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Welcome to Alberta’s days of conundrum.
The vote on Jason Kenney’s leadership presents a series of troubling concerns and issues for Kenney, his United Conservative Party, the NDP and the rest of us.
Essentially, it’s a difficult moment to discern what’s best for any of us.
Let’s start with Kenney. His conundrum is that to win the leadership review — which starts this weekend, with mail-in voting ending May 11 — he’s got to hammer hard on a wing of his party that he and the UCP will need if they’re going to win the next election.
This UCP faction is made up largely of people who disliked Kenney’s use of public health restrictions and detested vaccine mandates, though they have other complaints with Kenney as well, including his steamrolling leadership style.
The premier recently demonized this group while talking to his staff, as heard in a leaked audio recording.
Some of those against him, Kenney said, literally believe he’s involved in a global conspiracy to traffic children. “These are just kookie people generally … the lunatics are trying to take over the asylum and I’m not going to let them … I will not let this mainstream conservative party become an agent for extreme, hateful, intolerant, bigoted and crazy views.”
Kenney’s negative characterization of this faction is the kind of harsh rhetoric you’d expect from Rachel Notley or Justin Trudeau about elements of the Conservative base. If Kenney does win the leadership review vote, it could well be the campaign is so bruising that a fierce and sizeable Wildrose minority splinters off.
That said, moderate conservatives might well be pleased Kenney is taking on one of the difficult jobs of any political leader, which is to call out the most wild and partisan members of his or her own side when they get out of line.
The conundrum for the United Conservatives also includes the concern that if anti-Kenney voters prevail, and a new leader more aligned with the party’s libertarian right wing takes over, that’s hardly a recipe for winning the next provincial election, as seen by the vast majority of Albertans supporting restrictions and mandates at times during the pandemic. A faction which fought hardest to bring about Kenney’s departure would be the least likely group to appeal to moderate swing voters.
The UCP will need to not just sweep rural Alberta but also take most of the seats in Calgary to hold power. That won’t happen if a new leader is out of step with Calgary’s cosmopolitan ambitions and attitudes, and much less so if there’s any sniff of anti-vax politics around the new leader.
And what of the NDP’s conundrum? It could be the best thing for them to see Kenney, the man who united the right and trounced Rachel Notley in 2019, survive as UCP leader.
The latest Angus Reid poll, conducted with controversial Kenney in charge of a UCP rocked by internal turmoil, showed the UCP and NDP in a statistical tie. Even with an unpopular leader, a United Conservative Party is a huge threat to NDP electoral hopes. To win, the NDP most likely needs the conservative movement to fracture.
Is that fracture most likely to happen with Kenney in charge? That’s a decent bet.
Kenney’s supporters will point out he has already beat Notley once, his popularity is finally trending up, and when it comes down to a provincial election, conservatives will pick unity and power over disunity and four years of NDP rule.
But it’s also the case that if Kenney loses, the UCP might well find a fresh face, some new and unifying leader who can bring together a divided right.
As for the conundrum for most Albertans — including that group of independent voters who are open to voting for either main party — we’ve got to sort through which Alberta leader can best direct our own internal provincial affairs while also representing us in a world led by hostile parties in Ottawa, Washington and much of Europe, all ideologically aligned against Alberta’s oil and gas economy.
Source: EdmontonJournal
