Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Alberta politician not "a complete and utter asshole" after all

Walt is still in the Great White North -- "white" as in "white-hot" -- studying Canadian politics, amongst other things. Today's topic is federal-provincial relations, specifically relations between the federal government of "Call me Steve" Harpoon and the government of the province of Alberta.

Readers in Alberta and elsewhere will rejoice to know that there is a "positive working relationship between the Alberta and federal governments". So says the Hon. Jason "Jason" Kenney, federal Minister of Immigration, through Alexis Pavlich, one of the minister's fart-catchers.

Mr. Pavlich had rather a large whiffer to smother this week, owing to the revelation by the Edmonton Journal that his boss has sent a rather embarrassing e-mail to his colleagues in the federal Conservative Party's Alberta caucus. One Alberta MP, Blaine Calkins, had circulated an invitation to meet with Alberta's Deputy Premier, Thomas Lukaszuk, when Ukie Tom came to Ottawa for a little recreation and politicking.

Apparently it was the Hon. Mr. Kenney's feeling that... well, here's what he said. "I say a definite 'no' to Lukaszyk [sic]. I don't t hink it makes sense to create a precedent to do a special caucus meeting for every visiting minister from the provincial government. Plus he is a complete and utter asshole."

That was last week. This week (according to Alexis) Mr. Kenney has apologized (privately) to Mr. Lukaszuk, withdraws any suggestion of completeness and agrees that Mr. Lukaszuk (or at least his name) is unutterable. He also promised to spell Mr. Lukaszuk's name correctly in future.

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