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Motion for a Return 25 – Lottery Fund Grant Announcements

M25. Ms Blakeman moved that an order of the Assembly do issue for a return showing copies of all invitations sent to opposition Members of the Legislative Assembly for lottery fund grant announcements in the constituencies they represent and any photographs of these members taken at the events in question.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The history behind this particular motion for a return is that there have been lottery grant programs in Alberta, which, I will add and underline, are much valued by the NGO and voluntary sector. These have been in place for a significant period of time, not always in the exact configuration that they are today, but there have been grant programs that are disbursing lottery funds out to the NGO and voluntary sector based on criteria established by the government for some time.

For the same period of time, Mr. Speaker, the government has used the distribution of the cheques that go along with these various grants as a photo opportunity. Often we see those sort of door-sized cartoon cheques or photo op cheques that are handed out with everybody gathered around them, and the photo appears in the newspaper. We actually even got to a point in the last term where backbenchers’ names were appearing on these big photo op cheques as though the individual backbencher had written the cheque out of their own account to give to a particular not-for-profit. When the Liberal opposition brought that to the attention of the government, eventually the Premier ordered that that practice was to stop, but a few months went by, and we’re back to having the big cartoon cheques given away at the photo op again.

Recently we’ve had other examples of government MLAs that are writing in public documents that they have certain pots of money or money that is assigned to them or available to them. I’ve heard of two sets of money, one was $750,000 and the other one was more than that, several million dollars, I think, depending on what the status is that they hold in the particular caucus.

But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, that we don’t know. We get little glimpses of this, little pieces of this, but what we know in the Official Opposition is that we’re never asked to hand out the cheque to groups that are in our constituency that receive the money, and we’re not in the photo that goes out to the media. It’s pretty carefully done by government to enhance government although this is supposed to be lottery money that often the local MLA, including the members of the Official Opposition and the third-party opposition, has supported and lobbied for and even written letters in support of.

We have examples of government MLAs saying that they have pots of money that they are responsible for giving out. We’ve even brought forward examples of government MLAs showing control over the grant amounts and over the timing of the grant amounts. That example was Foothills-Rocky View and their neighbouring constituency, Banff-Cochrane. That was $1.5 million and $1.5 million, for a combined $3 million. So I guess that answers my colleague’s question.

The government, when we’ve raised these issues, likes to refute this by saying: well, look at all the money that goes to the constituency in Edmonton-Centre; that disproves everything you’ve been saying. It actually doesn’t, Mr. Speaker, because we’ve been saying that government MLAs have access to a pot of money that we don’t, and saying that Edmonton-Centre agencies are getting money doesn’t mean that I have any access to it. I’m certainly not invited to the photo op, and I don’t get to put my name on the cheque. So I thought: well, you know, let’s find out about this.

Just let me point out that Edmonton-Centre is home to the major arts facilities in the city that we all share in and enjoy, and frankly they should have that support. They are a reflection of our city and of our province. There also are major NGOs, our larger NGOs: Catholic Social Services, United Way, Big Brothers Big Sisters. Any number of large helping agencies also tend to be centred in the downtown core because that’s where people are clustered, looking for those services.

As I said, we haven’t been invited to these cheque handouts and the photo ops although the government says that somehow all things are equal, so I thought I’d ask, Mr. Speaker. I took advantage of the parliamentary process that’s available with motions for a return and put it on the Order Paper some three weeks ago.

Now, timing is everything, Mr. Speaker, because on Thursday, just a mere two business days before this particular issue was going to come up in the Assembly today, the Liberal caucus got an invitation from staff in the Minister of Culture and Community Spirit’s office 45 minutes before an event, inviting the Liberal MLAs to go to a cheque handout. I thought: well, that’s really interesting except that the minister knew or should have known that, in fact, all of the Liberal opposition MLAs were going to be at a media conference 15 minutes before this started.

