Ed Stelmach is refusing to take action against current-Energy Minister Mel Knight and former-Energy Minister Greg Melchin after the Department of Energy was singled out by Auditor General Fred Dunn for failing to collect BILLIONS of dollars in resource revenues owed to Albertans over the past 15 years.
After noting that he recieved the ‘run-around’ from officials within the Ministry of Energy, Dunn slammed the Stelmach Tories management of Alberta’s resource royalties:
The principals of transparency and accountability, I believe, were not followed. I’m not impressed.”
“The department should demonstrate its stewardship of Alberta’s royalty regime and provide analysis to support that stewardship and this was not done.”
“The department’s monitoring and technical review findings were communicated to decision-makers. The question is: Did they hear or were they listening? At the end of the day, I don’t know, but they chose not to act.”
Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft is calling for Stelmach to fire Mel Knight and Greg Melchin.
“The public record clearly shows Albertans have been lied to,” Taft said. “The auditor general tells the truth about the government’s record of handling Albertans’ resources; government ministers, on the other hand, have been misleading the legislature and the public.”
Stelmach responded by saying that he’s “not interested in a witch hunt.“
It’s clear that Stelmach is protecting his long-time Tory friends. Mel Knight supported Ed Stelmach’s campaign during the 2006 Alberta PC Leadership Selection and Stelmach, Knight, and Greg Melchin were all full-members of Ralph Klein’s cabinet at the same time that the Tories failed to collect the BILLIONS of dollars in resource royalties owed to Albertans.
With the damning results of the Auditor General’s report coupled with Knight’s defence of the AEUB‘s using public funds to hire private investagators to spy on ordinary Albertans, one really has to wonder, what does it take to get fired in Ed Stelmach’s Tory Government?
