Multiple Alberta Officials Are Resigning Or Being Demoted After Taking Pandemic Trips

Alberta's Premier Jason Kenney announced that a number of politicians and officials are stepping down from their legislative positions because they travelled internationally during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kenney originally said he wasn't going to punish anybody for travelling outside of the province, according to CTV News, but he reversed his decision on Monday. 

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Albertans have every right to expect that people in positions of public trust be held to a higher standard of conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic. Premier Jason Kenney

In a Facebook post, Kenney said he had accepted Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard's resignation and asked his Chief of Staff Jamie Huckabay to step down.

Allard and Huckabay were criticized this weekend for taking family trips to Hawaii and the UK in December.

Kenney also stripped extra legislative duties from MLA's Jeremy Nixon, Jason Stephan, Tanya Fir, Pat Rehn and Tany Yao.

All five of the MLAs travelled abroad — some to the States, others to Mexico — despite calls from the government to stop all non-essential travel.

Kenney said he had reached the decision by listening to Albertans over the weekend "who are sending a clear message that they want real consequences for these actions."

"By travelling abroad over the holidays, these individuals demonstrated extremely poor judgment," Kenney said.