I say “should have known” because with the number of resources that are available to these government MLAs and particularly the minister through the Public Affairs Bureau, surely somebody checked to see if there was going to be any conflict with the minister’s 11:45 media conference, anything around that time like, say, oh, an 11:30 a.m. media conference that was being hosted by the Liberal caucus. That media notice had gone out at 8:38 that morning, so a fair amount of notice had been given. It was certainly available for the minister and his staff, and being the excellent staff that I know them to be, I’m sure they checked, and they knew that we would all be standing in a little row in the basement of the Legislative Assembly doing our own media conference and that the likelihood that we would make it to fulfill the minister’s obligation was slim to none aside from the fact that we’d actually been issued this invitation 45 minutes before the event was to take place. So even at that, that was pretty tight timing to have a number of MLAs reschedule things and be able to make it to this.

I suppose, strictly speaking – and I’ll be really interested to see. I bet you money that that is going to end up being used as proof that the ministry is open and had always been willing to extend an invitation. But the timing of it certainly is very interesting. In my head I’m sort of classifying that as an attempt to race through the yellow light of the timing that is set by the motion for a return coming up. Unfortunately, because we had already scheduled something and there was public knowledge about our media conference, the minister got caught by the equivalent of a red-light camera.

I have moved that motion for a return. It is on the Order Paper. It is asking for copies of invitations and any photographs of our members that were taken at the events in question. I look forward to the minister’s response to Motion for a Return 25.

Thank you.

Mr. Blackett: Well, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member loves to come up with these conspiracy theories, but the fact remains that all these lottery-funded programs, community investment programs, are government of Alberta programs. Last I checked, it was a Progressive Conservative government in Alberta, not the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, that administers these programs. We believe strongly that we should have an opportunity to have those individuals, those volunteer groups, those organizations who raised a lot of money, and those sponsors have recognition for that. So we have events, we invite the media to them, those volunteers get some recognition, and they’re all very, very thankful.

In response and without a lot of preamble, the government is prepared to accept Motion for a Return 25 with amendments. I wish to propose an amendment to Motion for a Return 25 that would add a time frame to the request. Without a specific time frame this request is simply too broad. In addition, the Ministry of Culture and Community Spirit is only just over a year old. With that in mind, I propose that the motion be amended to read:

Copies of all invitations sent to opposition Members of the Legislative Assembly for lottery fund grant announcements in the constituencies they represent from the date of inception of the ministry on March 12, 2008, to March 31, 2009, and any photographs of these members taken at the events in question.

Prior to 11 a.m. today, Mr. Speaker, I did share the proposed amendment to the motion for a return with the Member for Edmonton-Centre as per parliamentary procedures. I now request that the proposed amendment to Motion for a Return 25 be circulated to all members. I see that it appears on their desks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker: On the amendment the hon. Member for Edmonton Centre.

Ms Blakeman: Indeed. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to respond to this amendment because I think there’s a concept here. I recognize that we are dealing with a minister who has not been in place for a very long period of time. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of paid staff and a great deal of experience from his colleagues in the House here that could have assisted him with this.

As I mentioned, these grant programs have been in existence for some time. They have been in other ministries at various times, but there certainly is a long history of these particular grant programs. I’ll specify the community facility enhancement program and the community initiatives program, which was formerly the community lottery boards’ money. Then when the lottery boards were disbanded, that money was rolled over into the community initiatives program, and the media at the time was quite clear in connecting those two, so I will connect them as well.

So here we have a minister who is saying: well, I’m only going to talk about this stuff from when my ministry was created and I was the minister for it. I would argue that that’s inappropriate, Mr. Speaker. We have the parliamentary precedent ahead of us that’s pretty clear, and I’ll point you towards section 428(11) of Beauchesne – let me just dig that out for you – which acknowledges under the section on written questions that, you know, there’s a long list of things which should and should not be done. It does acknowledge under the (11) section: “seek from an ex-Minister information with regard to transactions during that person’s term of office.” That is always the standing rule in this Assembly.

