Laying It Out: The house is on fire… enough with the drips in the sink

By Medicine Hat News Opinion on June 13, 2020.

Listen, if you think lavish travel expenses by the UCP government is going to be the thing that sways voter loyalty toward a different party, that’s entirely your right to do.

It’s just not my thing.

If the NDP thinks that trying to impress conservatives with talk of monthly hotel bills is going to win them an election, that’s entirely their right to assume.

It’s just not going to work.

I wrote about this last November in an open letter to the NDP, wherein I tried to remind them that playing political games means doing so as the away team in an arena filled to the rafters with fans of the home team.

Here are a few excerpts:

“You’re playing as the away team here. You’re standing at the plate looking for a homerun to quiet the crowd, but you’re swinging at every pitch.

It doesn’t matter what they throw at you, your whole party is up there hacking away as if any contact at all will register a hit. Except this is a new game altogether, as the home team gets three pitchers at once who all throw off-speed, and the few fans you have at the game are too afraid to cheer.

You’re trying to play political baseball in a game you can’t win, and in the process you’re missing out on the growing number of Albertans who are tired of this stuff being a sport in the first place.

With all that’s happening in Alberta right now, why on earth are we even talking about these meaningless travel expenses? At a time when Albertans need a new direction like never before, they don’t need more politicians who choose theatre over substance.”

I closed that piece with this:

“This is a crossroads moment unlike anything Alberta has ever seen, and its people need a new kind of leader. If they can’t have that, they at least need something more than a free-swinging opposition that doesn’t wait for its pitch.”

I wrote that letter because while the UCP was firing elections commissioners, writing laws to tear up legal contracts, and laying the groundwork for an unprecedented effort to diminish the public sector, the NDP chose to talk about a flight to Saskatoon and a liquor purchase that turned out to be their own fault.

And guess what happened? Nothing. A group of already-supporters jeered on about hypocrisy for a couple days, no UCP voters really cared, and the actual left that desperately wants a party to address systemic issues was wondering if they’ll ever get to support one that cares about people more than politics.

And this was all when Albertans actually had time to think about it.

Fast-forward to present day, and sure enough the Opposition is back at the plate taking hacks at a travel bill, only this time they’re looking to score a run in chaos.

On top of a pandemic that has unearthed just about every systemic problem we have, we are mired in protests against police racism, and Alberta’s RCMP denies it the same week a video surfaces of officers beating an Indigenous chief over an expired registration, and two weeks after cops in New Brunswick shot and killed a young Indigenous woman during a wellness check.

Meanwhile, gatherings in Alberta to protest against such atrocities are about to become illegal, and Bill 1 is being flagged by constitutional lawyers aplenty for its vague, broad interpretations of “essential infrastructure” and its outright violation of at least five sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights.

For example, the bill would ban protests that block highways as defined by the Traffic Safety Act. Did you know this act defines a highway as “any thoroughfare, street, road, parkway, driveway, viaduct, lane, alley, square, bridge, causeway, trestleway, or other place or any part of them, whether publicly or privately owned, that the public is ordinarily entitled or permitted to use for the passage or parking of vehicles”?

Did you know the definition of vehicle includes bicycles? Did you know the bill would also ban protest that occurs on any land connected to such things? Did you know you could face the same charges simply by suggesting protest with a Facebook post? If given Royal assent, the bill would immediately take effect and provide authorities the right to arrest and significantly fine anyone protesting anything, anywhere at any time.

A premier whose entire term has occurred under police investigation into election fraud is constantly using the term “rule of law” in defence of Bill 1, and has even implied that the right to protest is undemocratic if it trumps the so-called needs of the economy. This government is literally taking democratic rights away, the police in this country kill citizens more than any other wealthy country except the U.S. – four times the rate of the Netherlands, which sits fourth – and people wonder why I don’t want to talk about which section of the plane Jason Kenney sits in.

If you’re hoping for the NDP to out Kenney Kenney, and appeal to the same voters who chose the Wildrose because Alison Redford wanted to build a palace in the sky, you’re simply wishing they play a game rigged against them. And if the NDP chooses to play instead of addressing actual issues, they’re admitting they’d rather win in 2023 than offer a necessary opposition, and it’s not even going to work.

I don’t condone padded travel expenses and I don’t expect you to either. But politics is a stupid sport that ignores the needs of the fans and I am no longer interested in attending the game. We need an opposition to offer real solutions to real problems, and we need it to arrive yesterday.

Anything less is a guaranteed loss for everyone.

Scott Schmidt is the layout editor at the Medicine Hat News. Contact him by email at sschmidt@medicinehatnews.com, or follow him on Twitter at @shmitzysays

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