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What an amazing story: from top to bottom in three years. How does this happen?
Author of the article:
Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Date Posted:
June 3, 2022 • 1 day ago • 8 minutes of reading • 71 comments Prime Minister Jason Kenney announces his intention to resign after receiving only 51.4% in the UCP leadership vote on 18 May 2022. Photo by Jim Wells / Postmedia
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The following is an excerpt from a speech Don Braid gave to a service club this week.
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Jason Kenney. What an amazing story: from top to bottom in three years. How does this happen? Here is a man who left federal politics to return to Alberta, win the leadership of one provincial party, merge with another, form a new party from the merger, and win an overwhelming majority in an election. How is this man expelled from power by his own party?
It has a lot to do with COVID, a plague perfectly designed to divide the United Conservative Party, more than any other government party in Canada. The UCP embraces almost every nuance of conservative thinking, including the emphasis on personal freedom, which Kenney has always said he advocates. Then came the rules and the blockades he said he would never impose.
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For many party members, especially in sparsely populated rural areas, it was a betrayal that was never forgotten or forgiven. But Kenney believed, and so did I, that this feeling would fade along with the pandemic. He didn’t.
Kenney was also seen by many UCP people as weak in Ottawa, despite his explosions in Trudeau. He saw ground for commitment and progress on some issues and so he said. People who believe that it is not possible or desirable to deal with Ottawa are a party force. And they had the vote during the May 18 leadership review.
It all produced the bitterest public division and hostility toward a prime minister I have ever seen, and I have written about every Alberta revolt against a Conservative party leader from Don Getty to Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach and Alison. Redford. Kenney’s people often criticized me for writing too much about their opposition. They said it was a minor element. But that was not the case, not when about 30 riding associations demanded an early review of the leadership, when many of their own MPs (17 in one case) wrote letters disagreeing with it and when some publicly demanded their resignation.
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At first, Kenney kicked them out, two of them, but then he realized he should kick out a quarter of his caucus. On May 18 he proved that the opposition was indeed widespread. Only 51.4% supported him in the leadership review vote.
This was a real revolt, the most dangerous and public I have ever seen. What was surprising, and somewhat pathetic, was that Kenney could not even scare away substantial letters of support from loyal ministers and MPs. Even more surprising was the real shock of his team for the result: his campaign group had told him he would receive 70% support and designed his entire approach, blaming the extremists, insisting that he had the majority support, around of this belief.
Jason Kenney enters the room before a cabinet meeting in Calgary on May 20, two days after announcing his intention to resign. Photo by Jim Wells / Postmedia
It was a big mistake to keep talking about extremists trying to take over the UCP, even calling them crazy. I was not entirely wrong: there are very extreme people who cling to the limits of the UCP. But there was so much discontent with Kenney and so many reasonable people that they had various problems. Many of them had the idea that he was talking about them, all those who wanted to get him out. It was a disastrous approach. Kenney might not have pursued it if he had noticed the problems he was having. The campaign to preserve his leadership was basically incompetent. Even some who were involved recognize it now.
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But this was an unprecedented campaign, in fact.
Kenney stated that a standard review of party leadership (all parties do) was a formal campaign. His key collaborators had unpaid leave to campaign, including his chief of staff Pam Livingston, who left one of the government’s most important jobs to a substitute. Government-wide political staff, people working in communications for ministers, were expected to campaign and take unpaid leave. This had a serious effect on the functioning of the government for weeks. Everything was re-established around the campaign and Kenney’s need for a storm of good news ads.
The campaign was run outside the riding of Kenney, Calgary-Lougheed. Because? Because the CPU itself is supposed to be neutral in leadership reviews. The party was unable to host his campaign. Alberta Elections were consulted. So were the lawyers. The conclusion was that Kenney could only do so within the rules as a fundraising and outreach campaign from his own riding.
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But it was a very active campaign, with calls and emails every day to party members. (Kenney has a master list, unlike most of his opponents.) Kenney also held several general fundraising events outside of riding, asking for checks to be written to Calgary-Lougheed, to fund this effort. .
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Truly strange was the assertion of his activists that the revolt was a minor thing, when at the same time they inclined their whole structure to defeat it.
How did Kenney get to this point?
In my opinion, the problems started at the founding convention of the UCP in early May 2018.
More than 3,000 people attended Red Deer. It was the largest and most enthusiastic political meeting I have ever seen in Alberta. Brad Wall spoke. So did Rona Ambrose. Kenney was received as a conquering emperor. You could imagine the new Democrats being thrown into the lions.
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But then the members talked about politics.
In those days, alliances between homosexuals and heterosexuals in schools were a major problem. One group introduced a resolution that said parents should be notified if a student wanted to join one. A couple of Kenney MPs took the floor to oppose the resolution. But the motion was approved by a 57% majority.
Kenney did not want social problems to surface. Speaking to reporters, at one point Kenney said, “Guess what? I’m the leader and I can interpret the resolution and its relevance to party politics… I grab the pen.”
Jason Kenney signs a “basic guarantee” during a press conference in Edmonton on July 7, 2016. Postmedia archive photo
The previous year, Kenney had produced a “basic guarantee”: it was introduced with large banners that said “policies must be developed democratically by its members, not imposed by its leader.” He signed it publicly.
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And then, at the new party’s triumphant founding meeting, Kenney said just the opposite. The seed of the May 18, 2022, leadership result was planted right there.
It did not flourish when the NDP had yet to be defeated. But that episode alerted many to the party: Maybe Jason Kenney was really an Ottawa man, after all. Maybe he didn’t really care about the basics.
Many of Kenney’s critics have always said that he is a federal politician with no real sense of Alberta. At first I dismissed him: he was undeniably competent and effective as a federal minister, and after all, he was an Alberta MP.
But today I think it’s true that he didn’t fully understand — or perhaps dismissed as irrelevant — the differences between the federal and Alberta approaches. It flooded its staff with imports from elsewhere, often from Ottawa. The NDP had been heavily criticized in 2015 for doing the same, but they had a reason. There were no new Alberta Democrats with government experience. Kenney had no such excuse. The ground was full of skilled conservatives who had government experience. But with a few exceptions, Kenney installed newcomers or people returning to Alberta from other places. They soon gave the impression that they knew best in all things.
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As a federal minister, you can make a decision and create a policy that can affect provincial governments, without taking to the streets. That is why prime ministers are often so outraged by federal movements.
Jason Kenney celebrates after being elected leader of the UCP in Calgary on October 28, 2017. Photo by Gavin Young / Postmedia
But provincial policy is very different: everything you do in health care, for example, has a real impact. If you try to cut the salary of nurses and doctors during a pandemic to achieve your fiscal goals, there will be a reaction, not just from the unions. It all affects the popularity of the government in one way or another.
Kenney can be very legalistic …