By Sheldon Spackman

For The Good Of All

Penhold council asks premier, opposition to work together on pandemic response

Dec 18, 2020 | 9:35 AM

Penhold town council wants Alberta’s political leaders to put their partisan differences aside and work together to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Monday, council directed Town administration to forward letters to UCP Premier Jason Kenney and NDP Opposition leader Rachel Notley for them to work together in creating a nonpartisan COVID-19 response committee.

The idea came from Mayor Mike Yargeau, who says council is imploring both parties to come together as a united group.

“It’s something I’ve been pondering for a long time,” Yargeau says. “You can see it in your everyday interactions how politicized the COVID-19 pandemic has become. And I think a lot of the blame for that falls on the feet of our leaders.”

He says it’s disheartening to see that the two main political party leaders seem unable to put their criticisms aside for the good of Albertans.

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“There’s been a lot of good things done by the provincial government so far that get lost in the attacks, and there’s been some good ideas brought forward too from opposition MLA’s that get lost because they’re not listening to each other,” laments Yargeau. “It’s been bothering me for a long time how our leaders have been handling this. I don’t know what the outcome of sending a letter is going to be, but I hope they take the time to read it and I hope they take the time to think about what we can do better as a province to help all Albertans get through this.”

Yargeau admits he was happy to get strong support from his council colleagues in sending the letters.

“It was probably good therapy for me to write the letter, honestly,” says Yargeau. “I was frustrated one afternoon and wrote up a draft and just sent it out for them to look at and asked what their opinion was on whether this was something we should do and send out to our premier and opposition leader and they were unanimously behind it and thought it was a good idea.”

Yargeau says both political parties working together to address the COVID-19 crisis would go a long way in better serving Albertans.

“We need to take the politics out of the pandemic,” adds Yargeau. “Albertans need to see our leaders recognizing the seriousness of this and coming together to work together for all Albertans to get through it. The anger and the bitterness of people towards each other and then the false information out there because we’re allowing it to be out there, it’s getting crazy.”

Yargeau notes that British Columbia had a successful and collaborative approach to the pandemic in its early days, prior to that province’s recent election.

“They had cross-party committees working with medical experts and communicating that to the public and showing a united front and it went a long way in B.C.,” Yargeau suggests.

“To me, it’s common sense and the right thing to do. Other people might not see it the same way I do, but I would love if it helped get a conversation going about it and other municipal leaders and other provincial leaders can talk about how we can do better at this and how we can work together in times of great crisis.”