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PC leadership candidates: Let's blame Carol Haley for everything

Let me start this column with an admission: I still have a soft place in my heart for former Airdrie-Chestermere MLA Carol Haley. Haley was never the prototypical politician. She didn’t like schmoozing crowds.

Let me start this column with an admission: I still have a soft place in my heart for former Airdrie-Chestermere MLA Carol Haley.

Haley was never the prototypical politician. She didn’t like schmoozing crowds. She also didn’t like preaching a message she didn’t believe in herself. As such, she refused to do either. She didn’t sugar-coat bad news, or pretend to be your buddy just to get your vote. In that way, she was among the most honest politicians I ever met.

It didn’t make her popular, and she was eventually pushed aside for a younger politician who more accurately represented this constituency’s vision of what Alberta should be. She read the writing on the wall and decided to serve her province in a way that better reflected her particular talents, one-on-one and behind the scenes.

Last week, several would-be-kings decided to capitalize on a mistake made by Haley and her constituency board several years ago.

Upon her retirement, Haley accepted a gift of $3,000 from the constituency association she helped to build from nothing. As had been pointed out over the past week, 75 per cent of donations to constituency associations are tax-refundable. As such, it was wrong for Haley to accept this gift, and she would be right to say so publicly.

But let’s get real for a minute.

We’re talking about $3,000. It pales in comparison to the massive and ridiculous transition allowances MLA’s pay themselves on top of the retirement contributions we taxpayers fund. According to the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, following the 2008 election we forked over more than $8 million to retiring and losing MLAs.

Under the current system, MLAs like Doug Griffiths and Alison Redford are on the yellow brick road to riches, and former MLA Gary Mar has already cashed in once.

All three of these PC Party leadership candidates announced last week that the province should tighten laws around constituency spending, looking for headlines by throwing Haley under the bus. Real classy.

I haven’t spoken with Haley since she left office, and I have written dozens of columns over the years taking to task the premier she now works for. But she does not deserve the beating she took last week.

Make no mistake, the PC government of Alberta has made hundreds of mistakes over the past 40 years and owned up to very few of them. In my opinion, the government has crossed the line from inept to corrupt, and must be replaced as soon as possible.

But I tell you this, Carol Haley is not the scapegoat that PC Party leadership candidates are trying to make her out to be.

She is not the poster child for this shameful and disgusting government. The blame rests with every current and former MLA who swallows their concerns, week after week, year after year, and props up this rotten-to-the-core party.

Carol Haley’s treatment has been shameful and disgusting.

If I wasn’t already completely outraged by the PC Party, this sort of hypocritical B.S. would send me straight to the Wildrose Alliance all over again.


Airdrie Today Staff

About the Author: Airdrie Today Staff

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