Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, front second left, and B.C. Premier David Eby, front second right, watch the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers play Game 2 in the Stanley Cup second-round playoff series, in Vancouver, on May 10.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she and her colleagues were in compliance with provincial ethics rules when they accepted tickets to hockey games during this year’s Oilers playoff run.
The Globe and Mail reported on Thursday that after the United Conservative Party government changed the rules late last year to make it easier for politicians to accept gifts and tickets, the Premier, several cabinet members and staff attended multiple hockey games as guests of others.
Critics on Friday accused the government of “cronyism,” saying the rules need to be toughened again.
Ms. Smith, speaking to reporters in Edmonton on Friday, brushed off questions about the potential for conflicts of interest and said the focus instead should be on the performance of the Edmonton Oilers hockey team. “I think people wanted to see us support our team,” she said.
“As I understand it, all of the rules have been followed,” Ms. Smith said. “It’s very unusual to have a Canadian team make it as far as they did. We just came, essentially, one goal short of being able to win the whole thing.”
The Globe reported on Thursday that Ms. Smith and two staff accepted tickets from an Invest Alberta director to watch the Oilers play the Canucks in Vancouver in May.
Sam Blackett, the Premier’s spokesman, confirmed on Friday that she also attended two games in Edmonton as the guest of two separate organizations. He declined to name the hosts.
A number of cabinet ministers and political staff also accepted tickets for games in Edmonton from MHCare Medical and its CEO Sam Mraiche, The Globe reported Thursday. The company was tied to Alberta’s importation of $75-million worth of children’s pain medication from Turkey. It is unknown how much MHCare made from that deal.
The government, late last year, eased Alberta’s ethics rules after Ms. Smith bemoaned that the ethics commissioner told her she could not stay as a guest in a suite at a hockey game for more than 20 minutes. The new rules made it easier for staff members to accept gifts, requiring the premier’s chief of staff to sign off.
On Friday, NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi demanded the governing party reveal which MLAs and staff attended games, who hosted them, and who paid for related travel.
“The revelations about multiple ministers, staff members, and the Premier herself attending playoff hockey games on lobbyists’ dimes should come as no surprise to Albertans given the level of cronyism shown by this government,” he said in a statement on social-media platform X.
Mr. Nenshi said the ethics rules need to be beefed up again. The original rules, he said, meant gifts were “reasonable and modest,” disclosed, and prevented wealthy individuals or corporations from buying uninterrupted access to politicians and staff.
“The changes the Premier made to those rules disregard all these principles, leaving the impression that government can be bought by anyone,” he said.
“Having ministers and staff sit in lobbyists’ luxury boxes while we are facing an affordability crisis in this province not only looks bad, it shows they’re living in a different world than the average Albertan.”
Ms. Smith said she accepted the tickets from the Invest Alberta director to the game in Vancouver because doing so aligned with the organization’s mandate of “projecting ourselves” to attract money to the province.
Her office said she attended the game on personal time and taxpayers did not pay for the trip.
Mr. Mraiche, who founded MHCare, also attended the game in Vancouver, according to a photograph of the Premier with others in the box. He did not respond to a message seeking comment.
John Church, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Alberta, said the province’s ethics guidelines and legislation have always been weak and rarely are politicians in Alberta reprimanded for such violations.
“They made those ethics guidelines even weaker than they were on purpose,” Prof. Church said in an interview.
“Our democracy becomes secondary when businesses can provide gifts to politicians that are rewarded by government contracts. All of Canada should be very concerned about what’s going on in Alberta because it’s the bellwether of what may be coming elsewhere.”
The UCP in November unveiled plans to replace Marguerite Trussler as ethics commissioner when her term expired this spring. Shawn McLeod was named to the position in May.
Ms. Trussler, in a 17-page report released during the 2023 general election, said Ms. Smith interfered in the justice system in a way that was a “threat to democracy.” The former ethics commissioner said Ms. Smith tried to influence the Minister of Justice in a way that would benefit a street preacher charged for his actions at the border blockade near Coutts in early 2022.