Yesterday, several Alberta opposition MLAs, including NDP leader Brian Mason and Liberal leader David Swann, were reportedly barred from attending a government news conference in Edmonton’s Government House. “For the first time that I can recall, opposition MLAs have been physically prevented from attending an important government announcement,” Mason said in question period.

Mason’s wrong on that point. It’s happened before, as recently as November 2007 when then Liberal leader Kevin Taft was barred from Calgary’s McDougall Centre for an important government announcement on changes to the province’s royalty regime (full story here). Here’s some of what happened that day:

Taft knew reporters would want his comments on the new royalty regime, and he wanted time to look at the report beforehand. However, security wouldn’t let Taft or his staff upstairs [for the technical briefing given to reporters]. “We requested twice to be allowed in, and we were barred at the door,” says Taft.

When the briefing wrapped up at 2:45 p.m., before Premier Ed Stelmach’s 3 p.m. news conference, the Liberals still couldn’t go upstairs. “We were told we wouldn’t be allowed in because we weren’t on the invitation list,” says Taft.

After the press conference began, copies of the report were available to the public — at which point Taft got a copy and was allowed upstairs. “By then, the news conference was half over,” he says. “We were cut out of the entire process.”

…

[Taft’s chief of staff Judy Wilson] says her staff had called the premier’s office beforehand in both Calgary and Edmonton asking to be on the invite list for the technical briefing, but they were turned down. “It incenses me that we have to ask someone for a copy (of the report), and ask a reporter, ‘Can you brief us on what you just heard?’” Wilson says. “I feel like we’ve let down the people that elected these (Liberal) MLAs…. That’s not open government.”

David Heyman, a spokesperson for Stelmach’s Calgary office, says it was likely a miscommunication that kept the Liberals from being allowed into the news conference right away. “They certainly were welcome at the announcement at 3 p.m.,” says Heyman. Regarding the technical briefing, Heyman says the Official Opposition didn’t fit into either category of media or industry — the two groups allowed upstairs. “We were afraid of broadening the category,” says Heyman. “If you allow the Official Opposition, then why not, say, the Pembina Institute? Why not other various groups?”