Travis Toews officially launched his United Conservative Party leadership campaign Saturday in Calgary and revealed he has the backing of 23 MPs.
Toews, who is currently the Grande Prairie-Wapiti MP, announced his candidacy this week and resigned as Alberta’s finance minister. On Saturday, Toews appointed its two campaign co-chairs: Sonya Savage, the province’s energy minister, and Grande Prairie MP Chris Warkentin.
During his campaign launch speech in Calgary, Toews said the division has been placed during the pandemic and added that some feel poorly characterized or ignored by the UCP.
“To those who feel disenfranchised, I want to make a call home. We are better together, stronger in diversity and in our unity,” Toews said during his speech.
He also announced in a press release the more than 20 MPs who have supported him, including Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, Minister of Social and Community Services Jason Luan, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange and Tracy Allard, the deputy of Grande Prairie.
Political commentator and pollster Janet Brown says Toews has a “large part” of the caucus behind it, and other candidates are unlikely to be able to provide that number of endorsements.
“He is certainly taking the position that he is the favorite and has the most support among members of the government,” he said.
“There is a risk. But I think he is really trying to position himself outside the door as the strongest candidate, as the one with the most government support, as the person who can bring more stability to the caucus because he has the majority of members. of the caucus behind him “.
Toews is one of several candidates who have officially submitted their names to the Conservative United Party leadership contest. Danielle Smith, Brian Jean and Todd Loewen have stated their intention to appear.
However, it is difficult to know what the race will be like, says Brown, as there are so many unknowns about what will happen next.
“We don’t know when the leadership race will take place. We don’t know what kind of initial payment the candidates have to make. We don’t know what the full list of candidates is,” he said.
The NDP issued a statement on Saturday criticizing Toews and saying that his speech and endorsements show that “it represents a direct continuation of Jason Kenney UCP’s policies and practices.”
“Toews claims it will address the mistakes made by the Kenney government,” NDP Deputy Leader Sarah Hoffman said in a press release.
“Instead of sincerely trying to do so, in his early moves he embraced the main supporters of Jason Kenney and the architects of some of the government’s worst decisions. This only confirms what many people have suspected, that Travis Toews is presents to continue with Jason Kenney.
Kenney previously announced that he would step down as leader of the United Conservative Party after 48.6% of the United Conservatives voted against his leadership, but will remain at the helm of the party until a new leader is announced.