{"id":5930,"date":"2014-03-19T17:17:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T21:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5930"},"modified":"2014-03-26T14:35:31","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T18:35:31","slug":"politics-as-usual-ides-of-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-ides-of-march\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Ides of March"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read with interest about the current situation in Alberta; specifically the sturm und drang surrounding Premier Redford\u2019s rather ill-advised luxurious trip to South Africa with her daughter and her daughter\u2019s friends in tow.
\nThe bill to the taxpayers for the trip was a whopping $45,000. This, when other politicians on the same trip spent a few thousand at most. Clearly, an outrageous extravagance that smacks of old time political entitlement mentality.
\nWhat I found odd, though, about the furor was that the fury was focused on the money and not on the trip itself. Let\u2019s not forget that the purpose of the trip was to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela. It was not a holiday. Many politicians seemed to lose sight of that fact during Mandela\u2019s memorial and funeral \u2013 Obama\u2019s disgraceful smiling \u201cselfie\u201d springs to mind.
\nOne does not generally drag one\u2019s children to a state funeral. It\u2019s hardly a fun for the whole family type of activity. The Premier showed a remarkable lack of judgement for her actions.
\nRegardless of why the taxpayers are outraged \u2013 or why they should be outraged \u2013 the taxpayers of Alberta are outraged. Her fellow Conservatives are outraged. Her riding association is outraged. They\u2019ve demanded she resign. And even one of her own MLAs quit the party in protest and now sits as an independent.
\nThat\u2019s a lot of people outraged. Pretty devastating stuff for a politician. Her approval rating sits at a mere 20% and falling \u2013 if the pollsters are to be believed.
\nIt\u2019s one thing to be seen as, or pass some sort of legislation that\u2019s seen as \u201cunfavourable\u201d, and another entirely to be actively disliked.
\nAnd Premier Redford is, apparently, disliked. And \u201cdisliked\u201d is the more polite way of describing it. MLA Webber, the now independent member of parliament, said that Ms. Redford was, \u201c\u2026not a nice lady.\u201d
\nWell, of course she\u2019s not. She\u2019s a politician.
\nFind me a politician that is \u201cnice\u201d and I will find you one that sits on the back bench \u2013 if she or he gets elected at all.
\nAnd I\u2019m not sure what being a \u201clady\u201d has to do with the matter.
\nUnless she\u2019s the Earl of Whatever\u2019s wife, I don\u2019t think she\u2019s Lady anything.
\nFrankly, it\u2019s a bit anachronistic to be describing women as anything but women. Being called a \u201clady\u201d or worse, not a lady, is pejorative. And it\u2019s a throwback to a time when one\u2019s class mattered more than one\u2019s achievements. The aristocracy of the past has given way to the meritocracy of the present. Let\u2019s stay here, shall we?
\nRegardless of what she\u2019s called, the knives are out for the Premier.
\nLeaked media stories about her revolving door of staff, her \u201cbullying\u201d (the new favourite buzz word. Everyone\u2019s being bullied nowadays.). Her haughtiness. Her terrorizing of the little people. And on and on. It\u2019s pretty standard stuff. Over the weekend, Premier Redford was called on the carpet by the directors of her party to answer, as the CBC reported, \u201chard hitting questions\u2026that were at times, brutal.\u201d The party is in damage control, trying to stent the bleeding caused by the scandal.
\nPremier Redford exited the meeting rather serenely, head held high. Smile on her face. She is quoted by CBC as saying she\u2019d received, \u201cLots of perspectives on how I can continue to do my job as leader of the party. That\u2019s fine. I learn every day.\u201d
\nNotice how she frames the discussion? She\u2019s happy to learn from others\u2019 perspectives on her leadership. It was a rather deft verbal smack-down.
\nShe may not be a \u201cnice lady\u201d but she sure is a tough lady.
\nOn the local scene, the new bloodsport of riding nominations is well underway. The Newmarket\/Aurora PC provincial riding has seen some rather intense political in-fighting with a number of casualties already littering the field. It\u2019s unclear if there are more to come.
\nPremier Redford has survived her Ides of March, let\u2019s see how well our local politicians \u2013 and political wannabes alike \u2013 fare with theirs. Will it be a case of \u201cEt tu Brute?\u201d or \u201cHail Caesar\u201d? Only time will tell.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is, after all, Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas I read with interest about the current situation in Alberta; specifically the sturm und drang surrounding Premier Redford\u2019s rather ill-advised luxurious trip to South Africa with her daughter and her daughter\u2019s friends in tow. The bill to the taxpayers for the trip was a whopping $45,000. This, when other politicians on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1xE","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:54:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}