Alberta’s resident conservative dicta-bird assures us there’s nothing to see here — after all, it came straight from the Premier herself.
On accepting gifts of Oiler’s playoff hockey tickets over the last season, Smith wants Albertans to believe it’s no big deal.
“Look,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said, “I wanted to support the team and the people who invited me wanted me to be there to support the team as well.”
Like, geez; what’s all the fuss about? No one had to force her to go watch playoff games in private suites, don’t you know? She wanted to be there.
The Premier added that she will “presumably” get a personal invitation to the opening game in Calgary once the new arena is built, and “presumably” she will accept.
“There are some things that are just so big and so important to cities that they want me there,” she said.
Presumably, because she’s the Premier, and not because she offered up $300 million for said arena.
No one asked Smith whether she could differentiate between “cities” inviting her to attend events and private businesses providing her, her ministers, or political staff with complimentary tickets.
Smith did take the time to explain that Ministers of the Crown and political staff are not restricted from spending their own money, but was careful not to tie the spending of their own money to actually purchasing their own tickets, since, as we know, they did not.
Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf said that he had declined “numerous” invitations from a person with whom the government had previous business before accepting a suite seat for a playoff game.
While it’s possible that, unlike the Premier, he didn’t previously want “to support the team”, it’s more probable that the Minister was aware he should decline offers of complimentary tickets from a person who was involved in a multi-million dollar boondoggle that delivered for the province a fraction of the diluted, and ultimately useless, product they purchased.
Smith was asked whether she attended the same business owner’s suite and she responded unequivocally “I didn’t go to his suite, I was not hosted in his suite.”
Seems like a simple enough, very straight forward answer, to a simple enough, very straight forward, and, apparently, too specific of a question.
Fancy meeting you here
Smith claimed she was given complimentary tickets to attend the game by a private citizen who sits on the board of Invest Alberta, in Edmonton.
Smith said she was hosted by Invest Alberta, and that “ it's the corporation's job to show off Alberta on an international platform”.
However, something doesn’t really make sense about that; if Smith was a guest of a corporate entity whose “job” it to show off Alberta, why was she inviting the other attendees, mostly from B.C.?
According to the first story, it seems like she was given many, if not all of the tickets, or, a gift worth tens of thousands of dollars to invite whomever she wanted to the game.
A spokesperson for Smith told the Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait that Smith travelled to B.C. with two staff members for the game.
A spokesperson for B.C. Premier David Eby said he was invited by Danielle Smith, and Eby brought along his wife and son, as well as two staff members.
The statement further added that “Premier Smith’s office also invited a family from B.C. who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend” according to the article.
Seems random, in the context of being hosted by Invest Alberta, but, fine.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim was also photographed with the Premier, in the box, at the game.
That’s perhaps 10 people who are counted as attending upon invitation from the Premier or the Premier’s office, plus one, Mayor Sim.
As journalist Charles Rusnell pointed out on social media, though, there appears to be another familiar face in the photo from the game in B.C.: the Alberta business owner whose $75 million-dollar contract with the Government of Alberta delivered a third of the diluted, and ultimately useless, children’s fever and pain medication, Sam Mraiche.
To be fair, it does not appear that anyone asked Premier Smith specifically if she hosted Mr. Mraiche at an Oiler’s playoff game in another province, along with 10 or so other people she personally invited with thousands of dollars worth of complimentary tickets someone else gave her.
But it looks like someone should.
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Forgiving, rationalizing, and defending ethical breaches is a troubling step down a long path. This is something neither the UCP or its supporters would ever accept if done by another party. Ever. As we’ve seen in the USA, these breaches escalate, and then escalate some more, if left unchecked by the voters. It will get worse from here.