EDMONTON - Tensions boiled over in the Alberta legislature Tuesday when a Tory minister accused a Wildrose MLA of comparing the government’s land-use legislation to policies of the Ukrainian genocide.
The angry exchange erupted during a debate on the government’s new land-use law, Bill 19, when Wildrose critic Paul Hinman referenced the genocide in his remarks.
“We just had a commemoration of the Holodomor (genocide) of the starvation of Europe, and that wasn’t because of bad weather or not (being) able to produce,” Hinman said. “That was evil, corrupt government confiscating property from the people and trying to destroy a region which the government was having trouble controlling.
“Many of the acts that were taken in Europe during (the Second World War) and other times were very much brutal acts that didn’t respect property rights, and there are many areas in these (Alberta government) bills that have no respect for property rights.”
That set off Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk, who called for Hinman to be censured by the Speaker, saying the opposition MLA was trivializing one of the worst atrocities in human history.
“It was a very important historical event that killed thousands upon thousands, millions of people, including many relatives of Albertans,” Lukaszuk said.
“He’s comparing the policies we’re passing in the legislature right now to Stalin’s genocide in Ukraine. If this isn’t reaching a new bottom for the Wildrose, I don’t know what is. This is disgusting.”
But Wildrose critic Rob Anderson was just as emphatic when coming to Hinman’s defence. He suggested Lukaszuk had either missed the point of Hinman’s remarks or was deliberately grandstanding to score points.
“This minister has sunk to a new low,” he said. “It’s amazing to me he would stand up and blurt out such absolute obscenities as I just heard. To try to paint this member of my caucus in such a disparaging light is despicable.”
Anderson said Hinman was simply making a point that respect for individual rights, including property rights, was essential to maintain a working democracy.
“I would ask that member (Lukaszuk) to take his remarks back and apologize for insinuating such absolute stupidity, because that’s what it was. It was a stupid comment.”
The Holodomor was the systematic starvation of an estimated seven million to 10 million Ukrainians during the early 1930s. The legislature held a commemoration ceremony on Monday.
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