’s an unlikely scenario, but in the bizarre world of Alberta politics these days, it’s not an impossibility.