The Alison Redford transgressions thread. Update- Redford quits.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Slava

It's not a false dichotomy. When the newspaper shows an article every day about her in Palm Springs I can see where the priorities are. Yesterday it was her in a restaurant. Today it's her riding a bike. I can hardly wait for tomorrow's scoop of her on a golf course or beside a pool. Here's hoping we get to see both!

Who's priorities? The media's? Why do you care what the media's priorities are?
First you are upset that the opposition parties are spending so much time on the CP's and Redford's mistakes (I assume that in your utopian world, mistakes would be pointed out once and then forgotten and everyone would let bygones be bygones and then we would all move on and work together to help the government in future areas of concern) and now you are upset the media won't move on either.

Is the media somehow preventing the government from governing wisely by continuously pointing out problems?

Why do you care? You apparently aren't a CP supporter since you have stated you are a member of another party.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by Slava

It's not a false dichotomy. When the newspaper shows an article every day about her in Palm Springs I can see where the priorities are. Yesterday it was her in a restaurant. Today it's her riding a bike. I can hardly wait for tomorrow's scoop of her on a golf course or beside a pool. Here's hoping we get to see both!

Wow, I was unaware that the media holds the majority of seats in the legislature and is preventing the government from functioning.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

Wow, I was unaware that the media holds the majority of seats in the legislature and is preventing the government from functioning.

Journalism is an integral part of a free and responsible society.

As you can see with the Temporary Foreign Workers issue that has now arisen, media is often relied upon as a regulatory arm for political entities.

It is harder to pay someone to develop sources within government, much easier to pay some vacationer to snap photo's of someone on their Iphone.

This is tabloid journalism.

[darklord700]

I enjoy this paparazzi reporting of Redford.

This woman made us billions in debt with nothing to show for. The entertainment she provides will not cover the debt but is better than nothing.

I awaits her eventual return or not to the legislature session egarly.

[GP_Matt]

I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but I think the PC party is quite happy to have her off in Palm Springs. They have three options and this seems like the best.
1. She stays in town and attends meetings and generally causes a distraction
2. She skips the meetings and her absence causes a distraction but it can be separated from the PC party itself.
3. She resigns and kicks off a by-election. By-elections are always tougher for the ruling party to win, especially when it is linked to a scandal. The PC party really does not want to have a tight publicized race before or during the leadership race. They may also want to hold her seat so that someone like Jim Prentice can take it in a by-election if he is nominated to lead the PC party.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but I think the PC party is quite happy to have her off in Palm Springs. They have three options and this seems like the best.
1. She stays in town and attends meetings and generally causes a distraction
2. She skips the meetings and her absence causes a distraction but it can be separated from the PC party itself.
3. She resigns and kicks off a by-election. By-elections are always tougher for the ruling party to win, especially when it is linked to a scandal. The PC party really does not want to have a tight publicized race before or during the leadership race. They may also want to hold her seat so that someone like Jim Prentice can take it in a by-election if he is nominated to lead the PC party.

I disagree with you. What would best would be:

1. She does the job she was elected and is paid to do and keeps a low profile, thereby not causing any distraction.

Former party leaders have certainly done this in the past... why should Queen Allison be any different?

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I disagree with you. What would best would be:

1. She does the job she was elected and is paid to do and keeps a low profile, thereby not causing any distraction.

Former party leaders have certainly done this in the past... why should Queen Allison be any different?

I think you've answered your own question right there.

[GP_Matt]

I suppose Dion did a great job post leadership.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well when you do watch QP, take note of how many MLA's are away in general. It's clearly not a requirement for the job to make efforts to attend every possible time. That doesn't excuse blatant skipping out, obviously. Maybe she's just on vacation? People do tend to do that sort of thing from time to time.

You sometimes see MLA missing when a question is directed thier way. Sandra Jansen was missing from a couple of sessions after her foot in the mouth comment about Webber but she returned. What I haven't seen is an MLA miss as many sessions in a row as Redford has. In fact she has missed all of the spring sitting.

