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Wildrose MLA Don MacIntyre did his best impression of Matlock on Tuesday at the legislature.

During a news conference, the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA played the role of courtroom accuser.

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Slowly, he built his case against the government over its handling of Alberta’s power market and the industry’s termination of power purchase arrangements (PPAs).

It was part politics, part theatre.

Using a detailed timeline, legal documents and government emails, he painstaking tried to paint the picture that Alberta’s government knew long before last March that its decision to raise the carbon levy could lead to PPAs being cancelled by utilities.

For Albertans, this could eventually transfer a string of money-losing contacts into the public’s lap, at an estimated cost of $2 billion.

“If there’s a smoking gun, this is it,” MacIntyre declared at one point.

Well, it was more like a shell casing than a smoking pistol because it didn’t prove exactly what the NDP cabinet knew or precisely when they knew it.