Progressive Conservative MLA Dave Elniski - a Study in Incompetence

Alberta PC MLA Dave Elniski Betrays His Fear and His True Colors

(With appreciation to Daveberta.ca for bringing this video to my attention)

Watch this video and think about it for just a moment.

Edmonton-Calder PC MLA Dave Elniski sort of goes on a tirade about Lyle Oberg's involvement in a private hospital in Hanoi.

What is he really saying, though?

I'll help you out..  I'll translate, I speak a little "PC Party" myself.. this is a loose translation of Elniski's commentary:

"Well, firstly, we're really jealous that one Albertan, one man with a plan, can build a state of the art hospital will all of the latest technologies, including a DNA sequencer, while the whole of the Province of Alberta seems to be unable with all our wealth, to deliver a better quality of care to our citizens at home.

While the PC Party of Alberta has had a stranglehold on political control in this Province for 4 decades, holding majority governments throughout, in that time, we've been completely unable to create or even articulate a plan to encourage doctors to come to Alberta, or even retain the doctors we have.  We know that Lyle isn't the only private businessman in the world, but it's easier to pick on him and make him look like a bad guy for just having a good business idea, than to explain why we, the government, have no plan of our own.

It's called "misdirection".  It's what you do when you have no ideas, no plan - nothing beyond the "same old, same old".  You ask the citizens to go look at someone else.. in this case, someone who is a Wild Rose Supporter, but who isn't an MLA or even running as an MLA.

I mean, dang, I feel like an opposition MLA here..  because what opposition does is criticize the people in control, and, well, to be honest we're not really in control.  Everyone else is.  Lyle Oberg is in control.  The Wild Rose is in control.  Everyone but the PC Party.  We're not responsible for any problems in health care at all. 

And finally, how dare Lyle Oberg invest in a business.

How dare he take a risk, create a plan, invest his own money and hard work on a plan.. I mean.. that's such a conservative idea, and we, the governing party of Alberta, are really wearing blue suits with red underwear.

Now I think I'll go sit down beside my good comrade Brian Mason, and make plans on how we're going to spend more tax dollars to deliver less to Albertans."

As I commented on Daveberta, I could have sworn I was watching an opposition MLA from the way Elniski sort of assumes that he and his party have no power or ability to influence what is happening in his own province.

Like how doctors who choose to move from Alberta aren’t impacted at all by the “same old, same old” policies in Alberta which if not causing doctors to move to Hanoi, is causing them to move to the Mayo Clinic and elsewhere south of the border.

Like how the inability of the PC Government to articulate any policy which would induce more and better doctors to remain and in fact come to Alberta has no impact on waiting times.

And, as an aside, note the not-at-all-subtle criticism of an Albertan who has undertaken risk to succeed in business and who, by the way, is not an officer or even candidate of the Wild Rose Party.

Does Elniski actually believe that there are no other private hospitals in the world opening arms to Canadian-trained doctors? That if not for Oberg investing in opening a private hospital in Hanoi, no Albertan doctors would ever move from Alberta to a private hospital where they don’t have to struggle with an ineffective and stagnant health care bureaucracy in their own Province?

Is he really that dim?

“Conservative”?

Hardly.

Incompetent?

Completely.