Letter: Reasonable questions are not personal attacks

By Letter to the Editor on December 15, 2020.

Dear Premier Kenney,

Not sure if you had time to read the Medicine Hat News on Dec. 10 but you appeared on the front page under a caption titled, “Kenney rejects criticism he waited too long on COVID rules”.

You may not recall, the article related to a recent interview on CHED radio & comments you made but you’re quoted as saying;

REPORTER: “Things are far, far worse when you talk about our record in terms of pandemic response. It’s among the worst, especially in Canada.”

PREMIER: “I don’t accept the Alberta bashing that is going on here.”

REPORTER: “Do you take responsibility & apologize for the way you’ve handled the second wave of the pandemic?”

PREMIER: “That sounds a lot more like an NDP speech than a media question. And you have just joined folks who are doing drive-by smears on Alberta.”

In case nobody under the big rotunda in Edmonton is saying anything to you about the interview, let me offer my opinion you didn’t come across as particularly Premier-like with your comments.

I’d feel a whole lot better about your leadership if you just manned up once in a while and put the cards on the table. Maybe something like, “Yes – we have a big problem here and we’re working hard to manage it.”

“My government and I certainly are responsible for managing the response to the second wave and we’re trying to balance many things in order to get it right.”

Instead, you habitually interpret reasonable questions as personal attacks and start lobbing the hand grenades while repeating the mantra, “Everybody hates Alberta”. The blame game may appeal to some, but I’d much prefer some substances vs. the theatrics.

Doubtless you’ll dismiss me as just another “Alberta Basher” Mr. Kenney, but you’d do well to heed this quote from past Premier Peter Lougheed;

“The attribute that really pays off is listening ability. Listen to the people that are involved with you working in the Office of the Premier, listen to the media, listen to your party and the general public.”

Tom Simpson

Medicine Hat

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