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Commentary: No government is the arbiter of truth

CEC reminiscent of Aberhart’s 'Accurate News and Information Act'
MVT Simon Ducatel mug
Simon Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up.

Once upon a time in Alberta, a conservative government hatched a plan to protect the people from the nefarious free press that was critical of the government’s policy.

Publications that printed articles deemed inaccurate by a committee stacked conveniently with party loyalists would then be forced to run so-called clarifications.

Adding insult to injury, sources would have to be revealed upon demand. Nothing like state-sanctioned intimidation to stifle the fifth estate and discourage dissent.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is that this bit of history isn’t even about Jason Kenney’s UCP, and his costly crusade — I mean the war room — to expose alleged anti-Alberta activities.

Although one could certainly be excused for assuming that’s what I was inferring, because both are eerily similar.

Kenney might well have pulled a page from the playbook of a past premier who also held a critical free press in contemptuous disdain.

Passed in 1937 under the behest of William Aberhart’s Social Credit, the Accurate News and Information Act would have required newspapers to print “clarifications” of stories that a committee of Social Credit legislators deemed inaccurate, and to reveal their sources on demand. Apparently, that government decided it was the ultimate authority on truth.

But pulling out an ace from his sleeve and using what little power his largely ceremonial position bestowed upon him, lieutenant-governor of Alberta John C. Bowen reserved royal assent until the Supreme Court of Canada evaluated the act’s legality. The court ruled in 1938 that the egregiously blatant attempt to strong-arm the free press into force-feeding Albertans state sponsored propaganda was unconstitutional, and thankfully for democracy never became law.

The court’s decision was just as right then as it would be today. Perhaps it even sets a precedent.

But what’s most stunning is that any one of us could actually be led to believe Alberta taxpayers are somehow benefiting from the $30-plus-million-a-year boondoggle known as the war room.

We would get a far greater, and actually measurable, return on such a substantial investment by spending on just about anything else, with education, health care and infrastructure coming top of mind.

Even providing grants to entrepreneurs seeking to start small businesses or expand existing ones, or making funds available to help municipalities, homeowners and non-profit groups upgrade energy efficiencies. Any of these approaches would have had a more beneficial economic ripple effect.

Thirty-plus million dollars annually for multiple years quickly jumps up well past $120 million. No small potatoes.

Instead, what taxpayers get for such a massive tab is an agency stacked with overpaid partisan appointees pretending to be the arbiters of truth, and who have zero accountability or responsibility to prove our money is being well spent.

Unless, of course, one considers a few thousand followers on Twitter, barely 1,500 or so on Facebook, and a litany of embarrassing misadventures from the start, to be wisely spent cash.

Just ignore the fact Tom Olsen, the war room’s CEO, rakes in an annual salary of nearly $200,000 — quadruple the average working stiff's income — while the government argues nurses’ wages need to be rolled back.

Am I the only one getting nauseated by all of this?

Are Albertans really satisfied with the bang — or more like, ineffectually impotent whimper — that they’re getting for their buck on this one?

I know I’m not.

Simon Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up.


Simon Ducatel

About the Author: Simon Ducatel

Simon Ducatel joined Mountain View Publishing in 2015 after working for the Vulcan Advocate since 2007, and graduated among the top of his class from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's journalism program in 2006.
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