Seven members of Alberta’s provincial government have been punished for taking vacations outside Canada, despite guidelines urging people to avoid non-essential travel during the pandemic.
Alberta’s premier had earlier refused to punish officials for their holiday trips, but on Monday Jason Kenney reversed the course and announced that he had fired his chief of staff and accepted the resignation of his municipal affairs minister.
Kenney has also demoted five other members of his United Conservative Party (UCP) for taking flights abroad in recent weeks.
The growing scandal has landed the UCP in further disarray as Alberta fights the highest number of active coronavirus cases in Canada.
Before the Christmas holidays, officials across the country, including in Alberta, begged residents to stay home to prevent an increase in cases.
But a number of politicians at the federal or provincial level have admitted to taking vacations outside the country, and they feared that their behavior could undermine confidence in Canada’s fight the pandemic.
Last week, Ontario’s finance minister resigned after taking a secret vacation in the Caribbean to St Barts and attempting to cover his tracks on social media.
A similar scandal erupted in Alberta when it emerged that Tracy Allard, Secretary of State for Municipalities – and a key figure in the province’s Covid-19 vaccine strategy – was embarking on a family trip to Hawaii.
Kenney chief of staff Jamie Huckabay also admitted he spent time in the UK during the holiday season. Huckabay was forced to return via the US because flights between the UK and Canada were suspended due to the Covid variant first detected in the UK.
Kenney further outraged the weekend after initially refusing to punish party members, arguing that there was “no public health order or legal barrier” banning holidays.
On Monday, however, he was forced to make a turn and accused his party members of a rogue party of ‘demonstration[ing] extremely poor judgment ”.
‘Millions of Albertans have made real sacrifices over the past ten months to help protect each other. “They are ready to be angry at people in leadership positions who are on holiday outside the country,” Kenney wrote on Facebook.
This past weekend, #ResignKenney appeared in Canada when political opponents on the left seized Kenney’s refusal to impose punishment.
“This is a complete failure of leadership,” New Democratic (NDP) leader Rachel Notley said.
Even newspapers to the right of the center condemned the prime minister.
“The moral authority and credibility that the Kenney government must exercise to persuade Albertans to obey public health recommendations is now greatly diminished by the apparent double standard followed by UCP politicians and staff,” an editorial in the Edmonton Journal said.
More generally, breaking rules can inadvertently undermine the risks of undermining a sense of collective action in fighting the virus, political scientist Lori Turnbull said.
‘Does the government actually believe their own messages? Do they think it is good to travel? Do they not think that the guidelines are worth following? she said. ‘It’s not about one person using bad judgment. This is a systematic lack of compliance with the guidelines set by the government itself. ”
At the federal level, two liberal parliamentary secretaries – Kamal Khera and Sameer Zuberi – have resigned from their roles after attending memorials to family members or visiting sick family members.
Conservative lawmaker David Sweet on Monday announced his resignation as chairman of a parliamentary committee after admitting he had traveled to the United States and “for leisure” without notifying party officials.
NDP member Niki Ashton has been stripped of her shadowy role in parliament after traveling to her sick grandmother in Greece without telling leader Jagmeet Singh.
But even traveling out of compassion could send the wrong message if residents made personal sacrifices during the pandemic, Turnbull said.
‘There are people who live close to family members and who could not be with them when they died. “Being separated was one of the most haunting, miserable parts of this pandemic,” she said. “For many, it feels like politicians are violating this rule – but we can not.”
As the federal government warns that an increase in new cases is likely to be celebrated after Christmas and New Year celebrations, Turnbull warned that there could be long-term political consequences.
‘Being an elected official is a privileged position. You hold the office, but it is not yours. The office is linked to democracy … and must be really careful, because your actions can have lasting consequences. ‘