A United Conservative MLA is calling on the Alberta NDP to apologize after one of its members compared the UCP government to Nazis during a debate in the Legislature.Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Chantelle de Jonge condemned Edmonton-Riverview MLA Lori Sigurdson for invoking the Holocaust while criticizing the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause.“(Wednesday) in Question Period, NDP MLA for Edmonton-Riverview Lori Sigurdson invoked the Holocaust while criticizing Alberta’s use of the notwithstanding clause. It was an appalling and deeply offensive comparison,” said de Jonge in a statement.Sigurdson referenced the poem First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller, written after the Second World War to reflect on Nazi persecution. She said, “first they came for the teachers, and I did not speak out because I was not a teacher,” while addressing a provincial labour dispute.De Jonge said the remark was “unhinged rhetoric” and “beneath the dignity of Alberta’s Legislature.”.“Invoking the Holocaust and comparing United Conservatives to Nazis to score desperate political points trivializes one of the darkest chapters in human history,” she said.De Jonge added that all MLAs have a duty to speak respectfully of the six million Jews and five million other victims murdered under the Nazi regime.“There is a clear moral line that must never be crossed in politics, and yesterday the NDP crossed it,” she said. “Alberta’s Legislature should be a place for respectful debate, not reckless comparisons to crimes against humanity.”De Jonge called on NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi to condemn the comments and for Sigurdson to apologize, saying “the Holocaust is not a political talking point.”
