{"id":545855,"date":"2026-03-19T02:45:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545855\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T02:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:45:26","slug":"former-alberta-premier-kenney-blasts-edmontons-mayor-over-criticism-of-police-chiefs-israel-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545855\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Alberta Premier Kenney blasts Edmonton&#8217;s Mayor over criticism of police chief&#8217;s Israel trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is wading into the controversy over Edmonton police chief Warren Driechel\u2019s Israel trip in February, taking aim at Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack.<\/p>\n<p>Kenney, in a series of posts on X, blasted the mayor who publicly criticized the trip last week, writing: \u201cEdmonton Mayor Andrew Knack is an object lesson in how the Canadian left has lost its moral bearings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kenney, in his posts, questioned why Edmonton\u2019s mayor visited China in January while boycotting Israel, saying\u00a0he\u2019s pandering to groups that hate Israel: \u201cWhy would he want to \u2018deepen our special ties\u2019 with a communist China, while stigmatizing the Middle East\u2019s only democracy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy would a Canadian leftist privilege relations with the world leader in executions, while opposing engagement of the only Middle Eastern country which has effectively ended capital punishment?\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why would a self-styled \u201cprogressive\u201d like Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack visit the dictatorial PRC, while boycotting the democratic Jewish homeland?<\/p>\n<p>Why would he want to \u201cdeepen our special ties\u201d with a Communist China, while stigmatizing the Middle East\u2019s only democracy? <\/p>\n<p>Why\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/n5OGudnfUA\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/n5OGudnfUA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jason Kenney ???????????????????????? (@jkenney) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jkenney\/status\/2033678326364311964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 16, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Both countries are facing allegations of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Andrew Knack spoke out publicly against the trip last week, saying he was \u201cdeeply disappointed and frustrated\u201d by the chief\u2019s decision to join the delegation visiting police leaders in Israel.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Knack was asked to respond to Kenney\u2019s critiques.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I talked about that just a couple days ago. I think I\u2019ve already answered, but just as a bit of repeat to that, you know, I think it\u2019s always important to reflect context and everything,\u201d \u00a0Knack said.<\/p>\n<p>Knack defended his trip to China.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s always going to be a need to travel to different parts, whether it\u2019s within the province, within the country, occasionally outside the world, or rather outside the country here, and so I think it\u2019s important to be proactive and transparent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>While the mayor and Kenney may be at odds, Knack said he smoothed over his relationship with the police chief.<\/p>\n<p>City Coun.\u00a0Reed Clarke isn\u2019t worried about the relationship either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think they understand each other\u2019s decisions and approach, and they may not agree on that, but I think there\u2019s a lot of respect in that approach, and I expect that will continue,\u201d said Clarke.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is wading into the controversy over Edmonton police chief Warren Driechel\u2019s Israel trip&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-545855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}