When Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, his right hand man was Leon Trotsky. When Lenin and Trotsky had a falling out — never a good thing in the old Soviet Union — the Communists altered photos of Lenin and Trotsky together, effectively erasing Trotsky from the historical record.
You can’t really do that kind of thing these days, but you can try. The Progressive Conservatives can’t erase the record of Alison Redford, but they’re doing their best to purge the party of the Redford “era”.
On Friday, the government released hundreds of pages of documents detailing more and more shocking abuses of the public payroll by Redford, the self-deposed premier.
After the CBC broke the story of the premier’s planned penthouse suite atop the Federal Building — directed by the premier’s office, bypassing all normal channels — the government unleashed a massive data dump revealing the extent of Redford’s profligate spending. Airfare and accommodation for premier’s bloated staff, more than a million dollars in severance packages for that same staff (almost all of whom were Calgary based, showing that her support network was very limited), callous disregard for the cost of flying her to her disastrous trip to South Africa — it’s all there. Cabinet ministers are lining up to piously pronounce just how horrible she was. Infrastructure Minister Ric McIver (coincidentally, a possible leadership contender) says he called off the premier’s suite program as soon as he took over the portfolio. The greasy Jobs Minister Thomas Lukaszuk (another possible leadership challenger who, if successful, would ensure the end of the Tory dynasty) called the suite “unacceptable”, saying it “broke all the rules of protocol.”
And I guarantee you there will be more to come. I’m sure that government staffers are going through every email, every memo, and every travel bill in its scorched earth strategy. If there’s a $13 glass of orange juice on a hotel bill somewhere with Redford’s name on it, we’ll hear it.
The PC strategy is clear — destroy Alison Redford. It’s not enough that she’s gone. They want her gone gone. Her imperial premiership has dealt the party a severe — perhaps fatal — blow, and the party wants its revenge.
I didn’t recognize the party’s hatred towards Redford until she resigned. Nobody said a good word about her. There were no tears shed. When she gave her resignation speech, one lone yahoo attempted to start an “Al-i-son!” chant, and got no takers.
Redford was an interloper, an outsider despite being a cabinet minister. Her support was a kilometre wide and a centimetre deep. Redford has announced that she will stay on as MLA. I don’t think she’ll be attending too many caucus meetings, or legislative sessions.
In This Corner 
Everything that the PC party comes up with to hang around Redford’s neck, is another reason to vote for a different party come election day. Say what you like about an imperial premiership, these things don’t happen in a vacuum. McIver SAYS he ended it when he learned of it. But he was quite willing to hide it from the public till now.
The PC’s might want to reflect on their rush to discredit Alison. She knows where the bodies are buried!
Interesting to watch Tory leadership hopefuls jumping on to Kent Hehr’s Motion to support Gay-Straight alliances in schools where students want it. Most Tories rejected it and, yes, the (moderated) Wildrose Party unanimously rejected progressive this anti-bullying initiative.
Great analysis Maurice! You should think about running for office …again!
I am afraid that everyone will forgive and forget Redford and the Tory evil doings and reelect them. Where were your high paid MLAs when all this was going on. Either they didn’t know (scary) or they turned the other way (more frightening and more likely). Either way they are burning literally billions of tax dollars to keep themselves warm. Please folks lets show them that they are in fact elected and our representatives not kings and us their groundlings. Please please let’s move on.