This is for our devoted Alberta readers. Yes, we know about you. Google tells all. It is time we discussed the cris de coeur over former Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s sense of entitlement. Is it not enough that the poor lady was turfed from her job by the jealous and the whining? Must the Wildrose hounds keep baying after her?
After all, where does someone in the job of premier in that beautiful province find a role model? Does the lady not look with envy at the Airbus A310 so readily at the beck and call of her fellow Calgary politician, Prime Minister Harper? And here is oil-rich Alberta with but four miserable little prop jobs to ferry politicians around the province. Betcha Calgary based Enbridge has more planes than the province.
It is hardly like Ontario with its fleets of fixed wing, land and float-equipped aircraft as well as rotary wing provided by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Ontario takes its role of protecting the province’s environment seriously and has the equipment to do the job. So, if a few politicians hop on board occasionally, who would notice and what auditors would care?
And the feds, hah! The Hair and his hairdresser fly where they want and when they want. And just let the military delay their departure for sunny climes? Nobody is counting the pennies on the big trip to the Holy Land earlier this year. There were a lot of Jewish votes to win and this was the Hair’s version of the Hajj! Instead of stoning the devil, he stuck his Christmas wish list in the Western Wall.
And was the Hair’s trip to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral not the straw that upset Redford’s opponents? She got a free trip from Ottawa with the Hair and his hairdresser but had to fly back commercial to look after government business in Edmonton. And commercial flights from Johannesburg to Edmonton are hardly cheap. It cost her job.
Maybe Ms. Redford’s enemies should direct their venom at the Prime Minister of Canada. After all, he is the instigator of this aircraft envy business.
What Alberta needs is someone such as Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi in the Premier’s job. The province needs someone who can make peace not war with the rest of the country. It needs someone who can tone down the rhetoric over pipelines and bitumen. It needs someone who can put Alberta’s future ahead of unrealistic bitumen profits.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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