[Plett25]

Originally Posted by First Lady

So you believe they should hold the government accountable, but not when it comes to other parties lying to the Legislature???

Strawman. Where did I say that?

Question period is not the only venue for holding the gov't to account. Obviously Wildrose agrees, because they theatrically walked out of QP to hold a press conference.

If they didn't think they were getting a fair hearing in the Leg, take it to the people via the media just like they did. I'd just prefer that they did it without the theatrics. The level of public discourse cannot be elevated with PR stunts like this.

Originally Posted by First Lady

Zwozdesky's final ruling came down to semantics. He said the Premier made "a" decision, but not "the" decision.

He could have stated his ruling at the beginnning of QP, clearly he had it prepared; yet he used the time to squash Wildrose questions, but not NDP or Liberal ones.

I don't think the distinction between "a" decision and "the" decision is trivial. You may call it semantics, but IMO it can be an important distinction. And it surely isn't at the level of Clintonian parsing "it depends on what your definition of "is" is"

I'm not sure what the procedures are... does he have to state his ruling in advance? Did he tell them, but they asked anyway? Were the nature of Wildrose questions different than NDP/Liberal questions?

I don't have enough information to have an opinion on the Speaker's actions. He is a rookie Speaker, so there's a reasonable chance he screwed up. He's also been in the Leg for a couple of decades, so there's a reasonable chance he acted in accordance of the rules. And if he did contravene any rules, was it an honest mistake or was it political favoritism? I just don't know.

Originally Posted by First Lady

Lastly, the Premier has been absent 80% of the time this session - Are you equally disappointed in that? In my mind stepping out of the Legislature for 15 minutes to make a point is far more acceptable than not showing up at all.

Red herring. I thought we were talking about the conflict of interest/Wildrose theatrics not attendance.

But, sure, I'm disappointed. I'd like to see real debate in the Leg. But in reality, very little of the real work of democracy/governing take place on the floor of the legislature.