We Need Shows Like Married With Children Again to Counter the Pc Movement
Male parent Raymond J. de Souza: The PC Party of Alberta is sorry — for everything
The province's Progressive Conservatives have become a spoils-of-power patronage machine of no discernible principles
The Progressive Conservative Political party of Alberta is sorry. Very sorry. Which is fitting, for they have get a sorry sight.
They notwithstanding remain a formidable forcefulness, now savouring their fifth decade in government. They may have lost their values and their manner — according to their own leader — but they have not lost their instinct for belongings power.
Final Thursday, the political party held its largest-ever "leader's dinner" here. Some 1,800 people paid $500 a plate to evidence their loyalty to the governing party. It has been a hard spring, with the resignation of Alison Redford as premier and leader. She departed unlamented and unloved. Before in the year, her staunch ally from their days equally Joe Clark's protégés, Jim Prentice, had agreed to serve equally chairman of this twelvemonth'due south dinner. He intended to turn out a great show of support for the embattled premier. In the event, battle claimed the premier earlier the dinner, and then instead information technology was a brandish of Prentice-power, a coming-out party for his leadership bid to replace Redford (withal unannounced, simply widely expected).
Indeed, later on a weekend of ruminating on the giddiness for Prentice exhibited at that dinner, former minister Ken Hughes — nonetheless some other alumnus of the Joe Clark school — departed the leadership race. He had entered it with some haste, planning his launch even as tears were not being shed over Redford'due south departure. Hughes-mania did not sweep the province, and the erstwhile cabinet government minister saw Jim'south juggernaut gathering force. So he quit and threw his support to the still-unannounced candidate.
While Prentice'south coronation is beingness prepared, the PCs are busy about the business organization of wiping the slate make clean of their recent sins. The leader's dinner involves an address from the premier, and and then Redford'southward temporary replacement, David Hancock, was pressed into service. He apologized. And apologized. And apologized over again. And insisted that he meant every word of his apologies.
Apologies are not unusual in politics, merely Hancock offers a twist. He does non apologize for Redford's excessive expenses. For the regime's sense of entitlement. For this or that policy. For this or that foul-up. He apologizes for the whole thing. For the premier, for the authorities, for the caucus, for the party — for all that they take done, and perchance even all that they will do.
"Nosotros took Albertans and your support for granted and acted in a way that'southward opposite to our values," he said at the Edmonton fundraiser, and repeated it for benefactors in Calgary. "I'm truly deplorable that we allowed government to get a distraction from the vital work we're doing on bug that affair to Alberta. I'm sorry we damaged Albertans' confidence in our party. I apologize for losing touch with our grassroots, for not listening to yous the fashion nosotros should have. This behaviour is just not acceptable."
Longtime Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid cannot recall an apology bout quite like this. He speculates that perhaps after five months of the interim premier apologizing for everything the PC party has done, in the autumn the new leader will not accept to accost their past failings anymore.
The PCs almost boast of being sinners, lest they be thought corrupt
Of grade, the PC party of Alberta has much to apologize for. Information technology has get a spoils-of-power patronage machine of no discernible principles. It is not fifty-fifty very skillful at that anymore, equally it is deep in debt. Bereft of an attractive identity aside from having been in power for forty years, it won the last election later a campaign of unremitting ugliness. Hancock should have apologized for that.
I arrived in Calgary soon subsequently being in Rome, so the thought occurred that perchance Premier Hancock has been reading Pope Francis. The pope frequently makes a stardom betwixt sinners and the corrupt. Sinners always can be forgiven and begin anew, merely the corrupt take placed themselves in greater peril for they are no longer contrite. The sinner can be welcomed equally he repents; the corrupt accept to be driven out lest they, well, corrupt the innocent.
"At that place is a big difference between behaviour and graphic symbol," Hancock says. "Behaviour can be inverse. Grapheme is a dissimilar matter."
The PCs almost avowal of being sinners, lest they be idea corrupt. Whether the party Hancock leads merely behaves badly, or is of bad graphic symbol, remains to be seen. In the concurrently, public contrition is to be welcomed. Contrition is good for the soul. The PCs hope that it is good for the polls as well.
National Post
Source: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/father-raymond-j-de-souza-the-pc-party-of-alberta-is-sorry-for-everything
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