Letter: Madu’s ‘phone call to the chief’ claims don’t add up

By Letter to the Editor on February 8, 2022.

Dear editor,

Well, what a state of affairs. CBC and other news outlets recently reported that Alberta Justice Minister Kaycee Madu, who is black, slipped up after he received a distracted driving ticket in Edmonton last March, then had the audacity to call Edmonton police chief Dale McFee to seek assurances he was not racially profiled or singled out for surveillance given his political position.

Madu also made it clear that “in no way did I request that the ticket be rescinded.” That’s odd considering that on Jan. 19 he told Canadian Press reporter Dean Bennett, he “also took issue with the circumstances surrounding the ticket,” and said, “while he was ticketed for driving while on his phone, his phone was in his pocket inside his jacket”.

That to me is very significant. I suggest most of us would agree that, black or not, if we were driving down the street minding our own business, and with our cell phone in our pocket, and were then ticketed for distracted driving, we would feel targeted and wronged. Further, if we were black or a visible minority we may agree that under those circumstances that person would have every right to believe that targeting or racism may have been a factor in receiving that ticket.

Thus, I have serious concerns about what the real reason was that Mr. Madu made his call to Chief McFee.

I can also say if it was me, or maybe even you, that under those circumstances, the first thing I would have said to Chief McFee, if I made such a call is, “I didn’t do anything illegal so what’s going on here.”

I also suggest that anyone calling a chief of police to voice a concern about an officer would be told, if they got through at all, that the chief couldn’t comment until inquiries were first made with the officer involved. This would mean that unless Chief McFee said, ‘this call is inappropriate so I’m not discussing anything’ that a return call to Mr. Madu would have been required.

At this time there is no mention of any return call.

Finally, I suggest that Justice Minister or not, that under the new legislation, and all things being equal (or not), if Mr. Madu challenged his violation under the new legislation, that violation would probably be confirmed by a UCP appointed adjudicator, except that maybe with the way things have been going under the UCP government, someone made a phone call.

Ken Montgomery

Medicine Hat

Ken Montgomery is a retired police officer and a local paralegal and court agent