After calling out his own party over how it was handling the investigation into allegations of corruption in multi-million-dollar health contracts, Alberta MLA Peter Guthrie has been kicked out of the United Conservative Party caucus.
“MLA Guthrie has made it clear that he does not support the government’s decision to wait for the investigations of both the auditor general and judge Raymond Wyant to conclude prior to taking further action on the issue of AHS procurement practices and the allegations made by the former AHS CEO,” a statement from the party said Wednesday afternoon.
“It is also clear that he wishes to continue to publicly voice his opposition to the government on that issue.”
Guthrie will now sit as an Independent MLA for the riding of Airdrie-Cochrane.
“Criticizing government comes at a cost,” Guthrie said to reporters inside the Alberta legislature Wednesday afternoon, after he was booted from caucus.
“I was asking for openness, transparency, honesty and instead of embracing that, the government has done everything that it can to impede processes, those very processes that could exonerate.
“In doing so, they make themselves look culpable.”
Guthrie said after six years of being in government, walking through the opposition doors into question period on Wednesday was going to be “awfully weird.”
“I’m now an Independent member, and that doesn’t change anything for me. I’m still gonna be out there calling for that same honesty and transparency,” Guthrie said.
Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland MLA and UCP government whip Shane Getson said there was a difference of options and parting ways was the clear solution.
“We have a tonne of respect for MLA Guthrie,” Getson said, adding that caucus needs to be united as a team and Guthrie was “diametrically opposed to the route that we’re going.”
“He’s fully free to do what he needs to do. He can express his concerns vocally outside. He can do that fully as an Independent member.”
The move comes almost two months after the former infrastructure minister stepped down from cabinet over the government’s handling of the scandal, becoming a UCP backbencher.
In a resignation letter to his constituents posted on social media, Guthrie said he would remain a private member of the government caucus, where he can “hold cabinet accountable with honesty and integrity.”
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Guthrie said that as minister of infrastructure, he had a “line of sight” into the provincial government’s procurement practices and “inconsistencies” and claimed he recommended improvements that could have prevented some of the issues that have developed into the scandal, and allegations of corruption now facing the UCP government.
His pushback against Premier Danielle Smith also led the caucus to suspend him from voting in caucus matters.
On Tuesday, Guthrie said as a backbencher, he remained under a UCP caucus gag order.
Earlier this week, Guthrie again criticized the handling of the scandal. He used the routine tabling of reports to say in the legislature that having lawyers involved in the auditor general’s review amounts to the “muzzling of government officials.”
The government has instructed public servants to contact a lawyer to co-ordinate if auditor general Doug Wylie requests an interview as part of his probe, as seen in an email released by the NDP (see below).
Guthrie told reporters it is “obstructionist.”
“I would like to see people feel free to be able to share their thoughts with the auditor general without feeling that (there) may be retribution for them,” he said.
Guthrie claimed on Wednesday that most of his former UCP caucus members have not read the statement of claim filed in court by former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos, the statements of defence filed by AHS and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, or Mentzelopoulos’s response to that.
Allegations from either side have yet to be tested in court.
“When this became public, there was a fiduciary duty of all these individuals to make themselves aware, and they haven’t done that,” Guthrie said.
Getson was asked about that claim and didn’t answer directly, but instead stood up for his UCP colleagues.
“Everybody is an individual. They work a little bit different and I know we’ve got a solid, really good team that is highly professional, highly motivated and highly, high morals and ethics,” Getson said.
Before he was booted, Guthrie said there were caucus conversations about his future in the party both with him in the room and outside of it.
“They required a greater than 60 per cent support in order to kick me out and they achieved that — so, here we are,” he said.
Guthrie said he agreed with the NDP earlier this week, and other critics, who have called for a full judicial public inquiry.
“If we have nothing to hide, we should take that path.”
He voted with the Opposition NDP on a non-binding motion to have the government call an inquiry.
New Democrats have said Wyant’s investigation was hamstrung by the government from the start, and that calling a full public inquiry is the only way to ensure the full story is unearthed.
Health critic Sarah Hoffman continued that push Monday with a vote in the house.
While the UCP used its majority to defeat her motion, Opposition members didn’t stand alone.
Both Guthrie and former UCP member Scott Sinclair supported calling a public inquiry.
Sinclair, who now sits as an Independent member for Lesser Slave Lake, was kicked out of UCP caucus for threatening to vote against the government’s budget.
–with files from Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
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