hello I’m Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast this weekend former Calgary mayor nahed nchi became the new leader of the Alberta NDP he will lead that party in the next provincial election but one MLA will not be with him Shannon Phillips has represented Lethbridge since 2015 but is stepping down on the 1st of July not because of her party’s new leadership she says but because of the personal toll the polarization of politics has taken on her Shannon Phillips joins me now from a Calgary Studio Shannon good morning good morning how are you feeling about um stepping down are you relieved are you nervous combination of the two I think it’s a combination of the two I’m also excited for the future of the party I think uh the weekend’s leadership race show that the party is really strong and nad’s Leadership will lead us to New Growth and that makes me confident actually in my uh decision to step away from elected life right now because I know that the party will do just fine without me and so given that I mean why would you step down right now well it is just time for me it really doesn’t have anything to do with the external factors it has everything to do with uh the fact that I feel that uh I have kind of given enough a lot has been asked of me and it’s taken a toll how much of this has to do with what happened in 2017 between you and members of the Les lesb police a lot of it does in fact you know a a polarization and sort of demonization of the opponent and and uh a declining amount of respect for people in elected life at any level uh is something that has increased and I had a front row seat to that when I was in government when I served in Rachel notley’s cabinet as environment Minister between 2015 and 2019 there is no question that uh as a a government that had a lot of women in it uh and women in pretty controversial portfolios like mine none more so than the environment and climate change portfolio uh that that really put us in in sometimes quite literally the crosshairs and uh and I was targeted a lot uh with a lot of of uh really you know kind of demeaning and uh sometimes downright dangerous uh uh rhetoric but I was also uh surveilled and followed by police I was uh I had my records searched uh by police and then a whole bunch of other things happened as well subsequent to that so it wasn’t just 2017 there were also events in 2018 and then ongoing uh through to 2021 go back to that coffee shop that you were at in 2017 what happened there you were you were discussing what do you describe what what was happening I was having breakfast with the two constituents they wanted to talk to me about the reintroduction of the Bison into uh B national park there were four police officers sitting behind me in uniform I acknowledged them when I went in uh and then they uh proceeded to two of them took photos of me and then circulated them on Facebook with a whole bunch of defamatory and false content about what the actual contents of our conversation was uh they just lied uh It could only those photos could have only have come from them given the angle of them so I filed a police act complaint I got that complaint back the results of it in 2018 I was going into a provincial election that was really really tough in my seat uh so I kind of took the results of that complaint and literally put that file F folder at the back of a cupboard I did not have time to address it the results of the complaint weren’t very good as often internal investigations of police officers aren’t lo and behold there were subsequent complaints that came out of that investigation that no one ever told me about that all came to light through the media in 2020 at that point then I fed myself that’s Freedom of Information request in Alberta uh and found that officers had serially uh accessed my records for no lawful purpose what were they doing why were they doing that I mean the suggestion was initially when it came to that conversation in the coffee hop coffee shop that the officer who was there was worried that um what you were discussing he he used ATVs and was worried that that what you were discussing might have an impact on his where he could ride his ATV yeah they made up stories about uh uh the you know the fact that they were being you know targeted by this evil Finance or environment Minister which I mean the contents of the conversation had nothing to do with that it was just a giant conspiracy would you learned that officers weren’t just listening in your conversations and posting information up but were also searching through the police database um apparently singling you out for for traffic enforcement and other things what went through your mind well at that time I felt extremely unsafe in my community and th those conditions persist to this day for me I haven’t felt safe in Lethbridge since uh that day in April 2017 when I realized uh what they were circulating on Facebook what does that mean you you you haven’t felt safe in your community I I don’t feel that uh I am particularly free from unreasonable uh police action um I am now you know kind of Public Enemy Number One uh when the people that are sworn officers whose job it is to keep the entire Community safe you know really have uh targeted and victimized you the only rational response is to feel unsafe what do you worry about I mean how does that impact how you live your life well uh it doesn’t really impact how I live my life because I refuse to be a victim I understand what they have done uh and with their unlawful Behavior as being you know trying to Target me but I will not let them victimize me and so I go about my business and so to my children but that does not take away from the sense of unease if there was an acknowledgement of some wrongdoing and an apology to restore public trust in law enforcement in the City of Lethbridge we would be having a different conversation right now uh but uh the fact is there hasn’t been and when there’s no acknowledgment uh that anything’s gone wrong uh you can only uh take past Behavior as a prediction of future Behavior the police Watchdog in Alberta recommended laying charges against three Lethbridge officers the crown decided not to pursue the charges we asked for comment from the ministry of Public Safety for uh when it came to this and they sent us a statement it says in part that the police oversight body the law enforcement review board will conduct an inquiry focusing on the Lethbridge police services use and management of databases and record systems and that the inquiry will also assess what changes or improvements the LPS has made to these policies practices and procedures and their