Mr. Hehr: Mr. Speaker, Albertans have seen how this government rewards its friends. In public disclosures under the Conflicts of Interest Act we see that members of the Conservative caucus, the former Premier in fact, create corporations so that they can take unlimited fundraising contributions that are not reported to the public.

Those same corporations then cut a cheque to the former Premier and his wife. To the Justice minister: why does the government not regard this as a potential conflict of interest?

Mr. Olson: Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t have thought I would have to explain this to this hon. member. There’s a difference between a Justice minister doing his job and an independent officer of the Legislature such as the Ethics Commissioner doing his job. The Ethics Commissioner is the one who oversees disclosures. We have 100 per cent compliance with disclosures in this Assembly, which I think everybody should be pleased with and proud of. The hon. member should just talk to the Ethics Commissioner if he has questions.

Mr. Hehr: Given that the Justice minister’s job is to amend the Conflicts of Interest Act – and the minister seems to have rejected this – to stop the practices of unlimited leadership donations, why doesn’t the minister learn from the example of True Blue Alberta, a corporation set up by Allan Farmer of the law firm Reynolds Mirth Richards & Farmer, which continued to pay taxable allowances to the former Premier and his wife years after the leadership race, and propose an overhaul to this act?

Mr. Olson: Mr. Speaker, I’m not going to get involved in internal, private corporate business. I’m also not responsible for party reporting. That is the job of the Chief Electoral Officer. Also, the work of the Ethics Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer has been beyond reproach.

Mr. Hehr: Given that this reeks to the highest heaven and True Blue’s controlling shareholder, Allan Farmer, is a partner in a law firm whose government contracts grew from $780,000 in 2006 to $1.3 million to $1.8 million to $2.4 million and to $2.6 million in 2010 at the same time that the Premier and his wife were getting taxable allowances from True Blue, in what universe does this not sound the alarm bells of potential conflict of interest? Why doesn’t he amend the act right now so that this doesn’t continue?

Mr. Olson: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of things to say about that. First of all, you only get legal work with the government of Alberta if you have one thing, and that’s expertise and profession-nal competence. There is no such thing as political competence.

The second thing I want to say is that this member and his colleagues are really proving my point. They’re rattling off this information. Where did they get it? It’s publicly disclosed.

Alberta Hansard, December 5, 2011

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