For example, I cannot ask the current Minister of Environment what he did in his previous ministry of Municipal Affairs. That would be inappropriate. But, certainly, it would be expected that I could ask this minister something about policy that had been developed in the Ministry of Environment four and five years ago, when he was not minister. There is an expectation of institutional memory and institutional responsibility. As a matter of fact, it’s called ministerial responsibility. Ministers are expected to know this. They are supported by the staff, that give unbiased information to them. So to somehow say, “Well, no; I can only talk to you about what has happened in this ministry when I was minister” flies in the face of some fairly weighty tomes on parliamentary process here, that clearly say that the minister is responsible for the department they’re in and for all of the department they’re in back in history, not starting the day they took over.

If the Speaker would like, I also have references from M and M that I can dig out.

The Speaker: That’s not required.

Ms Blakeman: Okay.

The Speaker: It is a point of ministerial responsibility that you go back in the department, as the hon. member has said. This is the debate now on a motion, please remember.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you so much. You are always so kind to me, Mr. Speaker.

So would I accept this motion? No. What I see in this amendment is an attempt – and I don’t know if this is true or not – to get out from answering the question that is a long-running issue in this Assembly. That is that the government members are given access to money that the rest of the members in this Assembly are not and that they are able to take advantage of that, some of them with very generous timing very close to election campaigns in ways that will advance their election likelihood, and that’s just wrong, plain old wrong.

Will I accept this amendment from the minister, attempting to amend my motion for a return, which was asking for information? Now, if he’d said, “This is too wide open; you can only go back five years” or one term or something, but to tie it specifically to when he took over that ministry I don’t think is appropriate. I think it does fly in the face of the parliamentary precedent that we have under the concept of ministerial responsibility.

So I would urge my colleagues in the Assembly to not support the amendment to curtail the time period in which the information should be handed over to me, the person requesting it. Thank you so much, Mr. Speaker.

[…]

Ms Blakeman: Well, I am interested to see what we’re going to get here, Mr. Speaker, because I think we’ve been pretty clear, and we’ve tried over a number of years to raise this issue. This just does not pass the test. I don’t think it passed the ethical test, that the government is helping itself to a funding source which it then uses to advance its own cause. I don’t think that passes an ethical test. I don’t think it passes a moral test. Certainly, the responses I’ve had from people that have read my comments in this House around this issue go: “We had no idea that was going on. This is not right.” They feel that the government is using this as a slush fund, and it’s inappropriate.

Let me be really clear here, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think anybody in this House would say that the groups don’t deserve this money. I think they do. I think it’s the manner in which the government chooses to control the amounts that the groups are getting, the timing that they’re getting it, and the way that it’s being handed out. It’s meant to aggrandize the government members, and it’s inappropriate.

I think the final test is the mom test, and I don’t think it’s passing the mom test either. I think that what is contemplated here is sneaky and underhanded. It’s meant to deceive. It’s meant to make the constituents that live in constituencies that have a nongovernment member believe that their member isn’t working hard for them. I know that’s wrong. I think it is wrong. It doesn’t pass any of those tests. The bottom line is that what the government is doing here is inappropriate.

I’m going to continue to raise this issue. Why I put this motion for a return there was to get them to step up and show us these invitations. At one point it was heckled back to me in response to one of my questions: oh, we’ve invited you guys before. Really? Let’s see it. If it’s on the level of what we got out of this minister’s office on Thursday, I think that’s going to tell us a whole bunch. If we end up with other invitations that got lost in the mail or that never got there or were delivered after the event happened, that’s going to tell us a whole bunch more about how the government is handling the distribution of these lottery-based funds through the grant programs.

Just as a final point, I think it’s disrespectful. It disrespects the number of people who chose to vote in someone who wasn’t a government member. I think that’s where it’s disrespectful, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to receiving the information about the invitations that were given to us. I will see where it goes from there.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

[Motion for a Return 25 as amended lost]