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PC leadership lacks integrity

The last Alberta provincial election had legally resulted in a majority government for the Progressive Conservative Party.

Dear Editor,

The last Alberta provincial election had legally resulted in a majority government for the Progressive Conservative Party. The legally voted in opposition parties, Wildrose, NDP and Liberals increased by a few MLA seats; still under two dozen to do their checks and balances, as is proper in the democratic tradition.

Within two and a half years of “Hollywood” style behaviors of media and high-rolling governance, the PC MLAs deposed their premier Alison Redford. Then the PCs MLAs were stalled. They were a majority government with no leadership. Within the legislature, there was one standing to take over the premier’s place. Was this replacement of Redford not an option among the elected MLAs?

Were they still so immersed in “high rolling,” the people elected were unable to think?

What they opted for, has led to soap opera episodes, like a bad set from Dallas.

Could any of you ever imagine that the MLAs and party caucus would rent a new premier and his crew of unelected men to take over and shuffle themselves — into by-elections — around the province to get themselves on board? They did and won.

Were they satisfied? Apparently the PCs were not. The new premier was able to co-opt a few Wildrose MLAs; then before four months passed, he had Wildrose opposition leader Danielle Smith and nine other MLAs cross the legislature floor to become PC MLAs!

Were they satisfied? Not yet! In two months the co-opted Wildrose PC MLAs had to run in their original ridings in a re-by-election of a sort. First they were to run by constituency as PC, against other unelected PCs coming forward to run against the slate of other PCs wanting a position.

Were the PC MLAs and party double plugging a damaged dike? Doing a second betrayal of the opposition Wildrose? Are the remaining Liberals and NDP MLAs still a threat to the premier?

After this much of a dog and pony show, now there is still much talk of a provincial election this summer.

Is a complete majority of every seat in the legislature still a democracy?

All the slate of hand treachery means that they are scared of hard times.

So the PC MLAs fear to bite the bullet of restraint by calling an early election for Alberta? What else do they want?

They could hope, I guess, that they could get the four or six other opposition seats — they could be counting on the vast numbers of uninformed or indifferent voters to trust them.

Behaviors since September 2014 do not display the integrity of the group at the helm at the moment.

Stella Friedel

Ponoka