Alberta’s opposition NDP leader says Premier Danielle Smith has “entangled herself in a web of lies” and needs to come clean on what she has been telling prosecutors pursuing COVID-19 health breaches.
“She is screaming. She is either lying now or she was lying then. Plain lying. A lot of lying going on,” Rachel Notley told reporters in Calgary on Friday.
Notley said there was also evidence of interference with the administration of justice.
“The deputy attorney general, when it comes to individual cases that are before the courts, does not collude with the premier to try and persuade him to change what happens in relation to decisions.”
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The premier of the United Conservative Party has been a staunch supporter of protesters against the COVID-19 health restrictions. Smith had promised to pardon non-criminal violators of longtime health restrictions, such as clergy who ignored gathering limits at services and people fined for not wearing masks.
However, she faced allegations of interference with justice when she announced on Thursday that while she would let the court process go on, “I regularly ask (Crown lawyers) as new cases come up: ‘Will It is in the public interest to pursue and is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction?’”
Questions remain about who Smith talked to, when he talked to them, what he talked about, and why Smith felt the need to impose himself in an independent process.
Smith’s comments match similar comments made to Rebel News on Thursday in an interview just before Christmas.
Both Smith and the Justice Department now say they had only high-level discussions with Justice Secretary Tyler Shandro and his deputy attorney general.
“At no time have I communicated with Crown prosecutors,” Smith said in a statement Friday. “My language can be imprecise in these instances.”
Smith suggested in her Friday statement that she was on a fact-finding mission to find out “what options were available with respect to outstanding COVID-related matters”.
She said the officers told her they would handle the cases in their usual independent manner and she said she respected that.
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However, in his Rebel News interview on 21 December, Smith said he used the meeting to impress upon officials that he believed the public was no longer concerned with future COVID-19 prosecutions. He said prosecutors should consider that point, as well as the fact that the cases were failing in court, when they make future decisions.
“I have put this up with prosecutors, and I have asked them to review the (COVID-19) cases with those two things in mind and I hope we will see the right turn of the page,” Smith told Rebel News told.
Smith’s Friday statement referred only to previous talks, which were confirmed by the Justice Department. But in the Rebel News interview, and speaking to reporters on Thursday, Smith indicated that consultations are active and ongoing.
“The questions I can ask and have asked and continue to ask are: is this in the public interest and is there a reasonable likelihood of punishment?” Smith told Rebel News.
Notley said the biggest question is why Smith is imposing himself on what is supposed to be an independent process.
Smith’s office declined to answer specific questions on that.
The NDP is calling for an independent investigation, citing a recent example.
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Last February, a third-party report by a retired judge concluded that then-UCP Justice Minister Kaycee Madoo tried to interfere with the administration of justice when she called Edmonton’s police chief to discuss her traffic ticket .
Madu was transferred to a different portfolio under then Prime Minister Jason Kenney. He has since been promoted to deputy premier under Smith.
It is the second time Smith has made controversial comments over promises to help people she says were unjustly victimized by COVID-19 health regulations.
In late November, Smith announced she was withdrawing from a promise to introduce a bill to make it a human rights violation to ban people based on their vaccine status.
In the same announcement, Smith said she was taking direct action instead. She said her government had contacted the Arctic Winter Games and convinced the event’s organizers to drop their vaccine mandate.
John Rodda, chairman of the Games’ committee, said he was not aware of any such calls at the time and said the committee decided to drop the vaccine mandate without any outside pressure.
Smith’s office declined to respond to a request on Friday asking for confirmation that anyone in the government had contacted the Arctic Winter Games.
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