Staff reporter
Disparaging remarks made during a meeting of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) in Calgary on Nov. 6 have left a bad taste in the mouth of a local resident, and he’s bound and determined to do something about it.
Attending the meeting as a representative of the Town of Rimbey council, Dave Karroll said he was sitting with a number of other delegates when provincial transportation minister Luke Ouellette allegedly made a number of offensive comments toward Rimbey citizen Joe Anglin, who has been on a crusade throughout Alberta against Bill 50.
According to Karroll, the comments were made shortly after he had discussed Bill 50 with Ted Morton, minister of sustainable resource development, regarding Morton’s demand for amendments to the controversial bill, which if implemented, would see substantial increases in the cost of electricity for both individuals and businesses. Ouellette, on the other hand, said he was in full support of the bill just prior to launching his alleged attack on Anglin.
“Right after Ouellette made those comments about Morton making amendments, he said, ‘There’s an individual, Joe Anglin, running around the province spreading lies and misinformation about this bill,” Karroll said. “He also said Anglin was a ‘dangerous individual’ and he said he wondered why ‘somebody hadn’t dealt with him’ and that was the end of the conversation. I made a few motes and I left.”
When asked to elaborate on the comments and how he personally perceived them, Karroll said he was convinced Ouellette was threatening Anglin.
“Well from the intensity of his comments during what I would call his tirade against Joe Anglin, it did not leave any doubt in my mind that he speculated on, or wondered why someone of power and influence, be it government or business interests, hadn’t done something to attempt to stop Joe Anglin and/or bring harm to him,” Karroll said. “That’s what I interpreted out of those comments. It’s not that he was proposing it but that he speculated on who might. My view and concern was that did he have fear for Joe Anglin’s life.”
Following the meeting, Karroll immediately wrote a letter to the premier, speaker of the house and Ouellette not in opposition to Bill 50, but rather in defense of the right of freedom of speech.
“The issues of freedom of speech are precious to all of us here in this country and to hear those kind of comments, they need to be dealt with and that’s why I’ve called on the premier and the speaker of the house to deal with it. It’s up to them now, it’s out of my hands,” Karroll said noting the irony of such comments, especially during the week of Remembrance Day.
“We have our young men and women giving their lives for the principles of democracy, but who’s defending democracy here at home? The government quite obviously has got some serious issues with Joe Anglin, but how far do those issues extend?” Karroll asked. “That’s one of the beauties of living in this country and in true democratic societies, that we can speak truth freely without fear of reprisal. We can’t speak falsehoods or errors and that’s why I have spoken out because I perceive this all as truth.”
Karroll was also quick to point out that his letter and comments were made as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Rimbey town council to protect the community from any possibly future political backlash.
“My only fear and concern is knowing the political ramifications of biting the hand that feeds will have the potential impact on Rimbey’s applications for grants and other such funding and that’s why I did this filing as a private citizen and am not speaking for the council of Rimbey,” Karroll said. “We’ve received more than our fair share of government grants and support and it’s been to the value for the people here in Rimbey but the reality is, sometimes situations require us to stand up an individuals, and that’s what I did.”
Anglin said he would appreciate an explanation from Ouellette regarding the alleged comments.
“Apparently this Bill 50 has been a problem and I think the problem for them is the facts of the matter. I’m willing to debate the facts with anybody. I’ve done my research and I know what’s going on here so for anyone to come out and make these kind of comments is a bit bizarre,” Anglin said. “I’d still like to know what he means by ‘dangerous’ and I’d like to know what he means by ‘deal with him’ and he needs to clarify that. Since he made that statement in a public place to a table full of people, I think I need an explanation.”
And while Anglin said he felt threatened, he certainly has no intent of backing down on his mission to inform the public of Bill 50.
“Yes I do feel threatened. It certainly was taken it that context and again, what does he mean by this? Coming from an individual citizen, it means nothing, but coming from a sitting cabinet minister, that’s significant and uncalled for and we need an explanation,” Anglin said, adding he is more than willing to debate the bill with the transportation minister. “If Ouellette wants to come out and actually challenge me in a legitimate debate, I think that would be the right thing to do rather than stand back calling each other names and throw threats around. Let’s look at the facts and let’s debate the facts in a public forum.”
After numerous calls to Ouellette’s constituency office were not returned, an aide to the minister eventually contacted the Rimbey Review for an explanation, however his comments seemed highly contradictory.
“It’s extremely unfortunate that the minister’s comments were taken so far out of context. There was absolutely no malicious intent at all in the minister’s comments,” said executive assistant Warren Chandler, who spoke on behalf of Ouellette. However, when asked if the statement was an acknowledgement that the minister did, in fact, utter the comments, Chandler quickly changed his tune.
“Oh no, there’s no acknowledgement that the comments were made as portrayed in the (Karroll) letter,” he said.