It has been a roller coaster year in politics for Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie, who is the winner of this year’s Best Alberta Cabinet Minister and Most Effective Government Backbencher of 2025.
Guthrie started the year as a Minister of Infrastructure in the United Conservative Party government and is ending it as an Independent MLA affiliated with the Alberta Party who is trying to restart the Progressive Conservative Party.
Guthrie resigned from cabinet in February 2025 after he raised concerns at the cabinet table about the alleged corruption and political interference in health care procurement practices and government contracts with private surgical companies.
“I’m not going to stand by and see potential corruption exist within government and be a part of that,” Guthrie told the Globe & Mail after he resigned from cabinet. “I felt profound disappointment in their ability to be able to ignore these clear conflicts,” he said.
After two months in the backbenches, the second-term UCP MLA was kicked out of the government caucus after voting in favour of an NDP motion calling for an independent public inquiry into the dodgy contracts scandal that convinced him to resign from cabinet.
“If we have nothing to hide, we should take that path,” Guthrie said of an independent public inquiry. “I would like to see people feel free to be able to share their thoughts with the auditor general without feeling that there may be retribution for them,” he said in response to allegations the government was using external lawyers to slow down an ongoing investigation by the Auditor General.
Now in the opposition benches, Guthrie has remained a steadfast conservative critic of the UCP government’s involvement in the alleged corruption scandal.
