Alberta Election

Redford does about-face on 'no-meet' committee pay 54

First posted: Thursday, March 29, 2012 11:41 AM MDT | Updated: Thursday, March 29, 2012 03:53 PM MDT

After admitting her government should have acted sooner, Premier Alison Redford called on Progressive Conservative MLAs to pay back their compensation from the controversial ‘no-meet’ committee and promised to end MLA transition allowance.

She made both announcements at a campaign stop in Edmonton Thursday saying that she has wanted to close the door on the old way of conducting politics when she ran for leader of the P.C. Party last year.

“All Progressive Conservative MLAs will be expected to pay back every penny of money received from the Committee that has not met since 2008,” Redford said. “Any MLAs who do not will not have a place in my Caucus.”

“Further, the overly generous transition allowances paid to retiring MLAs are suspended from this day forward and I will not accept a transition allowance, win, lose or draw.”

Former MLAs will still be entitled to the transition allowance already accrued up until this point.

She explained that MLA Compensation has been broken for a long time, which is why she asked former Supreme Court Justice John Major to take a comprehensive look at how MLAs are paid, keeping a promise she made last year.

“At that time I made clear that we must move to a system in which elected officials are paid the way Albertans are paid.”

Redford continued to be dogged by questions about Alberta’s so-called “no meet” committee on the campaign trail, which is officially called the committee on privileges and elections, standing orders and printing, even though it was revealed in January that more than 20 MLAs were paid at least $1,000 a month despite not meeting since November 2008.

She said leadership is about making difficult decisions and sometimes admitting you were wrong.

“Growing up I was always taught that the only thing worse than making a mistake was not admitting it and fixing it,” Redford said. “I made a mistake on these issues and now I am fixing them.”

Meanwhile in red Deer, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith is accusing Tory leader Alison Redford of flip-flopping on the no-meet committe fiasco.

"It's clearly full panic mode," said Smith of Redford's recent decision on the matter, as the Wildrose leader stopped in Red Deer to campaign.

"It's remarkable that it took a drastic drop in the polls to convince Ms. Redford to do the right thing.

"It's a shame that it took us being in the middle of an election for her to get a pang of conscience, maybe that's what PC actually stands for these days."

She said Redford made the flip-flop as the Tories face tanking poll numbers and a sputtering campaign.

-With files by Renato Gandia

I've got to agree with Smith on the reason for Redfords flip-flop. Redford has always spouted "Pshaw" when it comes to poll results, yet if she isn't reacting to the polls, why the sudden change of direction?

The latest poll (SNN) has Danielle Smith @ 41 %.

http://www.electionalmanac.com/ea/alberta-election-polls/

Thanks for the link 1Peg. It was interesting to look at the change from 2008 till now. The WR has come up 30 points in the polls at the expense of the Liberals and the PC's. So far this year it has turned into a 2 party race, where in the past it has been mostly a foregone conclusion who would be elected.

This time there does not seem to be a split on idealogical grounds as both front runners are right wing parties. It is more of a split based on status quo versus change with the most likely successful alternative.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/04/02/w ... ate-checks

Not too sure how I feel about 'Dani-Dollars'. ( yogi :lol:

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I'm kind of agreeing with Redford on this until Smith can explain in detail just how she plans to do this without negative effect. As one analyst noted, "It's good politics, but bad policy".