Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he learned about Justice Minister Kaycee Madu’s traffic ticket last year, but wasn’t “fully briefed” until Monday about his minister calling Edmonton’s police chief to discuss it.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal Premier Jason Kenney provides an update on Alberta’s COVID-19 response at the McDougall Centre on Tuesday, January 4, 2022.
Madu was forced to step back from his ministerial duties following a phone call to Chief Dale McFee in March 2020, after Madu received a distracted driving ticket.
Late Monday, Kenney expressed disappointment in a series of tweets , but stopped short of asking Madu to resign pending the results of an independent investigation.
Amid calls from critics for Madu to step down from cabinet, Kenney fielded questions Thursday for the first time about the incident at a COVID-19 update.
“I do recall at some point last year hearing that minister Madu had gotten a ticket, had paid for it. I got fully briefed on all of this, including about the call and the details on Monday afternoon, following media inquiries,” said Kenney, adding his response included reaching out to Madu and “a number of” respected former leaders in the judiciary, government and policing who advised him to hire an independent investigator to determine whether there was an interference in the administration of justice.
Kenney said his chief of staff also reached out to Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee to discuss the phone call.
Madu was forced to step back from his ministerial duties following a phone call to Chief Dale McFee in March 2020, after Madu received a distracted driving ticket.
Late Monday, Kenney expressed disappointment in a series of tweets , but stopped short of asking Madu to resign pending the results of an independent investigation.
Amid calls from critics for Madu to step down from cabinet, Kenney fielded questions Thursday for the first time about the incident at a COVID-19 update.
“I do recall at some point last year hearing that minister Madu had gotten a ticket, had paid for it. I got fully briefed on all of this, including about the call and the details on Monday afternoon, following media inquiries,” said Kenney, adding his response included reaching out to Madu and “a number of” respected former leaders in the judiciary, government and policing who advised him to hire an independent investigator to determine whether there was an interference in the administration of justice.
Kenney said his chief of staff also reached out to Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee to discuss the phone call.
“If chief McFee had alleged that he felt this was an interference in the administration of justice, and the independence of the police or an effort to rescind a ticket, I would have made an immediate decision to remove Mr. Madu from cabinet — but that’s not the public statement that we have,” said Kenney.
“I was not on this call,” he said about the circumstances of the ticket and the phone call to McFee, noting the government has drafted terms of reference for the investigation and has begun contacting retired judges to work on it. Kenney did not indicate if the findings of the investigation would be made public, or when, but promised again that details would be available “in the very near future.”
In a previous statement to Postmedia, Madu has said on March 10, he was pulled over by an Edmonton police officer, who alleged he was driving while on his phone. Madu said he disagreed, and that his phone was in his pocket. Madu later spoke to McFee, raising concerns about racial profiling and saying he wanted to ensure he wasn’t being “unlawfully surveilled” following the controversy surrounding the Lethbridge Police Service .
Madu said he did not ask for the ticket to be rescinded, and regretted raising the issue with McFee.
Critics, including Alberta NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir, said by initiating the conversation with the police chief — regardless of whether he asked the chief to cancel the ticket — Madu engaged in political interference, and should resign .
Sources have told Postmedia’s Don Braid that the ticket was widely known in cabinet circles. Sgt. Michael Elliott, president of the Edmonton Police Association, has said on Twitter the assumption that police were surveilling the MLA was both “shameful” and “preposterous,” and said Madu, as justice minister, should have known better than to call the chief directly.
lijohnson@postmedia.com
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