Alberta Premier Jason Kenney put his justice minister on the bench last night after a CBC story revealed one of the first things Kaycee Madu did after a traffic cop handed him a $300 distracted driving ticket for talking on his cellular phone as he motored through an Edmonton school zone was to call the city’s chief of police.
“I have spoken with Minister Madu about the March 10 incident reported in the media today,” Kenney said in a series of tweets late Monday evening. “I conveyed to him my profound disappointment in his decision to contact the Edmonton Police Chief after receiving a ticket for a traffic violation.”
“I will appoint a respected independent investigator to review the relevant facts and to determine whether there was interference in the administration of justice in this case,” the premier said.
“In the interim period, I have asked Minister Madu to step back from his ministerial duties,” Kenney tweeted. “Minister Sonya Savage will act as Minister of Justice and Solicitor General during Minister Madu’s leave of absence.” (Emphasis added.)
The removal comes one day after the scoop by CBC reporters Elise von Scheel and Janice Johnston revealed both the distracted driving ticket—a copy of which had somehow made its way into their hands—and the justice minister’s injudicious phone call about it to police chief Dale McFee.
“Minister Madu did contact me via the telephone concerned about a ticket. But just to be very, very clear, he never asked to get out of the ticket,” McFee told von Scheel and Johnston in a recent interview.
The reporters went on to wrote: “The chief said that during the call, Madu, who is Black, expressed concern about people of colour being stopped by police and, separately, political tension with the Lethbridge Police Service.”
While Madu didn’t respond to the CBC reporters’ calls for a comment, he did publish a statement Monday night that confirmed their report.
“The officer indicated that he had observed me driving while distracted, alleging that I was on my phone,” Madu’s statement read. “I disagreed, stating that I was not on my phone, as it was in an inside pocket.”
“Later I spoke to McFee,” he continued. “Due to the timing of the incident, I wanted to ensure that I was not being unlawfully surveilled following the controversy surrounding the Lethbridge Police Service.”
Madu is referring to the actions of several Lethbridge officers who illegally stalked former NDP environment minister and Lethbridge MLA Shannon Phillips, apparently because they disagreed with her department’s policy on the use of all-terrain vehicles in parks.
“I also raised concerns about profiling of racial minorities that was in the media at the time,” his statement continued.
“Chief McFee assured me that that was most definitely not the case, and I accepted him at his word. To be abundantly clear, at no point did I request that the ticket be rescinded.” However, he added, he regretted raising the issue.
Many Albertans quickly connected the dots between Madu’s phone call and the Kenney Government’s plan to eliminate traffic court, and with it, the presumption of innocence for driving offences.
“I guess this is why he is not worried about getting rid of traffic court,” former NDP Calgary MLA Brian Malkinson tweeted soon after the story broke. “He has got the police chief on speed dial.”
Other social media users pointed out sharply that the United Conservative Party leads a government that wants to create its own Alberta provincial police force, drawing the obvious conclusions.
A Mount Royal University political scientist quoted in the CBC story, Lori Williams, described the call as “entirely inappropriate.”
“I think it’s very important that the government reinforce the importance of that separation between the government and the administration of justice in the province,” she said.
Her fellow Mount Royal political scientist Duane Bratt was more blunt.
“Jean Charest resigned in 1990 as minister of sport for calling a judge about a case,” he said. “Calling a police chief about a case is very similar. Madu needs to resign, or Kenney has to fire him.”
NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir, a lawyer like Madu and Savage, quickly reached the same conclusion, noting an Attorney General engaging with senior law enforcement officials regarding a penality levied against him is “wholly unacceptable.”
“It is striking that this same minister is in the process of removing Albertans’ ability to challenge traffic tickets without producing $150 with a week’s notice,” Sabir added. “Madu used his position as minister to initiate this conversation, and regardless of whether he asked the chief to cancel the ticket, it is political interference for him to have discussed it all.”
But if Madu loses his portfolio permanently, that will create a whole new set of problems for Kenney, Bratt observed. “If Madu leaves (which he should), it creates a set of musical cabinet chairs,” he tweeted—and at a very bad moment for the UCP and the premier, both low in the polls with the pandemic continuing.
“It’s the only cabinet post that really requires professional expertise,” Bratt argued in a series of tweets. Other commenters, like former Progressive Conservative Justice Minister Jonathan Denis, noted that courts have ruled it is acceptable to appoint a non-lawyer to the portfolio.
Regardless, Bratt points out that “besides Madu, there are only 7 other UCP MLAs with a law degree.” Four are already in cabinet and the rest are inexperienced backbenchers, leaving no obvious replacement.
“The rest of the jobs are about political judgement, not necessarily expertise in the portfolio,” Bratt added.
Of course, if political judgment were the key criterion, Madu, the only government MLA in Edmonton, should probably never have been in cabinet in the first place.
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