Kenney condemns controversial award-winning essay, but not asking for resignations
CBC
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney condemned a controversial prize-winning essay that's been criticized for being sexist and racist during his provincewide radio call-in program, but also appeared to downplay the controversy it generated.
The topic was the first that host Wayne Nelson raised during Saturday's show on CHQR and CHED, and Kenney responded there was "clearly a breakdown" in how the judges assessed the essays, adding they "screwed up."
Nelson had noted in the opening of the program that while summer is often slow for news, the past few weeks bucked that trend.
Kenney, when talking about the essay controversy moments later, said the fuss could be proof that "it wasn't a big news week."
The essay urged women to forgo careers and focus on having children so the province doesn't have to bring in more foreigners, and it took third place in a government contest.
It was later pulled, along with the other two winners, from the government's website after criticism emerged on social media Monday.
"Clearly the essay was offensive, but maybe that is proof that it wasn't a big news week, Wayne, that in Alberta politics driven by Twitter, we've been talking about the third place [in] an essay contest no one's ever heard of," Kenney said when Nelson referred to the controversy as a "firestorm."
Kenney said he's waiting to hear a report on how the essays were assessed.
The contest was run through the legislative assembly office, which is headed by Speaker Nathan Cooper.
The judges of the contest, MLAs Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, the United Conservative Party's associate minister for the Status of Women, and Jackie Lovely, the department's parliamentary secretary, have issued statements.
Armstrong-Homeniuk said the essay never should have been chosen. Lovely apologized for her role in the contest.
Cooper's office, in a statement Tuesday, said the contest was conceived and administered by Armstrong-Homeniuk in her role as regional chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians group. It added that neither the Speaker's nor the legislative assembly office were involved in picking the essays "in any capacity."
There have been calls for Armstrong-Homeniuk and Lovely to resign, and Nelson asked Kenney if they should step down.
"Apparently there's a group called the Commonwealth Women's Parliamentary Association. The first time I heard of it was last week," Kenney responded.
More than 1,000 Maritime Electric customers are without power after high winds blew across the Island Friday night into Saturday.
The Supreme Court of Canada is deliberating a case that could shape the way sentences are handed down in cases where both the offender and victim are Indigenous, which some Nunavut lawyers say could have ramifications for the Inuit-majority territory.
A man barricaded in a former church in Welland, Ont., was taken into custody early Saturday, nearly 24 hours into a standoff that began over a fence dispute.
Peel police are investigating after a Friday night shooting in Mississauga left one person dead, police said.
Another busy construction season has come to an end in London, and the city is already looking ahead to next spring when a slew of new projects are expected to begin.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to lay out publicly what he sees as boundaries when dealing with China, as his government wades into a new relationship with the economic giant.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.
Tens of thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers are waking up without power on Saturday morning after high winds and rain hit the province on Friday night.
Statistics Canada is reporting a population decrease last quarter for New Brunswick — its largest quarterly decline since the 1970s, according to an economic development consultant.
Residents clapped, danced, sang and cried in the Anishinaabe community of Kitcisakik this week when the lights were finally turned on for the first time.
A man is suing three members of a Winnipeg family and a real estate broker he alleges used his intellectual disability to financially exploit him through property deals in Canada and India, leaving him out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When Stephanie Gamble watched her mother model the first dress she made, smiling wide and walking an imaginary runway, she knew that was what she wanted to keep doing in her life.
'Tis the season for cuddling on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and watching holiday movies. And for people in B.C.'s Interior, that can increasingly mean seeing their home communities on display.