[CaptainCrunch]

I did do a little research and it does look like an MLA needs to serve 2 terms to get their full pension. Alison was elected in 2008 and has to fulfil her term in order to get the pension. That term is set to expire in about 16 months iirc.

I would expect that we'll see very little of Alison in the Legislature for the next 16 months but she will keep her seat and get her pension and walk away from politics.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I did do a little research and it does look like an MLA needs to serve 2 terms to get their full pension. Alison was elected in 2008 and has to fulfil her term in order to get the pension. That term is set to expire in about 16 months iirc.

Nice research. Even if PC kicks her out but she can still hang on as an elected MLA to get full pension.

[Rerun]

I thought that Alberta MLA's didn't get a pension? Instead they got another 13% of their salary to invest in RRSP's or spend or whatever they want to do with it.

That means your basic back bencher MLA (which I assume is what AR is now) gets paid $134,000 per year + 13% = $151,420 per year ($12,618 per month).

They will also have their RRSP contributions matched up to 3.25 per cent of salary. For the average backbencher that means if he or she puts in the maximum of $4,900, the government will match it.

[CaptainCrunch]

When I did my digging it still showed this 8 year barrier to pension, and that was as late as last year, so while I could be wrong I'm suspicious.

As it stands it still helps her to hold on as long as possible because of how the RRSP contributions work out and how the pay works.

on further digging, looks like I had older information, however as long as she holds on she still gets the contribution paid for.

So if I read this right, if she hangs on til the end of term, its worth about 17,000 in RRSP contributions per year paid by the taxpayers
.

[darklord700]

At this stage, she can resign anytime she wants so she's not in a hurry. Some analyst had pointed out that she's not set for retirement yet financially. So I think money is her biggest motivator.

For the last two decades, all she had done mostly was held on to some quasi government role and she has not exactly been practicing law for almost twenty years now. So I don't think going back to the legal society is an option for her.

In addition, she is damaged goods in the political circle so I don't think she has too many options available to her at this point.

Haging on afforded her the time and money for the next two year so I don't she's in a hurry to give that up.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

When I did my digging it still showed this 8 year barrier to pension, and that was as late as last year, so while I could be wrong I'm suspicious.

As it stands it still helps her to hold on as long as possible because of how the RRSP contributions work out and how the pay works.

on further digging, looks like I had older information, however as long as she holds on she still gets the contribution paid for.

So if I read this right, if she hangs on til the end of term, its worth about 17,000 in RRSP contributions per year paid by the taxpayers
.

Plus her $155,000 salary (assuming she max's out her RRSP contributions) which is nothing to sneeze at either.

My understanding is that even if she doesn't show up for work all she can be fined is $100 per day. I assume the per day part applies to days the legislature is sitting...

The legislature sits approx. 50 days per year, so that would mean at total of $5000 in fines over the course of a year.

... so she still gets paid $150,000 per year to holiday in Palm Springs or wherever.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Looks like Prentice is riding in to crush the Wild Rose.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by NuclearPizzaMan

Looks like Prentice is riding in to crush the Wild Rose.

Is this real? Prentice will win the premiership for sure and he would be wise to seek merger with the WR.

[crazy_eoj]

Interesting to be sure, Prentice aligns more closely with the Wild Rose than the PC's. Does he want to bring in a fiscally conservative agenda, and if so how will he bring along the current PC membership in moving their policy closer to the WR?

[LanceUppercut]

I think the PC's are going to anoint Prentice. Ken Hughes will put up a token campaign but will likely be promised behind closed doors a nice cabinet post if he keeps it clean and doesn't drag it into the mud.

[Jacks]

Really surprised Prentice would be interested. Harper will be gone within 4 years and I thought he would be a frontrunner for the federal leadership. He would be taking over a party in turmoil here, this won't change my vote unless he does some serious housecleaning.