Many people were willing to give Premier Jim Prentice the benefit of the doubt, that he was the “real deal” as one local PC candidate hopeful called him, with a leadership campaign that cast Prentice as the white horse riding in to save the beleaguered PCs and the government.
To all those people, Prentice delivered a real kick in the pants when he laid the blame for the current fiscal crisis on Albertans, saying last week, “In terms of who is responsible, we all need only look in the mirror,” adding everyone needed to shoulder some of the responsibility in climbing out of the financial mess.
His comments sparked a flurry of tongue-in-cheek comments under the hashtag, #PrenticeBlamesAlbertans, with six month old babies propped up with signs saying things like, “I caused a fiscal crisis,” a tweet saying, “If you didn’t get sick, emergency rooms wouldn’t be in crisis,” and a poster dubbing him “The Wolf of 108th Street – why burden the rich when there are so many poor?”
Albertans weren’t the ones to decide to dissolve local hospital authorities and replace them with the nightmarish Alberta Health Services system. Albertans weren’t the ones who misused government aircraft or built themselves a Sky Palace. Albertans weren’t the ones who were responsible for frittering away billions on $100/barrel oil. Those were all the choices of the PC government.
But yes, we do share in the blame. After all, Albertans keep voting the PCs in, and may well do so again in a spring election that flouts the fixed election law. You get what you vote for. #PrenticeBlamesAlbertans #PrenticeIsRight
