Last night, the UCP slammed down the Notwithstanding Clause to bolster its anti-transgender legislation.

I’m not going to spend my time talking about my objections to Bill 9 and Bills 26, 27, and 29.  I’ve talked about that extensively in this space already.  This is an abuse of power on the part of the UCP, and it is profoundly harmful legislation on many different levels. 

However, I want to bring to your attention the behaviour of the UCP in pushing Bill 9 through the legislature. 

In fairness to the author of the above words, I have anonymized the image as much as possible.  There are two things I want to emphasize because they speak to the intent of the UCP government in passing this legislation:  

First, it is beyond appalling to me that a government passing legislation which arbitrarily revokes rights guaranteed under The Charter cannot even be bothered to be present in the legislature during time allocated to debate.  All but a couple of UCP MLAs left the Chamber until the vote.  At this point, this isn’t a debate, it’s theatre.  The UCP is at best going through the “procedural motions” (don’t get me started on the use of time allocation to limit debate), while it slams through some of the most serious legislation a government can execute.  

Besides scheduling the debate for late night hours when few people are likely to watch, and severely restricting the time available to debate this matter, the government chose to play games with the debate, so that their legislators wouldn’t have to hear and process the legitimate discussion of the consequences of their actions.  Albertans should be offended. 

Then, as if to add insult to injury, the government clearly gave instructions to Legislature security personnel to “make sure nothing happened in the public gallery”.  This is an act of intimidation, and one that should concern every citizen of Alberta.  The UCP has already shown itself to be shockingly thin-skinned and petty, resorting to retribution when criticized.  To engage the staff of the Legislature in being part of their political theatre and to clearly intimidate members of the public sitting in the gallery during second reading is a sign that Smith and the UCP have no respect for democracy, or the citizens of this province.