1 week Ago By Michele Jarvie
It would be unfair to suggest that politics today is completely devoid of principle. But it’s not often we see someone standing on principle when there’s so much to lose, and not wavering when those consequences are realized. Albertans should take careful note of the plight of — and the warnings from — Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie.
If he is so alarmed as to risk his political future, maybe we should be, too. There are still many questions surrounding the allegations of improper contracts and procurement involving Alberta Health and the possible connection to the firing of the CEO of Alberta Health Services. It would have been much easier for Guthrie to suppress these concerns and remain in both cabinet and caucus.
Maybe down the road if there’s some damning finding from the auditor general or an inquiry, it would be less risky to go out on such a limb. But are we really going to get to the truth if everyone takes the easy route? It’s been almost two months since Guthrie resigned from cabinet, but it wasn’t until last week that he was finally expelled from caucus. That came two days after Guthrie supported an Opposition motion calling for a public inquiry.
It also emerged last week that officials have been instructed to “redirect” any inquiries from the auditor general to government lawyers. The auditor general says that is “not a standard practice” and rejected the government’s assertion that he had been made aware of this. The idea that the government might be making the auditor general’s job more difficult is problematic, to say the least, a point highlighted by Guthrie and others during the debate on the motion last week.
And once Guthrie was unshackled from any obligation to caucus or the government, we got another big revelation. His cabinet resignation letter was tabled in the legislature, not something that is typically made public. That letter sheds some interesting light on why Guthrie felt the need for such drastic action and bolsters the case for a public inquiry.
Guthrie alleges that at a mid-February cabinet meeting, it became clear to him that “the minister of health, and possibly even you, premier, had knowledge of identified procurement issues” and that the health cabinet committee had been “deliberately misled,” which resulted “in the dismissal of the AHS board.” Not surprisingly, both the premier and the health minister rejected the claims made in the letter. But as Guthrie stated last week, “I didn’t step down because nothing happened.
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