The Alison Redford transgressions thread. Update- Redford quits.

[killer_carlson]

1) the most interesting thing with this is how the dirty, greasy, cut insidious games and ruthless behavior is being done by PCs to PCs. It isn't the opposition. They even backed off of Redford and let the PCs finish her off and defile the political carcass.

2) Bhullar. Wow, quite the accusation for him to have been ratting out his own party's MLAs. Even more shocking s that they were cabinet members.

3) I am more upset that the govt doesn't have a standard policy for text plans when an MLA travels, than I am with Lukaszuk. Especially cabinet members who may have emergencies come up while on vaca. My questions are whether the govt has changed anything since Lukaszuk 's bill, not whether he should step down

[LanceUppercut]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...anes-1.2752728

On mobile, but there was another anonymous report about Lukaszuk flying his daughter on government planes too. Apparently Horner flew his wife around as well.

What is surprising is how they are going after Lukaszuk in all of this, do some internal polls show he is a threat to win?

[Kjesse]

I don't enjoy going after Lukaszuk but I think this has to be out in the open and talked about. I think he's now fully cooked his own political goose, but this article finally confirms what I thought all along, which was, when he released the statement talking about "urgent government business" he was either not telling the truth, or embellishing.

As it turns out, when he issued that statement he thought the court file was sealed and not accessible by anyone. He told others as much, as the link below demonstrates.

The file wasn't sealed though, it was merely under publication ban.

In other words, Lukaszuk lied about it being "urgent government business" and being "directed by the premier's office", because he thought others could never determine it was a lie. Disgusting.

The link to the story is below.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/PostS...452/story.html

I'll agree Telus looks no better in terms of the amount of the roaming bill, but we don't elect them, we can vote with our dollars once the Feds figure out true open competition in the industry.

An excerpt from the "interview":

After I got the records, I called Thomas and said, ‘I know everything that happened.’ Lukaszuk had said the documents were not only subject to a publication ban but they were sealed. I knew from my time as a court reporter that a sealed record is extraordinarily rare. I knew the law and I knew what court records were available, and what the likelihood was that they were sealed, which was virtually unheard of. I told him they weren’t sealed and that I had read them all and had copies of them all.

[Clarkey]

It's kind of funny how this backfired on "The Hair", it's very unlikely this would have come out if he had not had the greedy delusion of becoming Premier. He might even be forced off the back-bencher gravy train because of this.

[Clarkey]

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by LanceUppercut

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...anes-1.2752728

On mobile, but there was another anonymous report about Lukaszuk flying his daughter on government planes too. Apparently Horner flew his wife around as well.

What is surprising is how they are going after Lukaszuk in all of this, do some internal polls show he is a threat to win?

From conversations with PC party members and my own personal speculation, I would be shocked if Prentice doesn't have a sizeable lead going into this. Even just looking at the actions of the three campaigns, I don't think it's even close. When one candidate is holding large(ish) events on a daily basis and the other two candidates are struggling to draw any attention or the numbers that the other candidate is brining in I find hard to imagine that either Lukaszuk or McIver can topple Prenstice. I also don't think there has anything ground breaking in this campaign to really turn people off of Prentice in droves.

That's probably why I don't understand why these leaks about Lukaszuk would be appearing. Really makes no sense from the Prentice camp.

[killer_carlson]

If that Bhullar rumour about him encouraging the opposition to FOIP Lukazuk is true, these recent leaks tell me Lukaszuk is unpopular in caucus. Seems like the establishment is running him out of the party.

I'm actually a bit surprised

[Resolute 14]

I wouldn't be. The about face Lukazuk did in standing behind Redford right up until he felt it was expedient to become one of the primary people stabbing her in the back should have shown anyone in the PC caucus (and everywhere else) that Lukazuk is completely untrustworthy and will betray you if he thinks it will get him ahead.

If you want to get rid of a guy like that, now's the time. Sitting on it and keeping quiet, only for it to come out a year from now would be very bad news for the PCs. At the same time, one has to wonder at what point a we reach a critical mass of controversy that becomes unrecoverable.

[killer_carlson]

No, it was well known from Day 1 that Lukaszuk and her were not buddies. His Deputy Premier appointment was a political gesture to Dinning supporters and Edmonton supporters. His demotion came as no surprise as it was just a matter of time.

