Alison Redford

Alison Redford  link (Politician, lawyer)
Born	Alison Merrilla Redford March 7, 1965 Kitimat, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of Saskatchewan
Children	1
Spouses	Glen Jermyn, Robert Hawkes
Party	Progressive Conservative
Attended the 2012 Bilderberg as Premier of Alberta

Alison Merrilla Redford is a Canadian lawyer and former politician. She was premier of Alberta from October 2011, to March 2014. She attended the 2012 Bilderberg meeting.

Career

Federal politics

In the 1980s Redford worked as Senior Policy Advisor to former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who was the Secretary of State for External Affairs. She went on to work in the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada from 1988 to 1990, under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. In this capacity, Redford organized a series of national foreign policy consultations facilitating public^[dubious] input on the Government of Canada's White Papers on Foreign Affairs and Defence. In the Canadian Parliament, she was also the Principal Legislative Advisor to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.

International work

Throughout the 1990s, Redford worked as a technical adviser on constitutional and legal changes in various parts of Africa for the European Union, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Canadian Government and the Government of Australia. One of Redford's most notable appointments was by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as one of the four International Election Commissioners to administer Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections, held in September 2005. She also was an adviser to the Privy Council Office on Canada's future involvement in Afghanistan subsequent to the elections. Her work has included assignments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Namibia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the Philippines. Redford managed a judicial training and legal reform project for the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme People's Court in Vietnam.

Alberta politics

In the 2008 provincial election, Redford was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). She sat in the cabinet of Ed Stelmach as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Redford became premier upon winning the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, and on April 23, 2012, she led her party to victory in the 2012 provincial election. Of the Alberta premiers, her term in office was the shortest.

In December 2013, Redford brought the influential Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), the union of public service employees, against herself. With a draft law, the government proposed increasing penalties for illegal strikes, in addition, the AUPE should be unilaterally deprived of the right to arbitration. The AUPE filed a lawsuit against the government and was able to obtain an indefinite injunction in court two months later. The court considered it proven that the new law could irreparably damage labor relations, make collective bargaining impossible and effectively incapacitate the AUPE.

Also in December 2013, Redford was present at the memorial services for Nelson Mandela, as she had once worked with him. The fact that her trip to South Africa cost $45,000, including $10,000 for a charter flight, caused negative headlines. Later it became public that she had flown on vacation with government planes; her twelve-year-old daughter and her friend had also travelled in this way. For several weeks, Redford refused to reimburse the cost of the trip to South Africa, until finally, in mid-March, due to public pressure, she was left with no other choice. The high salaries of her staff members, which are even higher than those in the Canadian Prime Minister's office, were also criticized.

As a result of the controversies, Redford's approval ratings in opinion polls fell to 18%, the lowest ever for any prime minister.[15] These devastating poll numbers triggered an internal party revolt. On March 19, 2014, Redford announced that she would resign as premier of Alberta effective March 23, 2014. She was succeeded by deputy premier Dave Hancock on an interim basis. She announced her resignation as an MLA on August 6, 2014.