You don’t often see Alberta cabinet ministers in a tizzy—but there they were, in a hallway of the Alberta Legislature the afternoon of February 25, looking like deer in the headlights as they faced a media horde. One of their own, infrastructure minister Peter Guthrie, had just stunned everyone with news he was quitting cabinet on a matter of principle over allegations of corruption in how the government handled procurement contracts for healthcare. Not only that, he took shots at premier Danielle Smith for not taking the allegations seriously enough.
To top it all off, Guthrie used to be the staunchest of Smith loyalists, and was in fact the first UCP MLA to publicly endorse her in the party’s 2022 leadership race.
“Something doesn’t sit right with me,” Guthrie told the Calgary Herald after leaving cabinet. “It doesn’t pass the smell test, plain and simple. We should have core values, and being against corruption should be one of those, right?”
Without getting into the complicated details of what the Alberta NDP quickly dubbed the “CorruptCare” scandal—and putting aside the UCP later booting Guthrie from caucus altogether—the man’s decision to leave cabinet on a matter of principle was a monumental moment in Alberta politics.
What were his cabinet colleagues thinking that afternoon…? Most tried to brush off the resignation while expressing support for the premier. But in my opinion the “best” response, in terms of bluster verging on chutzpah, came from municipal affairs minister Ric McIver. “People quit their jobs every day,” McIver said with a verbal shrug.
“People quit their jobs every day,” McIver said with a verbal shrug. But what Guthrie did was truly without precedent.
It was a laughable response. And I, standing an arm’s length away, had to stifle a guffaw. Cabinet ministers don’t quit their jobs with the same regularity as, say, high school students at McDonald’s. McIver, a political veteran, knows this. But what’s a politician to do when a well-respected member of the inner circle not only leaves but tosses a live grenade into the room on his way out?
What Guthrie did was truly without precedent.
Oh, we’ve had Alberta cabinet ministers quit over the decades. Lots have resigned their cabinet posts to run in leadership races. We’ve seen them quit over scandals. In 1983 solicitor general Graham Harle resigned from cabinet after he was caught by police in a government vehicle with a prostitute—and tried to convince Albertans he was merely conducting a one-man investigation into prostitution.
In November 2021 agriculture minister Devin Dreeshen quit cabinet after the news media reported on his heavy drinking binges in his legislature office, when staff would cry out “Shields up!” and lock the doors to prevent outsiders entering.
Sometimes ministers are sacrificed to defuse a scandal undermining the government. In January 2021 municipal affairs minister Tracy Allard resigned after a gaggle of government MLAs travelled internationally against pandemic restrictions.
But how often has an Alberta cabinet minister resigned over a matter of principle? And how often while also pointedly criticizing their premier?
There is one similar case, sort of, on the federal front. In 2013 Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber voluntarily quit the federal Conservative caucus after complaining about the “boys in short pants” in the Prime Minister’s Office interfering in his ability to represent his constituents.
But putting principle ahead of political power and perks is rare. We seem to be in a post-responsibility world. Politicians, even those who are guilty of misdeeds, too often cling to power by their fingertips, refusing to quit. And their leaders oblige.
Take the notorious example of Alberta justice minister Kaycee Madu who, after receiving a $300 ticket from a police officer for distracted driving in a school zone in March 2021, immediately phoned Edmonton’s police chief. Madu later insisted he hadn’t been trying to get the ticket quashed but, as a Black man, was trying to determine if he was the victim of racial profiling.
An independent investigator, hired by the government, determined that even though Madu did not interfere with the administration of justice, he had attempted to interfere, and there was a reasonable perception he had interfered. Those should have been reasons to permanently boot Madu from cabinet, but instead, after giving him a time-out from cabinet during the investigation, Kenney merely shuffled Madu from the justice portfolio to labour.
And after Madu endorsed Smith in the UCP leadership race, she rewarded him by naming him deputy premier.
Voters in Madu’s riding of Edmonton-South West passed judgment by voting Madu out of office in the 2023 general election. Ultimately it’s reassuring to know that if politicians won’t do the right thing and leave, voters always have the power to kick them out.
Graham Thomson is a political analyst, member of the Legislature Press Gallery and former Edmonton Journal political columnist.
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