Alberta premier hopes controversial MLA will be able to provide 'clarity' over trans comments

Central Alberta queer groups are protesting a letter from the Red Deer-South constituency office to reinstate Lacombe-Ponoka MLA Jennifer Johnson to the UCP caucus. (Source: jenniferjohnsonucp.ca)

Alberta's premier said Tuesday a MLA ejected from her ruling party's caucus last year over transphobic comments that surfaced during the election campaign will be given a "platform where she can explain what she meant" to potentially build rapport with her constituency's LGBTQ2S+ community.

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Premier Danielle Smith told media at a carbon capture conference in downtown Edmonton that Lacombe-Ponoka MLA Jennifer Johnson "will have an opportunity to participate" in discussions at the legislature later this fall as her government introduces legislation relating to comments Johnson made in the lead-up to the May 2023 vote won by the UCP.

Smith said the legislation coming forward deals with "protecting kids' rights to make their own health decisions as adults, making sure that parents are informed of what's happening with their kids at school, as well as making sure that women are protected in sports."

Johnson's controversial comments came from audio the Opposition NDP had surfaced from September 2022, before Johnson won the UCP nomination, in which she is heard telling a group that Alberta’s high-ranking education system counts for little set against the issue of transgender students, comparing their presence to a batch of cookies laced with feces.

“That little bit of poop is what wrecks it,” Johnson says in the audio recording. “It does not matter that we’re in the top three per cent in the world."

Johnson eventually won the Lacombe-Ponoka seat but as an independent candidate after Smith said two weeks before the election the MLA would be kept out of UCP caucus.

At a recent UCP town hall in Red Deer, however, Smith suggested Johnson could soon be reinstated to the party fold.

Smith said Tuesday she hopes Johnson will "be able to provide some clarity about where she stands on these issues and be able to provide some comfort that she's going to govern for all of her constituents."

"I think she needs to have that forum to be able to put that on the table," Smith said.

Rob Smith, the president of the UCP, told CTV News Edmonton on Monday that the party would welcome Johnson back into the fold, saying she has been a fantastic MLA.

In April, the UCP's Red Deer-South constituency group asked the party to reinstate Johnson into its caucus, saying she had "sufficiently made amends" for the September 2022 comments.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Chelan Skulski and The Canadian Press