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Laurie in Debate

Motion 35

Motion 35: Be it resolved that pursuant to Standing Order 4, the Legislative Assembly convene, if called, for evening sittings beginning at 8:00 p.m. on December 3, December 4, and December 5, 2007, for consideration of Government Business.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much. On behalf of my colleagues in the Official Opposition we, in fact, support Motion 35 to institute evening sittings to allow progress on very important bills that we have before this House at this time. We would prefer that the sitting itself was extended. I can tell you that as House leader I was quite firm, in the negotiations for the temporary standing orders, that there were not to be fixed end dates because of this situation which starts to arise, that the end dates needed to be a goal but not an absolute rule and needed great flexibility around them. So we believe that it would be far better to extend the sitting for a week or two until the business could be completed.

Well, the situation that I’m now looking at next week is that there are a number of committee meetings that were scheduled to take place, and despite protests being raised, those committee meetings are still taking place. Now we have a situation where there are both evening sittings and all-party committee meetings happening at the same time, and some of them, actually, have been scheduled for early in the morning.

I had heard the Premier say that he wanted this to be a better quality of life for MLAs, and I would have to pretty strongly refute that statement, given the choices that have been made by government in proceeding with the business next week as they have. At least two members of the opposition are now scheduled into two different all-party committees, one at 8 in the morning and one across the supper hour, and of course expected to be here for duty in the House in an evening sitting. [ interjections] Well, it’s worth pointing out because I think it’s an important part of how this government is making decisions and the arrogance that is preceding that.

I’d like to talk a little bit about the effect of this motion because I think that government is not supposed to be what it has become in Alberta. We are seeing what has become of government in this motion and in the plans this government has for the next week of Legislature business. Mr. Speaker, governments and barns have at least one thing in common. They need a regular supply of fresh air, and goodness knows no animal ever suffered from some time in the sun, and no truth ever cowered from exposure to light.

When deals are made behind closed doors, when open debate gets quashed and replaced by the whisper of lobbyists; when caring and concerned citizens, just regular folks, get spied on; when reports gets ignored, shelved, shredded; when secrecy stops citizens from simply finding out what’s what – well, my colleagues in the Assembly, ladies and gentlemen, when those things and more are happening, I think we’ve got a problem. If that’s not exactly what you think government should be – top secret, confidential, for their eyes only – well, I can tell you that’s what government in Alberta has become. If you don’t think that’s wrong, terribly wrong, I can only stand before you and tell you that I do, because it is wrong.

Now, folks, I understand the loyalty that many Albertans still feel to the party that is now in power. But you need to understand that I’m not talking about the values or the beliefs once put forward by that party. I am talking about practice, not theory. I’m talking about how well they do what they were voted into power to do. I’m talking about government and governing. To govern means to conduct policy. It means to manage, to make and enforce rules and standards, and we all hope to do so fairly and openly and account-ably in the light, not in the darkness of night and not at a time when the public and the media will be sleeping. There was a time when this Legislature did its business far more openly, but under this regime and under this Premier those days are long gone.

In the 1970s the opposition of the day was able to take stands on the issues and bring public attention to them over days and weeks, and the government and the Alberta Legislature made room for that. I remember the famous Bill 11 debates of seven years ago, when the rules of the Legislature allowed weeks of debate on a highly contentious and fundamentally important bill and, through that, gave voice to the public concerns. We saw the public, and we heard the public, and the public, the people of Alberta, won the day over government scheming. [interjection]

See, even trying to talk about this in the House brings the Minister of Education to such angst that he has to heckle me, Mr. Speaker. Very interesting.

Today the government has placed such a stranglehold on this Assembly that such options are no longer available, and this motion is part of that strategy. It’s not that there’s just one contentious bill on the books. There are still 30 bills on the Order Paper, and several of them are highly controversial. Thirty bills this government is determined to ram through next week. Among them we have Bill 1, the Lobbyists Act; Bill 2, Conflicts of Interest Amendment Act, 2007; Bill 31, Mental Health Amendment Act, 2007; Bill 38, Government Organization Amendment Act, 2007, which is representing our one and only chance to debate TILMA in this Assembly, I’m told; Bill 41, Health Professions Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, also highly contentious; Bill 46, the most contentious bill this Legislature has seen in many years; Bill 48, the Health Facilities Accountability Statutes Amendment Act, 2007; bills 54 and 55, concerning interbasin water transfers; and there are many others. Some of these bills have genuinely odious provisions in them, provisions such as allowing regulations to be made that supersede legislation, Mr. Speaker, that supersede legislation. The desire of this House can be superseded. The trend there is obvious, a trend that accelerates the decline of the role of this Assembly and the decline of democracy itself in Alberta.

These bills also represent another trend, a trend to undermining local authority, a trend towards centralizing control. We see it in Bill 46 around interveners. We see it in Bill 41 around the professions. Mr. Speaker, where’s the Premier on these issues? Where is the Premier on Bill 46? The Premier remains silent. The Premier who promised openness and accountability is instead leading a government that with the aid of this motion will ram through any number of these bills.

Mr. Speaker, let’s look at Bill 46, which is about spying. It restricts the ability of citizens to intervene on the approval procedures of major developments that could practically be on their doorsteps. A bill so flawed that the government has over 20 of its own amendments. It looks like it is now scheming to arrange these things so that the opposition’s amendments, developed in close conjunction with the citizens of this province, won’t even get entertained. In fact, it looks like a striking irony is at play here. Bill 46 restricts the rights of citizens to be heard, and the strategy employed by this government to push it through makes it impossible for this Assembly’s own members to be heard. The cone of silence is descending.

