{"id":2178,"date":"2009-02-27T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T20:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2178"},"modified":"2009-02-27T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T20:04:00","slug":"this-week-in-alberta-youre-fired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2178","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Alberta &#8211; You&#8217;re Fired!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This got <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\">buried<\/span> beneath the <a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2009\/02\/this-week-in-alberta-special-deficit.html\">billion dollar <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\">boondoggle<\/span><\/a> last week, so this week&#8217;s &#8220;This Week in Alberta&#8221;, is pleased to bring you the tale of Lorne Gibson. Lorne was, up until last week, Alberta&#8217;s Chief Electoral Officer. Now, given that the last election was a bit of a gong show, it\u2019s understandable that Lorne would get a good grilling from the committee that decides his fate.<\/p>\n<p>Lorne tried to explain away the problems by pointing out that many returning officers were only appointed two weeks prior to the writ being dropped \u2013 as supposed to the <em>13 months<\/em> they had to prepare in 2004. But, you see, this suggestion implies that Ed <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\">Stelmach<\/span>\u2019s government dropped the ball, violating the first rule any impartial government appointee must live by \u2013 \u201c<em>Honour thy government and find no fault in what they do<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Making matters worse, Lorne had the gall to call \u201cfor major reforms to \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.canada.com\/calgaryherald\/news\/story.html?id=57c35cda-ca27-44a4-bf0d-21e515efa38f\">depoliticize<\/a>\u201d the province\u2019s voting system\u201d. De-politicize the voting system? Where does this guy think he is? He has also advocated for the bizarre position that election legislation should be \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.calgaryherald.com\/story_print.html?id=1303843&amp;sponsor\">democratized<\/a>\u201d, and that \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.calgaryherald.com\/story_print.html?id=1303843&amp;sponsor\">vestiges of former years<\/a>\u201d should be removed from it. Sure Lorne &#8211; keep smoking that wacky tabacky.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with this insubordination, the Tories promptly exercised their majority to punt Gibson from his post &#8211; over the <a href=\"http:\/\/daveberta.blogspot.com\/2009\/02\/opposition-mlas-grill-alison-redford-on.html\">protests of the opposition parties<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/albertagetrich.typepad.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/wellrun-elections-overrated-just-like-planning.html\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\">AGRDT<\/span> offers the complete media run-down<\/a> of the saga, including some harsh words being directed <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_4\">Stelmach&#8217;s<\/span> way by former star candidate <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.arthurkent.ca\/?p=199\">Arthur Kent<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This got buried beneath the billion dollar boondoggle last week, so this week&#8217;s &#8220;This Week in Alberta&#8221;, is pleased to bring you the tale of Lorne Gibson. Lorne was, up until last week, Alberta&#8217;s Chief Electoral Officer. Now, given that the last election was a bit of a gong show, it\u2019s understandable that Lorne would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}