OK, kiddo! Here are all the fantastically amazing posts tagged with Lloyd Snelgrove
What Is With The Alberta Government?
Well, this is getting bizarre! Wednesday’s silly little story about the Alberta government defining same-sex couples as “benefit partners” instead of “spouses” in their employee benefit plan is causing more of a stir than expected.
Same-sex marriage is a legal reality in Canada, but Alberta’s gay government workers are being categorized differently. It should be a no-brainer to remedy this and move on—or so you’d think.
Lloyd Snelgrove, an Alberta cabinet minister and president of the treasury board, is continuing to defend the separate-but-equal treatment in the benefit plan, saying that the government’s benefit plan shouldn’t be used to “drive social change” and that anyone who has a problem with it should go to the Human Rights Commission instead of the plan’s source.
“Drive social change?” Same-sex marriage has been legal in Alberta since 2005; the change already happened. Surely this is just a matter of updating the books to keep consistent. But even Alberta’s premier, Ed Stelmach, has now come out against calling same-sex spouses “spouses” in the plan: “The benefits are the same,” he said during Wednesday’s question period, “and that’s the most important thing.”
It’s true: The benefits are the same—just like the water that leads to separate drinking fountains come from the same pipes, but something’s still not right. It’s a cliché, but one apparently requires repeating: Separate but equal is not equal. The Alberta government should just acknowledge reality, update the darn plan, and move on to something more important.
Alberta Defines Gay Spouses As “Benefits Partners”
Gay government workers in Alberta are not allowed to list a same-sex partner as a “spouse” in their benefits package, according to a government booklet.
Scott Mair, a former government employee, said in a radio interview that the government only permits same-sex spouses to be defined as “benefit partners” instead of “spouses,” and that because of the difference, same-sex couples cannot register or update their spouses’ benefits online.
Astonishingly, Lloyd Snelgrove, an Alberta Cabinet minister and president of the Treasury Board, called the double-standard “fine,” and that he had “no intention of changing the definition of spouse to include people in same-sex marriages.”
An interesting stance, since the federal parliament already did that in 2005. I guess Lloyd overturned it when we weren’t looking. You’re a sly one, Lloyd!
