Dear Premier Stelmach,
Na na na na.
Na na na na.
Hey, hey, hey.
Goodbye.
And good riddance.
Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out. It’s my favourite door.
Sincerely yours,
Airdrie.
That’s about all I have to say following the outgoing premier and his crew of toadies’ visit to Airdrie last week.
In case you missed it, here’s the gist...
A week after announcing he plans to quit his job (maybe sometime next fall?), Stelmach and several cabinet ministers came to the city. It was the premier’s first visit to one of Canada’s fastest growing municipalities since he came to Airdrie seeking votes in the 2008 election.
That -30°C cold front that came through, dumping snow and snarling traffic? That was his reception.
You see, the last time Stelmach came around, Airdrie had an amazing integrated fire and ambulance system, providing first-rate care at a reasonable price. Following a hostile takeover attempt by the Province, seeking to split the services in a bid to centralize control of ambulances, Airdrie had a signed contract protecting our integrated service into the future.
Of course, a matter of months after winning the 2008 election with a massive majority, some pencil pusher with Alberta Health decided that contract was getting in the way of some sort of master plan. Alberta Health summoned its team of lawyers and found a way out of said contract, to the detriment of local citizens. Stelmach and his cronies did what they always do - ignore the people and side with the bureaucrats. In this case, they found a way to make ambulance response times longer while costing taxpayers more.
For this and many other reasons, our MLA resigned from the Progressive Conservative party, taking a large pay cut to do what he was sent to the Legislature to do - represent his constituents.
Rather than heed his warnings, Stelmach and company chose to instead vilify him as some sort of right wing extremist, the sort of tactic you would expect from ex-Liberal Prime Ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.
So, when Premier Stelmach returned to Airdrie this week, he had some fences to mend.
His way of doing that? Telling Airdrie that his government would take a closer look at incorporating firemen in providing emergency medical response.
“It was a good model,” he said.
Duh!
If it was such a good model, why did he sign off on ripping it apart at an exorbitant cost?
Instead of telling us how good things were before he made a complete mess of them, the premier’s remaining days would be better spent fixing the problems he caused. And how about admitting a mistake and making an apology?
I guess if he didn’t apologize for throwing hundreds of oil and gas sector employees out of work with his ill conceived royalty rate hikes, we could be waiting a while for him to say sorry for ripping apart our ambulance service.
I take pity on whoever the PC party finds to run in Airdrie in the next election. Whoever that candidate may be, they will have to spend most of their time apologizing for a man who rarely bothered to show his face in the city, who gave residents a slow and expensive ambulance system and refused to stand up to his bureaucrats when needed.
Premier Stelmach, good riddance!
