Wildrose grill bureaucrats on Sky Palace, plane use
The Wildrose Party grilled public servants Wednesday, insisting they must have been aware of inappropriate use of government airplanes and the building of a penthouse suite for then-premier Alison Redford.
Ruled out of order once and warned not to “bully” government workers during the all-party public accounts committee, Wildrose finance critic Derek Fildebrandt, along with Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes, said bureaucrats should be held responsible for allowing $2.7 million to be spent on the controversial top-floor personal apartment built in the new federal building for Redford and her daughter. Critics dubbed it the Sky Palace.
Fildebrandt and Barnes also hammered at high-ranking officials to explain who knew and allowed Redford to use governmentowned airplanes for partisan and personal use.
A damning August 2014 report by Alberta’s auditor general talked of a culture of intimidation arising from the “aura of power” coming from Redford’s office.
“The aura of power proved to be so powerful that everyone from the cabinet level through, potentially, portions of the public service on down, looked the other way while extravagant expenses were paid, luxurious penthouse suites were constructed in secret, an entire government (aircraft) fleet, which had begun as an emergency service to fight forest fires, was abused for partisan services,” Fildebrandt told the all-party public accounts committee reviewing the auditor general report.
“Clearly, some public servants were engaging in practices that broke policies and procedures.”
Acting committee chairwoman Heather Sweet repeatedly warned Fildebrandt and Barnes to stick to questions about the report and not make assumptions about who might have been aware of what occurred.
Alberta Treasury deputy minister Ray Gilmour said he didn’t know about the former premier’s actions and orders.
Associate deputy minister for executive council Marcia Nelson — formerly deputy minister of infrastructure — said the audit was about expenses from which no conclusion should be made about Alberta’s public service.
Yet Auditor General Merwan Saher said public servants have a responsibility to call out unethical actions.
“In our opinion, no public servant should be excused from vigilant oversight of their compliance with policies and processes designed both to protect the public interest and themselves from bad judgment,” Saher told the committee.
“No person should ever allow themselves to be put in a situation where they feel ‘whatever I’m doing is not right.’ ” Barnes said he felt stonewalled. “I would have liked to have heard more answers. Again, not for a witch hunt, other than for the reason to make sure we get the most value we can for hard-earned tax dollars,” Barnes said.