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Alberta Party joins call for environment minister’s resignation

Jan 10, 2019 | 1:33 PM

The Alberta Party is joining the UCP in calling for Shannon Phillips to resign over the Bighorn Country consultations.

They say Phillips mislead the public about the RCMP’s involvement in cancelling public town halls, which calls her credibility into question.

“A process that has been more insult than consult, Minister Phillips came to the Bighorn area with a prescriptive option and tried to dress it up as public consultations,” says Alberta Party Leader Mandel.

“Being a cabinet minister, you must be prepared to face and answer tough questions. While intimidation and harassment are not acceptable, misleading the public as to the level of threat and the involvement of the RCMP affects the credibility of Ms. Phillips as a cabinet minister and she no longer has the confidence of the Alberta Party to be able to execute the duties attached to her role, and as such she must resign immediately,” Mandel added.

On Wednesday, UCP MLA Mike Ellis said Phillips should resign given the lack of trust in the region, and that another cabinet minister should take over responsibility for the Bighorn plan.

“Sadly, this Minister chose to politicize our law enforcement, mislead Albertans, and slandered countless concerned Albertans as behaving in a way that warranted exceptional RCMP intervention,” Ellis said. “Given the Minister’s diminished credibility on this file, only another Minister can restore trust on this important matter concerning many Albertans.”

Phillips said Wednesday there have been nine cases of verbal and other harassment of government officials surrounding hearings into the Bighorn County park plan.

She said two of the cases are serious, but declined to provide details.

Premier Rachel Notley is resisting the growing demands to fire Phillips.

Notley says Alberta has made significant progress on the environmental file under Phillips and the minister has her full support.