‘Harassment and bullying’: UCP staffer’s clownish tweet heats animosity in internal feud

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EDMONTON (AP) — An internal dispute battering Alberta’s ruling party took a new turn after one of Prime Minister Jason Kenney’s top political staff took to Twitter and compared critics of the United Conservative Party to clowns.

The tweet was sent Friday morning by Bryan Rogers, chief of staff to Infrastructure Minister Prasad Panda, less than two days after Kenney lamented that Albertans are becoming less and less impressed with the ongoing “soap opera.”

Rogers was responding to a newspaper column that featured renewed criticism of Kenney by some members of the UCP caucus, including Leela Aheer and Vice President Angela Pitt.

Rogers dismissed the criticism as coming from the “same old crew” and posted a short video clip of clowns twirling and gesticulating from the TV show “The Simpsons.”

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Pitt responded on Twitter: “This is exactly the kind of harassment and intimidation that happens every day from the Prime Minister’s staff. MLAs provide dissenting opinions and are ridiculed as clowns or called crazy.”

Aheer, who was ousted from the cabinet last year after criticizing Kenney, also joined the fight on social media.

“We will not cower in the face of ‘power.’ It’s just a different form of abuse,” Aheer said on Twitter.

“Corruption comes from those in leadership roles who believe they are the smartest people in the room. It’s time to find a different room.

“Our party and our vision have an opportunity to be revitalized and renewed through a leadership race.”

The party is in the midst of a mail-in vote to decide whether Kenney should remain leader.

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Nearly 60,000 party members are eligible to vote in the leadership review. The results will be announced on May 18.

Earlier this week, Kenney reiterated that if he doesn’t get 50 percent support on review, he will step aside, per party rules.

But he said if he wins, he hopes everyone in the caucus will fall in line so the party can present a united front to defeat the opposition NDP in the 2023 provincial election.

Kenney’s opponents are wary of the vote itself. There was supposed to be an in-person vote on April 9 in Red Deer, but it was changed to a mail-in ballot just weeks before the vote took place and after the deadline for newcomers to sign up.

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Critics say it was changed to favor Kenney. Meanwhile, the party remains under investigation by the RCMP over allegations of criminal identity fraud related to the vote that saw Kenney win the leadership in 2017.

Kenney has faced pushback from some in his caucus and party for more than a year, problems related to and fueled by poor polling and disappointing fundraising numbers.

His caucus has fired some dissidents: Todd Loewen and Drew Barnes, while others like Pitt, Aheer, Brian Jean, Peter Guthrie and Jason Stephan have been allowed to stay, despite similar criticism of Kenney.

Kenney has said that the dissent over his leadership is tied to the limits he placed on personal freedoms to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

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Critics, including congressmen, say it’s much more, that Kenney and his inner circle are ruling from the top down with a clenched fist, a profound violation of the grassroots spirit that Kenney promised when he helped create the UCP in a marriage of two antagonistic Alberta Conservative parties in 2017.

Kenney said this week that he has been too lenient with dissidents.

He also cast the leadership overhaul as a party takeover bid by fringe “lunatics” drawn like insects to the bright light of their party’s success.

Jean, co-founder of Kenney’s UCP, said in a statement: “Jason Kenney says he is the only person who can hold the UCP together, and then a high-ranking political staffer in his inner circle publicly harasses and insults a sixth part of the caucus. .

“If the UCP has become a soap opera, it could be because many people around this prime minister seem to think that (the political controversy) ‘House of Cards’ is a reality show.”