| Summary: | Buffalo Lake a political blunder I skipped the legislature Monday and drove to Lac La Biche instead to take a first- hand look at a couple of things ( which I hope to write about soon). But question period was on CKUA so I listened in for a while. Hearing it on the radio caused a surge of relief— happiness about being free and out in the world. Most people around the legislature feel that way. The hallways are thick with the pleasant sensation of MLAs and observers rediscovering their humanity. A warped and vicious frame of mind sets in after about two or three weeks of any session. People start to act like overÂcrowded laboratory rats — lots of biting and clawing; strange obsessions such as Treasurer Dick Johnston's insistence on calling the NDP " Marxist- Leninists." Suspicion creeps in everywhere. Even the public gets into a bad mood. The mail recently brought a clipped newspaper advertisement for a travel outÂfit called Elzinga Adventure. The correÂspondent theorized that Economic DevelÂopment Minister Peter Elzinga had started a business with heritage fund monÂey. As it turns out, his nephew owns it, but that's a far cry from the reader's first thought. Then there's the reader who asks why people like me, when they write about Jim Dinning's and Rick Oman's private fund-raising, don't mention the " extra $ 100,000" a year going to Liberal Leader Laurence Mark L i s a c The Province Decore. This is an erroneous reference to the Liberal party's approval of a $ 60,000 annual salary for Decore before he was elected to the legislature. He never did collect, although the party did pay for a few hundred dollars' worth of refinishing for his office furniture. Why do voters harbor these nasty suspiÂcions? Maybe it's because they see things like the Buffalo Lake business, which culmiÂnated Tuesday in an announcement timed for midway through last question period of the session, possibly of this year. The Buffalo Lake project will solve some genuine water concerns in small communities like Alix. But ...
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