Kenney condemns controversial essay, blames slow news week

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney condemned a controversial prize-winning essay that’s been criticized for being sexist and racist throughout his provincewide radio call-in program, but in addition appeared to downplay the controversy it generated.

The subject was the primary that host Wayne Nelson raised throughout Saturday’s present on CHQR and CHED, and Kenney responded there was “clearly a breakdown” in how the judges assessed the essays, including they “screwed up.”

Nelson had famous within the opening of this system that whereas summer season is usually gradual for information, the previous few weeks bucked that pattern.

Kenney, when speaking in regards to the essay controversy moments later, stated the fuss could possibly be proof that “it wasn’t a giant information week.”

The essay urged girls to forgo careers and give attention to having youngsters so the province doesn’t have to herald extra foreigners, and it took third place in a authorities contest.

It was later pulled, together with the opposite two winners, from the federal government’s web site after criticism emerged on social media Monday.

“Clearly the essay was offensive, however perhaps that’s proof that it wasn’t a giant information week, Wayne, that in Alberta politics pushed by Twitter, we’ve been speaking in regards to the third place (in) an essay contest nobody’s ever heard of,” Kenney stated when Nelson referred to the controversy as a “firestorm.”

Kenney stated he’s ready to listen to a report on how the essays had been assessed.

The competition was run by means of the legislative meeting workplace, which is headed by Speaker Nathan Cooper.

The judges of the competition, Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, the United Conservative Occasion’s affiliate minister for the Standing of Girls, and Jackie Pretty, the division’s parliamentary secretary, have issued statements. Armstrong-Homeniuk stated the essay by no means ought to have been chosen. Pretty apologized for her position within the contest.

Cooper’s workplace, in a press release Tuesday, stated the competition was conceived and administered by Armstrong-Homeniuk in her position as regional chair of the Commonwealth Girls Parliamentarians group. It added that neither the Speaker’s nor the legislative meeting workplace had been concerned in choosing the essays “in any capability.”

There have been requires Armstrong-Homeniuk and Pretty to resign, and Nelson requested Kenney if they need to step down.

“Apparently there’s a gaggle referred to as the Commonwealth Girls’s Parliamentary Affiliation. The primary time I heard of it was final week,” Kenney responded.

“This isn’t the federal government. Individuals within the Legislature have completely different associations they usually do completely different tasks. That is one they screwed up. They’ve admitted that, they’ve apologized and dedicated to make sure it doesn’t occur once more,” Kenney stated.