effectiveness in preventing on authorized access and misuse what would you want in terms of accountability well uh I I do think I need to read the uh the report from the serus incident response team that’s uh probably due out by the summer or the fall to see what they actually recommended uh and we can take it from there that public inquiry I will not be participating in uh when it was well it was first called in uh uh March or April of 2021 uh and the terms of it were very much focused on what went wrong who what where when and why and who was responsible for what happened to me the terms of that inquiry after a couple of Justice ministers in an election turned into this exercise whereby they’re going to ask the Lethbridge Police Service how great they are and uh all the wonderful things they’ve done uh in response but not look into what happened to me and that’s fundamentally a waste of my time uh it’s a waste of the Public’s time and it’s also waste of public money uh so I won’t be participating in that have those officers just finally on this have those officers that were involved in this have they faced any repercussions at all uh not the record searches ones no the one who was overhearing a conversation was convicted of five counts of violating the police act what does that entail uh they had a temporary uh reduction of rank which had a a minuscule effect on their ultimate pension but that was it when you announced that you were resigning you talked about these are your words the course ing of political discourse in public life how have you seen political discourse change since you were first elected in 2015 well I think there’s been a sort of a decline of respect for the office there’s been a great deal of asymmetrical polarization you’ve seen uh the conservative right really kind of fall off a cliff uh meanwhile you know my party has has moderated considerably and you see this with with left and Center left parties uh you know throughout Canada throughout the industrialized world I think they you can’t really separate the lack of respect for for public life from the concerted effort to undermine the respect for the public sector for the public Sphere for solving problems together we’ve seen this uh happen over and over again we’ve also seen an erosion of the news media right uh for looking for that shared set of facts that we can all operate from and then we can disagree in good faith around that shared set of facts without being disagreeable and that has real individual consequen right it then pushes some groups of people anyway into viewing the opponent as dehumanized into breaking the law uh in order to make political points which happened to me and in response though we don’t really have our heads around this our parliaments and our legislatures our application of the criminal code the parties and caucuses themselves and our internal processes regulation of social media uh we still don’t have our arms around this and there’s a lot of questions to be answered if we are to kind of restore that respect for public life for public service and for ultimately uh the people who are committing their time to solving problems together polarization isn’t just something that the right is responsible for though is it I mean you will hear from a range of different perspectives people talking past each other people not acknowledging where somebody might be coming from and caricaturing turning them into a caricature for example what is what is the responsibility that parties of all Stripes have to take to get people to disagree to your point without being disagreeable well I I think we all have a responsibility to uh uphold civility but I don’t want to engage any of this bothsidesism stuff you know like the the far-left in Alberta didn’t really love it when he when we bought a pipeline uh and yet nobody threatened my life over it you know the fact of the matter is is that you have a right not just in Canada not just in Alberta but throughout the industrialized world that has removed some of the guard rails and engaged in some severely illiberal Behavior but also in illiberal ideas uh and unmowed themselves from that shared set of facts by indulging themselves in conspiracy and you know post shame post truth politics so I do reject you know the kind of uh the both sides is I don’t know that it’s both sides it’s more just that everybody has everybody has a stake in this sure and that’s exactly what I I said is that we all have a stake in this and and in that if I’m going to indulge any bothsidesism whatsoever it is that I don’t believe that Center left parties in uh in Alberta in Canada elsewhere really have grappled with these questions of how do we respond when uh uh these sorts of things happen to us as individuals because uh they do happen to us generally speaking uh or more often when we are women when we are uh uh people of uh Equity seeking marginalized groups we don’t have processes internally within our parties our caucuses uh uh how our our legislatures and parliament’s work uh how law enforcement responds none of that seems to be in order and it’s been some years now and we still haven’t gotten our heads around it you said and this speaks directly to what you just mentioned that you are the next in a line of women politicians who are taking a pass that it’s only getting more crazy more Bonkers in your word what do you mean by that uh yeah I was a little loose in that not interview you said it yeah I did um you know I think the question of women in politics is not resolved I like we used to think about this in terms of removal removal of material barriers right you know the processes of nominations you know fundraising capability of women candidates accessibility of child care that’s kind of stuff you can touch that you can hold in your hand and it’s different now right uh making sure that there’s some volunteers around to uh put a sufficient number of lasagna in the freezer during the campaign is actually not going to cut it in terms of recruiting women candidates because the uh uh the context in which we operate has changed and it does mean that parties need to respond to that in kind and if we don’t well you know I think we’re going to continue to uh have these kinds of things happen I mean my situation was a particular uh set of facts it’s I I certainly hope it’s not going to repeat itself anytime soon but uh uh we do see people taking a pass on on uh public life you know you get these uh stories of people just uh resigning or uh not running in the first place I mean that is you know just a travesty of uh liberal democracy our one of our number one fundamental freedoms is the right to