Kenney under fire during Commons emergency debate on Alberta’s COVID-19 crisis
OTTAWA — Alberta’s legislature may have been silenced but its partisan warfare relocated Wednesday to the House of Commons as MPs held an emergency debate on the province’s soaring number of COVID-19 cases.
Edmonton New Democrat MP Heather McPherson requested the debate and used it to blast Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s handling of the health crisis, which she said has resulted in the highest infection rate in North America and left the province’s health-care system on the “verge of collapse.”
“If you want to know why it is so bad in Alberta, why other provinces have withstood the third wave better than my province, the answer is clear: It is Jason Kenney,” McPherson said in a speech launching the late-night debate.
Kenney, in McPherson’s estimation, has failed every step of the way, taking a “Donald Trump-like” approach to the pandemic.