Alberta NDP calls for investigation into Premier Smith's Medicine Hat announcement
Premier's office contends "there are no limits on the premier attending a third-party non-government event"
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Alberta’s Opposition NDP is calling on the province’s chief electoral officer to investigate what it alleges is a violation of the Election Act by Premier Danielle Smith.
In the lead-up to a Nov. 8 byelection in Brooks-Medicine Hat, Smith has drawn criticism from New Democrats for attending a grand opening event for a health, wellness and athletics expansion of Medicine Hat College on Tuesday.
In a Friday letter to chief electoral officer Glen Resler, NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir and postsecondary critic David Eggen note that Smith praised the local value of the government’s investment in Medicine Hat and mentioned the byelection during the event.
“It is clear that Smith’s presence at this announcement was an attempt to use government resources to bolster her campaign to be the local MLA for the region and garner support, which is a violation of the Election Act and an unethical use of government resources,” Sabir and Eggen wrote in the letter.
The Election Act prohibits government departments and provincial corporations from advertising or publishing any information about their programs or activities that “has a disproportionate impact” on voters in impacted ridings during byelections, and limits the use of a name, voice or image of a cabinet minister who is not an elected MLA.
Premier’s office: it was a third-party event
The premier’s press secretary Becca Polak also pointed to those passages, but added “there are no limits on the premier attending a third-party non-government event,” in an email to Postmedia Friday afternoon.
Tuesday’s appearance was not livestreamed by the government. The premier told media in attendance she was not using the occasion as a campaign stop and was only there in her role as Alberta’s premier.
“I was invited to come here,” CTV News reported Smith as saying.
“I get that this event has been planned for some time (and) that Minister (Jason) Copping and Minister (Demetrios) Nicolaides were both coming here.”
Smith said it would have been strange for her to be in the riding and not attend the event.
‘It’s still a violation,’ political scientist says
Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt told Postmedia you can’t separate the two roles, and it appears to be a pretty black and white violation of the rules.
“Even if Minister Nicolaides or Minister Copping had made that announcement, it’s still a violation. There is no reason that they couldn’t have had that announcement in the middle of November,” he said, adding that it was specifically tied to the riding in the middle of a byelection.
However, Bratt said if the chief electoral officer finds wrongdoing, there might be a fine, but the punishment would be relatively minor.
“There’s no real teeth to this, except to name and shame during the campaign.”
Echoes of 2014
Both Eggen and Bratt have also pointed to Smith’s criticism of former PC education minister Gordon Dirks in 2014, when she was Wildrose leader. At the time, Dirks had authorized modular classroom funding in Calgary-Elbow during his byelection.
Smith told the legislature in late 2014 Albertans would find it difficult to view those actions as ethical.
“The premier said that Albertans should judge his government by the integrity it has shown,” she said at the time. “Is this the kind of government he’s going to run, where projects only get built when there are elections to be won?”
In 2015, provincial ethics commissioner Marguerite Trussler called Dirks’ actions “blatant political opportunism” but said they didn’t break conflict of interest rules.
Bratt said the political consequences are still hard to quantify.
“Did the kicking and screaming in 2014 contribute to a very narrow victory for Dirks, and then losing it in the general election a couple months later?” he said.
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