Canada

There’s another shoe that needs to drop before the United Conservative Party’s embarrassing skybox scandal goes quiet and Alberta can go back to sleep as Premier Danielle Smith and her political advisors doubtless profoundly wish we would.

To wit: Did UCP ministers or political staffers avail themselves of corporate flights to NHL playoff games in Vancouver and perhaps in Sunrise, Florida? And if so, who paid?

Thanks to the reporting of the Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait, we already know who bought skybox tickets — at least some of them — for well-connected members and employees of Smith’s government.

Tait’s July 18 report confirmed some of the rumours heard on social media and in political circles about cabinet members and senior staffers accepting corporate skybox tickets during the playoffs.

But if the Calgary Stampede rumour mill, at least, had it right, the skies over B.C.’s Lower Mainland and perhaps around Miami International Airport too were a free-flight zone during the Stanley Cup finals.

So inquiring minds want to know: Who was on those corporate jets? What did they pay, if anything? And if passengers didn’t pay, who did?

Smith, it would seem, is just as determined that it’s none of our business. Which, naturally, raises suspicions that some well-connected folk didn’t take WestJet and pay for their flight themselves, as Smith told reporters she did.