On Thursday, November 26, on the occasion of the end of the fall sitting of the Alberta Legislature, Official Opposition Leader David Swann delivered this statement to the media:

This sitting of the Legislature was short and sour, lasting barely a month, with little time to debate issues of vital interest to Albertans.

Despite the brevity of this session, the Official Opposition served Albertans with far greater faithfulness than the Stelmach administration.  Through debate, questions and vigorous use of new media, we’re showing how the Premier and his Ministers are no longer interested in listening to Albertans.

By calling attention to the combination of the Health Minister’s devastating and ill-advised reorganization of the health care system and the failure of the vaccine rollout, we have proven that Ron Liepert must be fired from cabinet. Of course, the Premier refuses to take action.

By pointing out the flaws in Bill 50 and bringing unethical sponsorship deals to light, we’re showing how the Stelmach administration has put itself deep in the pockets of power companies at Albertans’ expense. And it’s not just power companies that are buying off the Stelmach administration – we also discovered that government-regulated organizations that receive taxpayer dollars, such as Alberta Milk and Alberta Turkey, are funding political parties, surely a serious breach of ethics and morality if not the law.

We’ve brought Albertans to the Legislature to help us hold the Stelmach administration accountable for cuts to core public programs such as health care and education. In fact, over half of the cuts this government has made are to core public services.

We pointed out that the Premier’s so-called “pay cut” would barely cover the cost of his television address, and that the Premier’s estimate of $40 million in achievement bonuses to senior officials actually wound up costing $44 million, a 16% increase over the previous year.

Our MLAs also brought a number of important issues to the Legislature that didn’t garner as much media attention as H1N1 or Bill 50: the problem of shoddy home construction, continuing environmental issues such as record-breaking sour gas levels at Mildred Lake, a possible dramatic reduction in fine arts curriculum, and more. We’ve tried to give these issues further attention with our new “Under the Radar” releases.

This session also saw the debut of our new podcasts, giving Albertans the opportunity to get to know their Official Opposition MLAs a little better and providing more in-depth commentary on important issues than you can cover in a ten second sound bite.

This session feels like a successful one on a personal level and for our caucus, but unfortunately it’s been a failure for Alberta. Despite widespread public opposition, the Stelmach administration passed Bill 50, leading to higher power prices for everyone for many years to come and stifling public debate. Health Minister Ron Liepert remains at the helm of our public health care system despite his demonstrated incompetence. And questions from all opposition MLAs were routinely dodged, deflected, dismissed, ducked, mocked and ridiculed.

The brevity of this session and the tone in Question Period and during debates shows that the Stelmach administration holds the Legislature in contempt. It’s a distraction for them, when it should be the focus of good governance. We can do better.

I’d also like to address this morning’s farcical second quarter update. The Stelmach administration has failed to provide any details of the cuts they’re making in a number of critical government departments. It’s very difficult for the public to assess whether or not these cuts are desirable or justified when the Stelmach administration can’t even accomplish minimal due diligence. What’s clear is that the vast majority of their cuts will affect core public services, but we don’t know if they’ll be cutting nurses and teachers or paperclips and paper pushers.

Our alternative cost savings plan, on the other hand, does describe exactly how an Alberta Liberal government would achieve savings of $570 million.

The quarterly update shows that the Stelmach administration has made no real progress toward reigning in wasteful spending. The deficit is still gigantic, and the Premier and his Ministers are still relying on wishful thinking and a miraculous but unlikely spike in natural gas prices to dig us out of this hole.

That’s no way to run a province.

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