participate in our system whether it’s as a candidate or a voter uh or just as a a free citizen expressing themselves and when you take that away uh you lose uh what’s foundational to what makes this country worth living in how worried are you about how nasty the federal election whenever it happens will be I am a little bit uh because I have seen their uh increasingly is not a lot of media to hold people to account too right so we’ve lost some of that if you have a front runner who refuses to do media events refuses accountability you know you’re just digging more and more into individual Echo Chambers that’s uh uh problematic because you can tell all kinds of stories that may or may not have uh a relationship ship to reality within those Echo Chambers this is a big country that is complex and that has a lot of complex problems uh to solve uh we need to have those shared set of facts when we do that and so I mean I I guess just on that point I you’ve said a couple of times we haven’t really wrapped our heads around this what does that look like if from your own experience what you’re seeing in your own Province but if you’re also worried about what a federal election may or may not look like how do we wrap our heads around in civility well I think for starters nonprofit and charitable sector for example are starting to look at the role media and democracy I think that news has lost its commodity value and so uh we need to think about how we’re going to uh solve that and make sure that we are delivering information to uh uh Canadians uh from coast to coast to coast I do think that parties and individual caucuses absolutely need to get their act together but also uh we need to be open to working with other parties on processes and uh uh how we interact with law enforcement when people get threatened that kind of thing neni will be the leader of the Alberta NDP you didn’t support him in the race to lead that party are you confident that he’s the right person oh 100% our party is entirely United uh behind him and I have always said both publicly and privately that I was entirely comfortable myself personally with any outcome of the leadership race uh the party is strong the caucus is strong uh it is ready to govern and uh I’m really excited to see what he does next do you think that the party needs to cut ties with the federal NDP me personally I think there needs to be a conversation that involves the the membership you know I won three times in a really tough seat I was a new democrat elected in Southern Alberta for heaven’s sakes uh and so it is absolutely a a problem that you get off the doorstep that people don’t like the tie I think we should listen to the voters what do you think what’s the issue there what what’s the problem uh some of the federal party’s uh uh policies it predates uh the confidence in Supply agreement uh in my view and particularly on issues of what oh oil and gas development and uh responsible development thereof I mean I as the environment Minister I didn’t personally enjoy all that much support from the the federal party for environmental initiatives you know they felt like it didn’t go far enough I do think that we need to take this problem seriously uh as Alberta new Democrats I think that uh the federal party needs to take it seriously uh in terms of its relevance uh in western Canada you know my my nor star was always listen to the voters right that’s how I got elected three times in Southern Alberta as a new democrat was listen to the voters and that’s what the voters are asking us to reconsider this and so I think we need to be thoughtful about how we do this but uh the conversation’s well overdue in my view how big of a millstone do you think I ask you this as a former environment minister is a carbon tax to whoever wants to run uh your Province I I think that pricing carbon can be done in a number of different ways and it already has been since 2008 you think it’s politically viable in 2024 an economy-wide price no and and uh you know I’ve sort of privately said that from from day one that it might be uh problematic but there’s an industrial price that covers a good chunk of emissions uh in Alberta and has allowed us to take pretty significant climate action with respect to you know the largest reduction of Canadian uh pollution in Canadian history came from the Alberta coal phase out right so there are ways to do this for Alberta to to play its part and I think we should continue to do that do you see just finally do you see hope for for a political system that looks as you said I mean towards more of our shared values instead of what divides us we’re a big country but when you talk to people in this big country generally I think people will agree on more than they will disagree on maybe that’s an naive point of view but I think generally you talked about you know speaking with voters that many people would say the same sort of thing do you see hope for a system that looks more to those shared values than looks to what splits us apart I always think that there is hope hope and optimism even when you know as an Alberta nper it might have been a bit misplaced for a lot of those years uh there is no question uh that we share values on uh on public Healthcare and the great gift that it is to each other on the value of public education uh on the the values of a sustainable economy that uh can you know lift everyone up uh those are values that uh pretty well you know all Canadians share and I think absolutely we can uh find those ways to to knit us together it’s a tough thing to do that’s why so few people are successful at it but absolutely it can be done you don’t sound like all the politics is out of your blood just yet uh what when people ask me what I did before politics I say politics and it’s either this are waitressing uh and so no I absolutely I remain a new democrat uh very likely until my dying breath uh and I will find other ways to serve I do not have to be uh the person at the podium in order to serve my Province and my country and the values that I know the vast majority of Canadians share I’m really glad to have had the chance to talk to you good luck in whatever you do next and thanks for for taking time with us this morning thank you Shannon Phillips is the outgoing MLA for Lethbridge Alberta she was in our Calgary Studio
Alberta MLA Shannon Phillips is quitting politics, calling out what she says is a toxic environment that is driving women out of elected office. She talks to The Current’s Matt Galloway about being snooped on by Lethbridge police officers, and why she refuses to be a victim.
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