Well, Alison Redford has finally resigned. Oh, she “stepped down” as Premier on March 23rd, but she’s still been Calgary-Elbow’s disgraced MLA for the past four and a half months.
Given that she only sat for four days as an MLA, many onlookers probably wonder what she’s been up to all this time. So, let’s look back at what she did to earn her six-figure salary over these past few months.
March 19th, 2014: Alison Redford announces her resignation as Premier “just as Progressive Conservative riding association presidents in Calgary were about to vote on whether Redford [..] should be asked to resign.” Obviously, she planned to stay on as an MLA. Did she resign because she felt remorse, or because she didn’t want to endure being forced out? Who knows! She vanishes immediately after resigning.
March 28th, 2014: Only 9 days after her announcement, it was revealed that she commissioned a luxury penthouse suite to be built on top of the Federal Building in downtown Edmonton, on the taxpayer dime. Keep it classy, Redford. Once the information became public, the project was cancelled. She has still not been seen in the legislature.
April 23rd, 2014: She lets the Speaker know that she’ll be absent. She has not shown up to the legislature since she stepped down, but only actually missed 9 sitting days due presumably to March Break shenanigans. By informing the Speaker before missing the 10th day, she ensured that her salary would not be docked. That’s Alison “don’t dock my salary” Redford.
April 28th, 2014: Redford and her daughter are spotted! In…Palm Springs, California. She drove a Chrysler 200 with Illinois plates, and stayed in a gated community in the Golden State. Terry McConnell (formerly of the Edmonton Journal) followed her around, taking photos, and performing his civic duty as a journalist. Redford was presumably not doing anything MLA related.
Alison “I <3 California” Reford
Terry McConnell
May 5th, 2014: In the Alberta Legislature, Alison Redford appears! In the late afternoon. It was probably a long flight. She may have even voted on something. MLAlison they should have called her. MLA For Calgaredford-Elison, that’s how much of an elected official she was for actually doing her job.
May 8th, 2014: The Alberta Legislature breaks for an early summer vacation. Redford’s habits must have infected all the other MLAs in a just a few days. After all, for Alison Redford, life is a vacation. She probably sat for around 22 hours total in the Spring session since she retired as Premier in March. What an inspiration to us all!
July 7th, 2014: In one of her few public appearances since March, Alison holds a “Stampede Breakfast” in a hamlet north of High River, “the Ground Zero of southern Alberta flooding.” She takes the opportunity to insist that taxes shouldn’t be raised to help rebuild areas destroyed by flooding. Presumably taxes should only be raised to pay for her flights.
July 29th, 2014: An Auditor-General report is leaked to the CBC, claiming that Redford’s office booked fake passengers on most of her plane rides so that she didn’t need to share the space with the other MLAs, who are likely icky, and have respect for the taxpayer. She got to fly in the government jet all by herself.
August 6th, 2014: Redford publishes an article in the Calgary Herald to announce her resignation as an MLA. She said that she’s spent the past few months doing “constituency work,” as the record above clearly shows. She also thanked her grandmother “for instilling in me incredible principles,” who must have been either a bank robber or Bernie Madoff. But don’t worry, she won’t take a “transition allowance.” How kind.
Tomorrow, August 7th, the aforementioned Auditor-General report comes out which will tie her to the fake passengers, and presumably dozens more egregious examples of contempt for Alberta citizens.
Redford obviously didn’t resign out of political convenience. If the above narrative proves anything, it’s that Redford does everything she does solely for the people she represents. Instead, she says that she’s finally ready to start “the next chapter of my life.”
I just hope the book ends with her behind bars.