It doesn’t seem like that long ago United Conservative Party (UCP) cabinet ministers, MLAs and political aides were getting in to all kinds of hot water for their holiday travel.
Who can forget Tracy Allard, booted from her job as municipal affairs minister for her mid-pandemic Hawaiian holiday? Or the controversies in 2021 stirred up by vacation jet-setters Tanya Fir (Vegas), Jeremy Nixon (Hawaii), Pat Rehn (Mexico), Jason Stephan (Arizona), and Tany Yao (Mexico)?
Well, that was then and this is now. Different premier, too.
These days, of course, COVID-19 may still be around, but if anyone’s paying attention it’s not evident, and UCP MLAs are travelling all over the place.
One thing has changed, though – we the people, as they say south of the 49th Parallel, are picking up the tab for these junkets.
According to a news release Friday, Justice Minister Mickey Amery and Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish were scheduled to jet off on Saturday to the United Arab Emirates for a week “promoting Alberta as an AI hub.”
Well that sounds important, although just what any of the goings on in the dusty desert city of Dubai, home to the world’s tallest building, have to do with the administration of justice in Alberta remains an interesting question.
The answer proffered by Amery in the press release was not particularly convincing: “This mission will provide us with an excellent opportunity to gain insights about advancements in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure, and to explore how these innovations might be applied to our own work in the Alberta justice system.”
Hmmm. Facial recognition software, anyone? The UCP’s pro-convoy base should just love that!
The week-long junket will see Glubish address the Global AI Show on Friday the 13th, according to the presser, although the details of the engagement were left a little fuzzy by the author of the statement. Amery and Glubish will be accompanied by four staffers.
The UCP must have been impressed with the quality of the accommodations in Dubai a year ago during the COP28 United Nations climate change conference. According to the CBC on Friday, yet another Alberta delegation will be heading to Dubai early in the New Year to “attract skilled workers who live temporarily in the UAE.”
That sounds strange for a government that can’t stop assailing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for Ottawa’s immigration policies. It’s almost as if one day we’re closed and the next day we’re wide open. Depends on who’s doing the asking, I guess.
Meanwhile, according to another release on Friday, a couple more “Alberta MLAs will participate in year-end tours that will play an important role in cementing ties they have been building with partners in the U.S. this past year, while setting the stage for even greater cooperation heading into 2025.”
Cypress-Medicine Hat UCP MLA Justin Wright will be off to Colorado Springs, Colo., tomorrow, to take part in the Council of State Governments Western Legislative Academy in Colorado Springs, “for training and consensus building.”
The five-day event, according to the news release, is a “premier multi-day legislative leadership training program.” But not in the Canadian sense of that word, obviously.
The Big Brains of the UCP may have missed it that we have a different system of government, even here in Wild Rose Country, although perhaps for not much longer if the next president of the United States gets his way.
Why the United States would accept Canada as a huge state – the biggest state! bigger than Texas, even! where almost everyone outside Alberta and Saskatchewan would vote for the Democratic Party presidential candidate – is not clear when Washington pulls the strings of our federal government anyway. But no one ever said Donald Trump was a deep thinker.
But I digress. That Westminster Parliamentary system thing is probably why Alberta is only an associate member of the CSG.
Meanwhile, the release continued, Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt will fly to Austin, Texas, from December 12 to 14 to attend the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Leaders’ Symposium.
The December 12-14 trip should be a useful learning opportunity for Pitt, who not so long ago publicly mused about how Alberta should become a fully autonomous province like South Tyrol, the German-speaking Italian province that didn’t get rolled into the German Reich along with next-door Austria in 1938 because the leaders of Germany and Italy at the time were somewhat simpatico, ideologically speaking.
While she’s in the Texas capital, Pitt might ask what happened in 1861 when several U.S. states entertained similar ideas about autonomy.
That said, I’m sure Pitt will be welcomed warmly – Texans and Canadians seem quite simpatico too, possibly because they both live in places that were once countries independent of the United States.
She will be surprised to learn, though, that Austin is more liberal than Edmonton. This may explain its branding: “Keep Austin Weird.”
Meanwhile, don’t try to ask Premier Danielle Smith about this. Along with four flunkies from her office, she’s already at the Western Governors’ Association’s winter meeting in Las Vegas.
With the holiday season almost upon us, it’s starting to feel as if the UCP is running a travel agency, not a government!
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