Tories forgive Allen’s sins — but will voters?
Fort McMurray MLA back in caucus a year after sex scandal
One year ago, he was considered politically dead. Or, at the very least, so politically toxic he should have come with a warning label.
Now, he has been through a decontamination, of sorts.
Mike Allen, the Fort McMurray MLA caught in a criminal sex scandal one year ago, has been welcomed back into the government fold. His caucus mates held a secret ballot during their annual Calgary Stampede meeting Monday and decided he had been in the political doghouse long enough.
Government whip George VanderBurg wouldn’t release details of the ballot except to say he had been approached by Allen last Friday asking that Allen be allowed back into caucus. VanderBurg said he put the question to caucus members who then cast ballots, yes or no.
“I asked the question — and he’s back in,” said VanderBurg. “Mike has paid his penalty and he has paid a personal price. He handled himself well through this.”
Understandably, Allen was ecstatic with the vote.
“I’m excited to be back in the caucus,” said Allen, who then added by way of massive understatement, “Obviously it has been quite a year, quite a challenging year.”
Yes, it has been a “challenging” year for Allen, to say the least.
It was one year ago — July 16, to be precise — that Allen resigned from the government caucus after he had been charged in Minnesota with trying to hire a prostitute (actually, two undercover policewomen). If that wasn’t bad enough, Allen was representing Alberta on a government trip at the time. And making his choice of extracurricular activities look even worse, as if that were possible, journalists discovered that Allen’s government companion on the trip, MLA Wayne Cao, spent his spare time visiting museums.
In the resulting scandal, which included then premier Alison Redford saying she was “disgusted” and “disappointed” by Allen, opposition parties demanded he resign his seat.
Thereafter, the once highly regarded MLA was routinely described in news reports as “disgraced,” “humiliated” and “shamed.”
Allen himself, in a statement after his arrest, said he had embarrassed himself, his family, constituents and province “as a result of a profound lapse in my personal judgment.”
Allen said after talking with his constituents he was gratified to find the “vast majority” who called his office or spoke to him on the street wanted him to stay on.
He quit caucus but he would not resign his seat and instead sat as an Independent MLA.
In December, he pleaded guilty to trying to hire a prostitute and was fined $500 and given a one-year, self-administered probation which simply amounted to him agreeing to be a lawabiding citizen.
Even though he is still on probation, Allen figured that enough time had gone by for him to be allowed back into caucus. And he knew that most, if not all, of his old caucus mates would be supportive.
You c ou ld se e that support for yourself at Progressive Conservative party functions in the way government MLAs warmly greeted Allen who, until his self-inflicted downfall, was considered potential cabinet material.
It probably didn’t hurt Allen’s case that Redford is no longer premier.
Reaction from opposition parties has been relatively muted. The NDP refused to comment and as I write this the Wildrose had nobody available to comment.
Liberal Leader Raj Sherman said the PCs let Allen back into caucus because they were afraid that if he ran as an Independent candidate in the next election, he could have split the vote with his PC replacement, allowing the opposition to win the riding.
Sherman still thinks Allen should resign because “he’s a lawmaker who broke the law.”
That’s not going to happen, of course. Allen is not only a sitting MLA, he is now once again a government MLA. But you have to wonder about the optics of the timing.
While his old colleagues voted to forgive Allen’s trespasses, in Ottawa the House of Commons Justice committee was busy reviewing Bill C-36, the federal government’s proposed new prostitution law that would crack down on anyone buying sex.
Allen says he knows better than anyone that what he did was wrong and was a gross violation of the public trust.
“I recognized right from the very beginning that I made a very serious lapse in judgment and very serious error,” he says. “I learned that the best way to adapt and to work through a situation similar to this is just to come out and be honest and upfront and face your demons and hopefully at one point I’ll have recaptured some of that trust.”
He has apparently recaptured the trust of his caucus colleagues, but whether he has recaptured that of the people of Fort McMurray is a question that won’t be answered until the next provincial election.