Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[undercoverbrother]

nvermind

[aaronck]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy14

Amazing, they managed to review over a million emails in a weekend. I go away on vacation and it takes me a week to catch up on my 700 emails, and they did a million in two days.

They searched them all for the word "corrupshun"

Totally vindicated

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

I am picturing a Magic 8 Ball being used as a investigation tool

I thought they didn’t trust the experts?

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by GGG

That’s not really what you are looking for though. That allows you to look to see if you have any morons working for you. Which is what Smith is trying to do.

What you’d really want to do is look for discussion around talking to prosecutors which is now needing to look at content.

The answer to your point is in your post itself....not everything is always logical .

[Fuzz]

“I am confident in the integrity and professionalism of my staff. That’s why I am grateful for the non-partisan review completed this weekend by the Public Service Commission, which found no records of contact between the Premier’s Office and Crown prosecutors.

“I have full faith that the public service conducted a thorough and comprehensive review. I would like to thank them for the seriousness with which they took this matter as well as their commitment to working non-stop over the past number days to provide Albertans with results to put their concerns to rest.

“An independent Crown prosecution service, free from political interference, is integral to the preservation of public confidence in the justice system.

“We ask the media and public to also respect their independence as they carry out their important work.”

https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?x...360C06D447C9ED

Well then, Smith is satisfied the review was thorough, understands the importance of an independent judiciary, and woudl also like to ask the media to please ####ing drop it already.

I'd like the media to dig deeper please.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?x...360C06D447C9ED

Well then, Smith is satisfied the review was thorough, understands the importance of an independent judiciary, and woudl also like to ask the media to please ####ing drop it already.

I'd like the media to dig deeper please.

That last line in her release is....something. Also begs....more questions when you end like that. Her comms team is.....something else I tell you.

And I don't think you have to worry about more questions coming .

https://twitter.com/user/status/1617566522595246083

https://twitter.com/user/status/1617569487037038593

https://twitter.com/user/status/1617586071059181570

https://twitter.com/user/status/1617589275515813890

[Fuzz]

I would hope that is targeted at Rebel and Western Standard "media" who have been pushing this narrative that the premier should do something, as she promised. Leave it alone. But we all know the reality is she wants the CBC to #### right off already.

[timun]

Just give it some time: I guarantee one of the next deflections will be that this is coming from CBC reporters who are out to "get" the UCP government because all CBC employees are liberal woke Laurentian elite, blah blah blah, other conservative shibboleths, etc.

[curves2000]

Obviously we are playing a game of cat and mouse and I believe there is a high probability that the government attempted to interfere. Given the explosiveness of this story and how highly charged it is, would we expect the CBC and any other additional reporters to come up with a very high level of proof in a follow up investigation?

People in government make stupid decisions every single day but would the Premier's office really not think strategically about putting out a statement such as that if there actually was an electronic trail after everything?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Obviously we are playing a game of cat and mouse and I believe there is a high probability that the government attempted to interfere. Given the explosiveness of this story and how highly charged it is, would we expect the CBC and any other additional reporters to come up with a very high level of proof in a follow up investigation?

People in government make stupid decisions every single day but would the Premier's office really not think strategically about putting out a statement such as that if there actually was an electronic trail after everything?

I think the question is there a screen shot of the email in CBCs hands or is it two or three people in either the premiers office or the crown who have second hand but independent information.

Would the CBC need the email? If they had the email wouldn’t they have released the email? This leads me to believe they have multiple off the record comments in either or both offices. The problem with off the record comments is you can’t trot them out.

Would it be illegal for the CBC to post the email if they had it or would there be legal or ethical issues if they did?

[timun]

The CBC articles explicitly state that the reporters have not actually seen the emails in question. Makes me wonder what proof they do have.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by timun

The CBC articles explicitly state that the reporters have not actually seen the emails in question. Makes me wonder what proof they do have.

Editor's note: The original version of this story, published Jan. 19, neglected to note that CBC News has not seen the emails in question.

Interesting they added that note at some point.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...utts-1.6719743

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think the question is there a screen shot of the email in CBCs hands or is it two or three people in either the premiers office or the crown who have second hand but independent information.

Would the CBC need the email? If they had the email wouldn’t they have released the email? This leads me to believe they have multiple off the record comments in either or both offices. The problem with off the record comments is you can’t trot them out.

Would it be illegal for the CBC to post the email if they had it or would there be legal or ethical issues if they did?

I am a bit lazy to go back and read, but I believe that the CBC story indicated that they had not seen the emails but sources indicated that there was email contact.

Given the seriousness of the allegations, interfering in the independence of the justice system, I would expect that the media would have the legal right to release additional details if they had them. This story isn't a national security or safety risk but it isn't a story about a government MLA charging a couple of personal lunches to taxpayers either.

I don't think Smith has great credibility in this story but given the allegations and how serious they are, I would assume a higher degree of proof and evidence hopefully will come out soon.

[Fuzz]

Cynical conspiracy theory time...is it possible the premier's office is setting the CBC up for a fall, presenting these "emails", without turning them over, to generate a story(perhaps distract from the Preston Manning thing). Basically neuter the CBC and every story around this interference, while boosting your buddies at Rebel and WS? Too cynical?

[Wormius]

Wouldn’t the prosecutors have their own copies of communications?

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Cynical conspiracy theory time...is it possible the premier's office is setting the CBC up for a fall, presenting these "emails", without turning them over, to generate a story(perhaps distract from the Preston Manning thing). Basically neuter the CBC and every story around this interference, while boosting your buddies at Rebel and WS? Too cynical?

This could be defeated pretty easily though, the CBC would just have to flip the message chain where they were led down the path on and make that public. Then it becomes a story about the premier using her staff to openly deceive the public through the media.

It doesn't seem likely to me that the CBC would burn their credibility so easily without at least some evidence.

[RedHot25]

I think there is more to this story than the Premier is letting on. All circumstantial but...

a) look at her past comments on this topic. From she's done it personally to she talked to Shandro to no one did to well maybe some rogue staff did.

b) The release is super specific. All of the reporters have picked up on that.

c) They searched a million emails in what, a day and a half?

d) And on top of that, are they all naive enough to think that they only use official gov't officials, that's it, nothing beyond the official email?

Stranger things have happened, but....given the circumstantial evidence, something is not adding up in all this...

[Looch City]

The LAME-stream media is on a WITCH HUNT for Danielle. Defund the CBC!

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by aaronck

They searched them all for the word "corrupshun"

Totally vindicated

I mean, with how absolutely dog#### Outlook is at searching they could have even spelt it correctly and it would still return 0 results (or conversely, flag 80% of all Server emails as containing the keyword(s))

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Cynical conspiracy theory time...is it possible the premier's office is setting the CBC up for a fall, presenting these "emails", without turning them over, to generate a story(perhaps distract from the Preston Manning thing). Basically neuter the CBC and every story around this interference, while boosting your buddies at Rebel and WS? Too cynical?

I don't know, it's not a great look when you write that article and basically have no evidence. I'm one of the few (it seems) who is fine with funding the CBC and I actually think they do great work. But, if they have no evidence, it does call into question journalistic integrity?