Opinion | Jason Kenney takes on Danielle Smith for the soul of the United Conservative Party of Alberta

Prime Minister Jason Kenney has entered the United Conservative Party race to replace him as leader.

Not as a candidate, but as a busybody.

Kenney didn’t dive so much as headfirst into the race this week, with an uneasy attack on a proposal from perceived leader Danielle Smith. She is championing a controversial “Alberta Sovereignty Act” that she says would allow her, as prime minister, to ignore federal laws that are considered non-Albertan.

After remaining silent since the leadership campaign began in May, Kenney on Monday called the proposal unconstitutional, financially disastrous and simply “crazy.”

In turn, Smith criticized Kenney’s comments as “premature, ill-informed, and disrespectful to a large and growing majority of UCP members who support this important initiative.”

(Smith also disparagingly referred to Kenney as “the interim leader of the UCP.” Kenney is, of course, the actual leader of the UCP, but Smith has begun to criticize Kenney so much that he doesn’t need to bother with sunscreen this summer.) .

The fight between Kenney and potential successor Smith is not simply a dispute over a dangerously naive policy proposal.

It is a fight for the soul of the United Conservative Party.

Kenney built this party in 2017 from the ashes of the old Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose through a combination of political ideology, historical revisionism, Western alienation, and personal ambition.

This was his party, his legacy, his vanity project.

And now Smith, the former leader of Wildrose, is kidnapping him.

Smith’s attacks on Kenney date back to 2019, when he wrote an op-ed for the Calgary Herald titled “Alberta Should Become a Nation Within a Nation,” complaining that the province should “stop act as a national country”. doormat and take charge of your future.”

In a 2020 op-ed, he blamed Prime Minister Kenney for making a “mess” of the province’s finances.

And as a radio talk show host during the pandemic, she pushed back against restrictions and at times promoted quack treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

Last November, she was one of the first to express an interest in replacing Kenney.

The two now find themselves clashing once more.

In his attacks on sovereignty law, Kenney does not actually mention Smith. In fact, during a press conference Monday on a different issue where the sovereignty bill came up, Kenney pleaded ignorance, said he didn’t know which candidates supported the bill, and even hinted that he wasn’t even sure how many candidates there were. on the list. the race.

“I’m not following this in great detail every day. So I’m not sure of the seven candidates, I think, who have endorsed this concept,” said Kenney, who has a reputation as a politically astute micromanager, and has a penchant for being clueless when it suits him.

Kenney’s criticism of the sovereignty bill, by the way, was not limited to a few off-the-cuff remarks, but was part of a seven-minute monologue on the subject.

As Kenney no doubt knows, there is only one candidate aggressively backing this concept: Smith.

Another candidate, Todd Loewen, has expressed sympathy for a sovereignty bill, but the other five have criticized it for being, more or less as Kenney put it, “crazy.”

Kenney is trying to frame his attack on sovereignty law by simply repeating his long-standing criticisms of the concept that first appeared last fall as part of a “Free Alberta Strategy” proposed by the “libertarian-minded” Alberta Institute.

“I have publicly stated my views on the so-called sovereignty bill many times in the months leading up to this leadership campaign, so I am just reaffirming my public position,” Kenney said Monday, trying to sound like an innocent bystander rather than a boy throwing grenades in the race for leadership.

Not only is Smith the candidate who embraces the entire “Free Alberta Strategy,” but the proposal was co-authored by attorney Rob Anderson, who is now his campaign chairman.

It’s worth noting that to become UCP leader and prime minister, Smith doesn’t need the million votes the UCP won in the 2019 general election; he just needs a simple majority of UCP members voting in the race that ends Oct. 6.

And in the leadership race, Smith is the only candidate who sets the agenda, grabs headlines and regularly rallies supporters at big rallies across the province.

According to the party president, the UCP has more than 100,000 members (with a final count to be announced in a few days). If they all vote, Smith only needs to get about 50,000 ballots to become leader and prime minister, and start implementing his plans for an Alberta Sovereignty Act.

Kenney seems desperate to stop that.

Oh, he doesn’t frame his opposition to Smith and his takeover of his party in so many words, just like he claims not to endorse any candidate. But he has an obvious favorite: former finance minister Travis Toews. He is the establishment candidate.

Toews was not only part of Kenney’s inner circle, but his campaign is populated by key players in the Kenney administration. Toews’ campaign manager, for example, is Kenney’s former executive assistant, Clancy Bouwman.

A Toews victory would maintain the status quo, not only in terms of government policy and Kenney’s legacy, but also protect the jobs of all Kenney members of government.

In July, Jason Nixon, the House leader (and the new finance minister who replaced Toews), also told reporters that the sovereignty bill would be illegal.

“Telling Albertans they can do something they can’t is very problematic in the long run for our party,” Nixon said.

Nixon’s critique is valid. But it’s also hypocritical coming from a government that in 2019 promised to “strike back” against Alberta’s enemies by creating a “war room” against anti-oil sands activists, commissioning a public investigation into anti-Alberta activities by environmental organizations and holding a province-wide referendum aimed at scrapping the federal leveling program.

It was a cynical strategy that inflamed anger and frustration while promising easy solutions.

To use Nixon’s own words, the Kenney administration was “telling Albertans they can do something they can’t.”

Smith is simply taking Kenney’s playbook, highlighting all the glibly bombastic bits and tearing out any pages that might advise caution. Like Kenney, she is doing whatever it takes to win.

Indeed, a Premier Smith would be setting Alberta on a dangerous path, but it was Premier Kenney who led the way.

Smith and Kenney may seem like complete opposites. They are not.

Smith’s simplistic and cynical attacks on Kenney for political gain are exactly the kind of strategy he uses against his own enemies.

Smith and Kenney will change direction when it suits them, without admitting that they have made a radical change.

Both are political opportunists.

SHARE: