Accountability needed over Tanner comments

By Lethbridge Herald on April 5, 2023.

OUR OPINION

Someone has some questions to answer.

There had to be knowledge within the UCP of the bizarre video that surfaced last week of former UCP candidate for Lethbridge West Torry Tanner denigrating teachers.

The words spoken by Tanner were degrading inexcusable lies which publicly smeared an entire profession in our province, especially Lethbridge. If there had been a single grain of truth to anything she said, this would have been public knowledge long ago. 

Her comments would  insinuate a gargantuan conspiracy of teachers and parents, even children to keep her claims hidden. It’s pure fantasy. Nothing that insidious  would ever stay behind closed doors.

Someone in the UCP constituency had to at least know of her opinions before she was selected as a suitable candidate to run for the party in Lethbridge West. And someone or multiple parties had to be aware of the video she made.

Whatever vetting process existed – or still exists – is painfully inadequate if a person with such ideas can be considered fit to run for office. 

Or do her viewpoints have support within the West Lethbridge constituency?

 Is Torry Tanner the type of candidate who is considered appropriate and welcome by the UCP? 

Given the letters we’ve received further propagating her unproven and perhaps defamatory comments, she does have some support here which is alarming.

Extremism has reached new lows within the UCP by the recent nomination of Tanner and anyone who supports conservative values as well as human decency is going to turn away from the party regardless of who it finds – if it can find someone – to carry the party colours in West Lethbridge in the May provincial election. 

The UCP under current leader Danielle Smith does not represent those who are – or were – proud to consider themselves conservative because this party now has gone completely and utterly rogue from what traditionalists consider conservatism to stand for. 

Any person selected to run for the UCP  has to realize their chances of winning election in Lethbridge West may be virtually non-existent now because of this stain put on the UCP fabric. 

It may be safe to consider Lethbridge West locked up for the NDP and Shannon Phillips again after this fiasco.  West Lethbridge constituency members, instead of giving the UCP a fighting chance to take Phillips seat, have given even conservatives reason to vote for her. And this matter may very well impact the battle for votes in Lethbridge East – it certainly can’t be ignored by residents in Deputy Premier Nathan Neudorf’s own riding simply because of the party he represents..

If Neudorf wants to be re-elected, his campaign team needs to get him into the public eye swiftly and regularly to have him disavow himself of any association with the radical views that exist within the UCP.

This may alienate Neudorf from his party leader, and perhaps cost his future as a minister in a UCP government but it’s the right thing to do for his constituents. 

The community is angry after Tanner’s bizarre accusations and Neudorf is certainly going to be impacted by that anger. 

Unfortunately, the Tanner situation is not an isolated matter.  Extremism has reared its ugly head in the UCP visibly and often and if the party has any hopes of remaining a credible force in Alberta politics, its membership needs to revolt against the party’s leadership. 

The recent decisions by two prominent cabinet ministers not to run for re-election speak volumes about the turmoil that exists within the province’s so-called conservative political party which is more and more looking like a Canadian version of Trump-style Republicanism, in which truth is irrelevant as long as power is retained.

It’s time for the UCP to rid itself of the extremists within and start reflecting who Albertans actually are.  And the majority of Albertans aren’t people who believe or support the nonsense espoused in the video by the now-former UCP candidate for West Lethbridge.

We are all better than that – including the UCP.  But the UCP needs to show it by professing some public regret for letting Tanner run. Our teachers and our community deserve not only a public apology from the West Lethbridge constituency and premier Smith but also an explanation for how Tanner came to be considered a suitable candidate. The statements made last week by Tanner and the party aren’t enough to undo the damage and the insult of her words, which unfortunately are believed by some who will defend her regardless of the truth. The outrage is justified and so are the demands for accountability. 

If the UCP is the new vision of conservatism in Alberta, traditional conservatives need a new party to represent them. 

The UCP does not.