Regarding Johnnie Bachusky's column in the May 10 Province, his comments about our Premier Rachel Notley's performance and leadership throughout the Fort McMurray Fire crisis is thoughtful, balanced and bang on.
She has managed with aplomb the needs of that city, its residents, emergency responders, aid workers, government officials, and through the media, the general public's need and right to know.
While many of her government's policies and decisions have and will be up for much debate by Albertans and Canadians, Premier Notley's impressively seasoned skill at handling this major crisis has not nor should not. Even the boorish Ezra Levant and his Rebel Media haven't found anything sinister to rant about from the their soapbox…yet. That's telling.
However, your calling out of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not visiting yet and not showing his support is unfounded, off base, and dead wrong.
A prime minister does not simply walk into a raging natural disaster and emergency scene. Or at least he ought not to. The logistics of such a visit are just not simple. Organizing the security detail, staffers, reception and accompanying media take great time and effort. But more importantly, the visit can, especially if too early, detract from the very emergency efforts being acknowledged, praised and supported. We've all seen such attempts by past politicians and have been brutally critical of their hubris and their self-serving photo ops that do just that. Few get it right.
The Honourable Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the Opposition and Edmonton MP, very recently visited her home province to help and offer her support during this crisis. Her limited entourage and security detail allows her to do so relatively effortlessly, and her official presence anywhere is far less an encumbrance than the prime minister's.
Ms. Ambrose has put aside partisan politics in this crisis, supported the prime minister in the government's efforts, and has stated that she will not criticize the prime minister's timing of a visit. As a former cabinet minister she knows how things work. She's a class act and a class Albertan. She's got it right.
As you couldn't have known at press time last week, the prime minister had subsequently scheduled and has now visited Fort McMurray.
Yet I feel that if the visit were earlier, you would have still criticized that it was too late.
There are plenty of issues and decisions for us all to call out our prime minister on. But the timing of his visit and his degree of support and concern for Albertans should not be one of them.
Jim Carroll
Innisfail
