Ed Stelmach is refusing to take action against current-Energy Minister Mel Knight and former-Energy Minister Greg Melchin after the Department of Energy was singled out by Auditor General Fred Dunn for failing to collect BILLIONS of dollars in resource revenues owed to Albertans over the past 15 years.
After noting that he recieved the 'run-around' from officials within the Ministry of Energy, Dunn slammed the Stelmach Tories management of Alberta's resource royalties:
The principals of transparency and accountability, I believe, were not followed. I'm not impressed."Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft is calling for Stelmach to fire Mel Knight and Greg Melchin.
"The department should demonstrate its stewardship of Alberta's royalty regime and provide analysis to support that stewardship and this was not done."
"The department's monitoring and technical review findings were communicated to decision-makers. The question is: Did they hear or were they listening? At the end of the day, I don't know, but they chose not to act."
"The public record clearly shows Albertans have been lied to," Taft said. "The auditor general tells the truth about the government's record of handling Albertans' resources; government ministers, on the other hand, have been misleading the legislature and the public."Stelmach responded by saying that he's "not interested in a witch hunt."
It's clear that Stelmach is protecting his long-time Tory friends. Mel Knight supported Ed Stelmach's campaign during the 2006 Alberta PC Leadership Selection and Stelmach, Knight, and Greg Melchin were all full-members of Ralph Klein's cabinet at the same time that the Tories failed to collect the BILLIONS of dollars in resource royalties owed to Albertans.
With the damning results of the Auditor General's report coupled with Knight's defence of the AEUB's using public funds to hire private investagators to spy on ordinary Albertans, one really has to wonder, what does it take to get fired in Ed Stelmach's Tory Government?
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5 comments:
It is called Ministerial Responsibility and it is a long held principle of parliamentary democracy that the Minister of a department is held accountable for what occurs in his department. The Minister is responsible. Knight and Melchin are responsible. Period.
But Stelmach will not act.
What we have here is an example of old-style politics. Stelmach is being a politician rather than a leader. He is 'dancing with the one who brung him' if you will.
Progressive Conservative's rejected Jim Dinning in favor of Ed Stelmach because they believed that Ed Stelmach did not stand for the same old-style politics that Dinning represented. How wrong Ed Stelmach is proving them.
ED STELMACH IS NOT A LEADER!
Well "not a leader" someone agrees with you:
Check out this post on Getting Up Local:
http://communities.canada.com/edmontonjournal/blogs/gettinguplocal/archive/2007/10/03/ed-says-don-t-worry.aspx
Well, Melchin supported Dinning in the leadership race. So it would have been very easy for Stelmach to fire him, using your logic.
So Stelmach fails to hear the wisdom of the sainted Kevin Taft. Oh dear.
Or the wisdom of Ministerial responsibility. Stelmach shouldn't be afraid to act, his 8 months of inaction is what's killed him as Premier. Stelmach had so much potential but became a lame-duck instead.
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