Most would agree that there’s a significant difference between $45,000 and $272 billion.
As former Alberta premier Alison Redford learned over the past few months, sometimes $45,000 is far more valuable than $272 billion.
Redford resigned from her post a couple weeks ago, not because the Province of Alberta was in debt $45,000, or because she decided to waste $45,000 on a piece of artwork erected in front of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta building in Edmonton, but because she made the conscience choice to splurge using taxpayer money on personal luxury flights and hotel rooms.
And the hits just keep coming for Redford; her final travel bill after leaving office came in at $131,000.
What is the lesson learned by all of this?
Well, how about this: Personal greed is far more destructive for a politician than incompetence.
At this point, you may be asking yourself, why the comparison to $272 billion?
Well, this is the amount of debt the Province of Ontario is currently drowning under.
Riding on Ontario’s coattails is Quebec, which has $184 billion in provincial debt, and in a very distant third is British Columbia, just under $40 billion in the hole.
Alberta’s debt sits at $7.7 billion.
There are so many politicians in the world (and Canada is no exception) who have no business holding the seat they get elected to, and that includes members of each and every Canadian political party.
But there will always be party defenders, those who believe their side of the political spectrum does everything correctly and the other side is always in the wrong. This is the apex of naivety and ignorance, and it is far too common a theme in politics.
What would Ontarians and Quebecers give to see the kind of successes Alberta has had over the past few decades? Would they turn their heads at a $45,000 personal expense just to have a little taste? If your answer was ‘no,’ then ask yourself why so many voters tolerate political incompetence at a much larger price tag?
Would Ontario or Quebec elect someone like Alberta’s former premier Ralph Klein?
When Klein became premier in 1992, this province’s debt was $1.4 billion and there was an unemployment rate of 9.5 per cent. When he left office in 2006, the province was debt-free with billions in reserves and the unemployment rate was 3.4 per cent.
Yes, the oil boom helped, but why did it not help those who followed? Despite what many believe, you still have to be a competent leader to be able to ensure Alberta’s money is not squandered – just look at the past eight years as an example.
Redford certainly wasn’t perfect…no politician is.
But, if she had simply made some kind of spending blunder, one that no one would ever have detected – because who really notices $45,000 in a multi-page budget report that includes $40.4 billion in operational expenses – we wouldn’t be sitting here now discussing her resignation…at least not at this point for this reason, because incompetence is far less distasteful than greed.
It may be highly unlikely that Ontario would ever elect anyone similar to Redford or Klein politically (and Quebec certainly would not).
Much like Albertans would be highly unlikely to vote for a liberal candidate. Best person for the job be damned, we all have a reputation to uphold here.
Kudos is certainly in order to Alberta PCs for outing one of their own, but this being politics, the move was most likely an attempt to save the party’s hide.
So, instead of bipartisanship, let’s start rewarding honesty, job performance, down-to-earth characteristics and personal flaws – yes, personal flaws, because we all have them – and stop allowing party affiliation to dictate our choices and our beliefs?
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton.
