Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang was doing no more than recognizing the reality that his political career is finished when he had a spokesperson send media a statement yesterday saying he will not be seeking re-election.
Dang, who at 20 was the youngest MLA ever elected in Alberta when he won his seat in 2015, also said he has withdrawn his request to rejoin the NDP Caucus in the Legislature.
Unlike some political leaders, Opposition Leader Rachel Notley isn’t needlessly cruel, but she’s a tough-minded politician and in light of the revelations about Dang’s effort to hack into Alberta Health’s COVID-19 vaccine passport website there was no way she could permit him to run again for the NDP.
Soon after RCMP raided Dang’s home in December 2021 and seized computer equipment, he offered his resignation to the party and has sat as an Independent in the Legislature ever since.
Notley said at the time that “our caucus has a long-standing policy that members under active police investigation will not sit in the caucus.” So it’s not like he wouldn’t have been required to leave if he hadn’t made the offer.
In hindsight, there was never much chance that Dang would be able to run again as a New Democrat.
At this point, the optics of readmitting him to caucus would have been a disaster for the NDP, exploited to the hilt by the scandal-plagued United Conservative Party (UCP), which has grabbed onto the issue like a drowning man coming upon a piece of flotsam in a stormy sea.
The UCP will probably try a few more times to remind voters of Dang’s misdeed, but the issue likely to fade pretty quickly now that he has announced his exit from politics.
Dang, who was studying computer science at the University of Alberta when he was elected, characterized his effort to use Premier Jason Kenney’s birthday and vaccination date to gain access to the Alberta Health Services database as a “security test” to highlight vulnerabilities in the system.
That may well have been Dang’s intention. RCMP and Crown Prosecutors did decide not to lay criminal charges against him, but the details of the “brute-force attack” he used to try gain entry to the system looked terrible.
Regardless of his intentions, Dang’s error in judgment was a serious one and with a trial date set for next Wednesday on charges under the Health Information Act, it was time to end the embarrassment.
He said he will remain in the Legislature as an Independent until the next election is called.
“I continue to believe that Rachel Notley and Alberta’s NDP are the government we need to create a better Alberta for all,” Dang said. “I believe my continued candidacy for the Alberta NDP distracts from the important work ahead.”
“I want to thank the constituents of Edmonton-South for putting their faith in me for the last seven years—it has been the honour of my lifetime to represent them and fight for them and all Albertans,” he added
It’s sad to see a young politician with enormous potential brought down by a stupid mistake, but this way he’s owned up to it, and can face whatever the court decides and move on with his life.
“This is too bad,” tweeted retired Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason yesterday, lamenting the foolish mistake that derailed Dang’s political future. “He has lots of other choices though, and I wish him all the best.”
AIMCo says original investment in troubled European theatre chain was $347M
The Alberta Investment Management Corp. Thursday issued a statement saying its initial investment in 2013 in a troubled European movie theatre chain was $347 million Cdn.
“It represented a small part of our overall Private Equity portfolio which has performed very well for our clients,” said the statement emailed by AIMCo Stakeholder Relations Director Dénes Németh. “Our Private Equity holdings returned 66 per cent in 2021 with a four-year annualized net return of 22 per cent. These figures include any and all impact from Vue.”
The statement, however, did not specify the size of AIMCo’s current loss on the share cancellation that was reported by the Globe and Mail on July 14. That sum may be significantly larger than the original investment, because the European company is said to have done quite well for AIMCo for several years before it sank into financial difficulties.
The Globe story said a “debt restructuring” at Vue International would wipe out the investments made by AIMCo, which manages Alberta’s public sector investments, and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, which bought into the company at the same time in 2013.
Both AIMCo and OMERS were reported in 2018 to be looking for a way out of the investment.
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