We all know how government is supposed to work, and I can tell you that what we are seeing here now is not it. The point of all of this is not any one particular bill or issue, though there are many of those. What I’m talking about is how this is not the way government is supposed to work. It’s not the way government here used to work, but it is the way now, and I’m concerned because under this Premier it is getting worse. Locked-out technical briefings, phone systems disconnected, microphones shut down, frozen out of government buildings like McDougall Centre in Calgary, and now this.

The Speaker: Are you rising on a point of order, Government House Leader?

Mr. Hancock: Absolutely.

The Speaker: Okay. We’ll deal with the point of order right now, please.

Point of Order
False Allegations

Mr. Hancock: Under Standing Order 23( h), ( i), and ( j) and reserving the right to bring forward a question of privilege if it is appropriate, the allegations that the hon. member just made are without any substantiation, without any evidence at all. She’s suggesting that they’re actions taken by or under the direction of the Premier, if I heard her right, which clearly she has no basis for. Suggesting that the Premier is shutting off her microphone. I mean, this is going a little bit beyond.

The Speaker: The hon. Official Opposition House leader.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to respond to I’m not sure what citation, but in fact all of those things have happened and have been put into play by this government, of which the Premier is the leader. [interjection] Indeed it has when there have been a number of media conferences. When the government member had left the room, the telephone lines opening, allowing the media in other centres to listen in, were shut off, and when members of the Opposition tried to use those lines, they were removed and shut off. When we inquired about it, we were told that that was the choice of the Public Affairs Bureau and that they would not remain open for the Leader of the Official Opposition or our shadow ministers. Microphones as well have been turned off. The microphones that worked through the public system in the basement, which feed out into the various reporters’ offices: when the government member leaves the podium and the opposition member goes up, those microphones are shut off. So, I mean, these things have all happened.

Again, we have been given access to McDougall Centre for meetings, for media conferences, and a variety of other activities, certainly during my time here, and that is no longer allowed. All of these have happened. They’ve all happened under the auspices of the Public Affairs Bureau, which reports directly to this Premier, so I don’t think that I cast any aspersions there. What I stated has in fact happened and has certainly been my direct experience.

The Speaker: We’re on a point of order here. Are there other participants?

I don’t know where we’re going to go with this. The hon. Government House Leader raised a point of order with respect to this. The hon. Official Opposition House Leader responded. It seems to me there’s a pretty important point of clarification here. I don’t know if it’s a point of order. I have never been contacted by anyone with respect to any of these things that have been identified here this afternoon. It would seem to me that should such things be happening, hon. members might be in a position to rise on a point of contempt or even privilege, perhaps. But I have never seen or heard of anything in here, so I’m going to take this under advisement, if nothing else, for the future.

I also want to remind hon. members that what we’re discussing and debating here right now is a motion that calls for evening sittings at 8 o’clock on December 3, 4, 5. We’re a long ways away from that, but that’s what we’re debating.

Proceed, please.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I will be happy to get you the names of the officials that we have raised this issue with.

The Speaker: No, raise all of this in the House. All of this will be dealt with in the House. Any kind of contempt, privilege, or anything else affecting a member’s role must be dealt with in the House.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you for the advice.

Debate Continued

Ms Blakeman: To continue, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. What we are talking about here is a government motion to institute evening sittings throughout next week. I have said that the opposition will support this motion, but I’ve also said that the opposition believes that we should be extending the sittings. To us this is signifying a number of other choices that the government has made that we think signify something much larger than just being disorganized and needing to have additional night sittings.

Now, a number of the members over there have been saying: oh, well, if we didn’t get up and speak to anything, then this would not be a problem. They could just pass every bill without anyone speaking to it. If you go back and look, Mr. Speaker, you will find that most of the speaking times to the bills that we’ve already had up have been less than four hours, and four hours is not very much time. As a matter of fact, even for every member on the non-government side to speak for an allowed 15 minutes would take something in the range of over seven hours. Just for those members on the Non-government side that would wish to speak to a bill, express their constituents’ point of view, raise some concerns perhaps, or even support the bill, that’s how long it would take us to each speak once. So there is an issue here about where the government is shaping things to go, and this particular motion is indicative of other things.

I think that we need a better government. We need one that is more open and out in the light, one that we can trust again. We need the public to know what they know about royalties. We need the public to know all the details of the government spying on its own citizens.

Clearly, what is occurring here with this motion is to facilitate Bill 46. We hope we’re going to get extended time on that, but I have the feeling – and we’ve already seen closure brought in on second – that what this is foreshadowing, Mr. Speaker, is closure being brought in on every stage of the reading of Bill 46, which we have as yet had four hours of debate on. Not even all the members of the opposition have been able to speak to it once, and they are talking about bringing in closure on it.

We need the public to know the details of the government’s spying on its own citizens, how common it has been, and why the Premier and the Energy minister are defending it. We need to know that the government is enforcing the rules and not playing favourites, and I hope that we will be able to hear all of this during the debate that is now going to be brought in through this Motion 35. We need to know that professions can speak up and govern themselves, and we need to know what deals are being made by whom and for whom. I think we need to see changes to how government works and changes to level out the playing field.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this Motion 35. As I said, we do support it, but we do see in it shadows of many things to come, which we do not believe in and we do not support in the same way that we will support this motion.

Thank you.