He assumed the role of caucus pitbull in question period which gives the appearance of being supportive of Redford, but there was animosity from day 1 with these two.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm not a fan of Lukazuk at all. I think he's probably going to step down sooner then later, but I'd love to see him entirely burn some bridges on the way out because it seems like this is one of the dirtier leadership campaigns that I've seen.

[Kjesse]

Captain, that's exactly what he's doing. Here's the latest article on the Herald's website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Lu...340/story.html

Basically, he's saying, audit all cabinet ministers.

I guess he knows there's lots of questionable expenses by others, and he's not wanting to be the only one to go down. Doing this shows he's throwing the towel in and going scorched earth.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

If that Bhullar rumour about him encouraging the opposition to FOIP Lukazuk is true, these recent leaks tell me Lukaszuk is unpopular in caucus. Seems like the establishment is running him out of the party.

I'm actually a bit surprised

I think he is unpopular period. Remember him trying to eat up a meeting with the Feds, and Jason Kenny saying something like "I don't want to deal with this #######..."

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

No, it was well known from Day 1 that Lukaszuk and her were not buddies. His Deputy Premier appointment was a political gesture to Dinning supporters and Edmonton supporters. His demotion came as no surprise as it was just a matter of time.

He assumed the role of caucus pitbull in question period which gives the appearance of being supportive of Redford, but there was animosity from day 1 with these two.

Not disagreeing with all that, but nonetheless, it was still Lukaszuk standing right behind her when all of this mess broke, attacking the people attacking her. He may not have liked her, but he was willing to ride her coattails as high up the party as he could, then stabbed her in the back when it became politically expedient to do so. That is not something that will ever win trust from your peers.

And, since what goes around sometimes comes around, we now have Lukaszuk implicated in Redford-esque behaviour, Horner facing questions, and the prospect of the PCs eating their own with Bhullar accused of spreading the leak.

This is all getting surprisingly ugly given how much of a cakewalk the leadership vote really should be. If anything, one would expect all of the mud to be thrown Prentice's way. Instead, it appears that he's set to take over a party led by little more than a gang of squabbling children with entitlement issues.

[MarchHare]

Maybe this is too Machiavellian, but what if Prentice's team is orchestrating all of this in-fighting to give the party an excuse to dump all the scandal-plagued MLAs from the old regime? Everyone knows the Wildrose Party is going to attack him as being nothing more than lipstick on a pig, so maybe he's trying to get ahead of it so he can truthfully claim that under his leadership it's no longer the same PC Party?

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Maybe this is too Machiavellian, but what if Prentice's team is orchestrating all of this in-fighting to give the party an excuse to dump all the scandal-plagued MLAs from the old regime? Everyone knows the Wildrose Party is going to attack him as being nothing more than lipstick on a pig, so maybe he's trying to get ahead of it so he can truthfully claim that under his leadership it's no longer the same PC Party?

Probably not far off. Shed the liabilities and frame it as a clean break and new beginning.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Maybe this is too Machiavellian, but what if Prentice's team is orchestrating all of this in-fighting to give the party an excuse to dump all the scandal-plagued MLAs from the old regime? Everyone knows the Wildrose Party is going to attack him as being nothing more than lipstick on a pig, so maybe he's trying to get ahead of it so he can truthfully claim that under his leadership it's no longer the same PC Party?

Sadly I don't see Prentice needing to do any orchestrating at all here.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Maybe this is too Machiavellian, but what if Prentice's team is orchestrating all of this in-fighting to give the party an excuse to dump all the scandal-plagued MLAs from the old regime? Everyone knows the Wildrose Party is going to attack him as being nothing more than lipstick on a pig, so maybe he's trying to get ahead of it so he can truthfully claim that under his leadership it's no longer the same PC Party?

I actually think this is exactly what Prentice is doing.

[killer_carlson]

Interesting.

Prentice has said the first 10 days after he is elected things will change (or I believe he did - I may be off on that).

I had not thought of that. Bhullar's going to the opposition though - Prentice can't be happy with that and I don't know how Bhullar gets past it.

[Jacks]

Not the same PC party ..... where have I heard that before?

Spoiler!

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Interesting.

Prentice has said the first 10 days after he is elected things will change (or I believe he did - I may be off on that).

The first 10 days after he's elected as Party Leader he's still not an MLA, so that sounds like a lot of hot air to me.