The Candice Malcolm Show - The four reasons Jason Kenney got ousted as Alberta Premier

00:00:00.000 Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has resigned as leader of the United Conservative Party and has announced his intention to resign as Premier.

00:00:07.040 We're going to break down all the reasons why. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:00:23.480 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. So we had quite the eventful night last night in Alberta.

00:00:28.300 We learned the fate of the Premier Jason Kenney and as I said, he lost the leadership review.

00:00:33.260 We'll break down all of the facts, go through all of the news, but they held a leadership review to determine whether or not he would go forward as leader of the party.

00:00:40.500 So this was an internal vote among Conservative Party members in Alberta, United Conservative Party members in Alberta.

00:00:46.600 And the vote was so close that Premier Kenney decided on his own that he didn't want to stay on and lead this party, that he was going to resign and make way for a leadership review.

00:00:55.560 So we're going to go through the news of what happened. We're going to go through my personal analysis of why I think Jason Kenney lost.

00:01:01.360 I think it can be boiled down to four specific distinct reasons why he lost.

00:01:05.640 And then we're going to talk about how this is very bad for Canada and for the Conservative movement in Canada specifically.

00:01:12.060 Before I get into all of that, though, I want to do a personal disclosure here.

00:01:15.500 So I think that listeners and viewers of this podcast should know that Jason Kenney is a personal friend of mine.

00:01:21.380 I once worked for Jason Kenney back when he was the Minister of Immigration in the Harper government.

00:01:26.540 It was sort of early in my career. I got a great opportunity to become his press secretary.

00:01:30.560 I got to work closely with Jason and I learned a tremendous amount about politics and the media from working with him.

00:01:37.140 I think he is an incredible human being.

00:01:39.580 I think he is incredibly intelligent, incredibly hardworking, very insightful, very thoughtful, very well read, just very overall wonderful person.

00:01:47.780 And I also have a personal friendship that endures.

00:01:50.900 I met my future husband working in Jason Kenney's office.

00:01:54.000 And so my husband was also a political staffer in the Harper government working in Kenney's office.

00:01:58.380 And that is how we first met.

00:02:00.100 So in a way, Jason introduced me to my future husband.

00:02:03.240 So I'm obviously forever grateful and indebted for that opportunity and to have been able to meet my husband that way.

00:02:10.700 So my husband is also friends with Jason Kenney.

00:02:13.440 Their friendship remains. And so I am not a neutral observer when it comes to the premier.

00:02:19.360 I am biased in his favor because I have so much respect for him for my personal experiences and from the things that I gained from having that work experience there.

00:02:28.780 So that's all on the table.

00:02:30.680 I want you to know that.

00:02:31.660 So I'm going to do my best to provide the facts, provide the news, tell you why I think he lost.

00:02:36.880 And I think he made some critical missteps in that is why he's no longer going to be premier of the province.

00:02:42.880 And so we'll go through all of that.

00:02:44.940 But that disclosure, I think, is important for you as a viewer or a listener to know.

00:02:51.000 So as I said, quite the night in Alberta last night.

00:02:53.260 And as I said, the party had decided to do a leadership review of the premier.

00:02:57.220 It was supposed to happen, I believe, in the fall.

00:02:59.260 And then they decided to compromise and do it earlier because if the premier were to be removed, which is what ended up happening,

00:03:04.860 they wanted time to find a new leader and have them be well positioned for the general election in Alberta, which will happen a year from now in 2023.

00:03:13.800 So they moved it forward.

00:03:15.380 It was supposed to be an in-person vote in Red Deer last month.

00:03:17.880 There were so many people, though, that signed up and were reported that they wanted to vote in this race that the premier's office and the party decided to move it to a ballot vote.

00:03:28.480 So they were going to do a vote instead.

00:03:29.760 And that had its own controversy.

00:03:31.600 There were a lot of people who were opponents of Kenny and critics of Kenny who said that this was all sort of planned and schemed to sort of rig the election.

00:03:38.500 And even if Kenny had won, it still would have been a loss because he probably was cheating.

00:03:42.440 I heard a lot of people making those kind of comments.

00:03:44.820 Regardless, I mean, look, we had 34,298 votes cast.

00:03:49.140 It's hard to imagine a party facilitating that many people to allow that many votes in person in a place like Red Deer that just isn't a very big place.

00:03:58.660 So I think in the end that that part was justifiable.

00:04:02.200 But again, we had 34,298 votes cast.

00:04:06.500 The vote counting took place Wednesday at 4 p.m. and lasted till about 6 p.m.

00:04:11.180 The accounting firm Deloitte was hired by the party to oversee the ballot count and audit the results.

00:04:18.200 And so here is the results being announced last night.

00:04:21.780 It came in at I think it was around 830 or something like that Eastern time.

00:04:26.300 So it would have been about 630 or 7 mountain time.

00:04:30.100 And here is what that looked like.

00:04:31.620 Our party's leadership review and selection rules set out that the question in a leadership review shall be, quote,

00:04:40.260 do you approve of the current leader, unquote.

00:04:44.480 Members were given the option to vote yes or no.

00:04:48.020 Those same rules require we announce the number of votes cast for and against the question, as well as the total numbers for the vote.

00:05:00.160 So here are those numbers.

00:05:01.900 I can advise that there were 34,298 votes cast.

00:05:10.240 There were 17,638 yes votes and 16,660 no votes.

00:05:19.520 These numbers represent 51.4 percent yes and 48.6 percent no.

00:05:29.480 So as you see, Kenny technically won the race.

00:05:32.220 He had 17,638 votes in favor of for members saying that he should stay on.

00:05:37.460 That's 51.4 percent of the vote.

00:05:40.080 Contrast that with the 16,660 members who voted to have him removed, which was 48.6 percent.

00:05:46.660 So incredibly close.

00:05:48.340 But Kenny still won.

00:05:49.460 And remember that going into this race, he said, look, if I get 51 percent of the vote,

00:05:53.220 I will consider that a victory and a mandate big enough to stay on.

00:05:57.080 However, that's not the case.

00:06:00.060 So given how close it was, given how split this party is, Jason Kenney came into the room

00:06:05.280 and he made the following speech, essentially just saying that he's going to respect the vote.

00:06:10.880 And you can see the audience starts cheering at that because they interpret that as saying,

00:06:14.820 I'm going to respect the vote.

00:06:15.820 I won the vote.

00:06:16.740 So I'm going to stay on as premier.

00:06:18.020 And then he changes tune and he says that he's going to resign.

00:06:20.500 And you can feel the sort of disappointment and angst in the room because they obviously

00:06:24.100 don't want Kenny to step down.

00:06:25.860 So here is what that clip looked like.

00:06:27.500 I've been clear from day one that I will respect the decision of the members in this leadership

00:06:32.440 review.

00:06:41.660 And I expect all members of our party to do just that.

00:06:45.540 Friends, while 51 percent of the vote passes the constitutional threshold of a majority,

00:06:56.800 it clearly is not adequate support to continue on as leader.

00:07:01.320 And that is why tonight I have informed the president of the party of my intention to step

00:07:06.160 down as leader of the United Conservative Party.

00:07:08.220 I'm sorry, but friends, I truly believe that we need to move forward united.

00:07:16.160 We need to put the past behind us.

00:07:18.300 And our members, a large number of our members have asked for an opportunity to clear the

00:07:22.340 air through a leadership election.

00:07:24.260 And so Kenny did the honorable thing.

00:07:25.700 He did the right thing.

00:07:26.400 I saw a lot of people sort of commending him on social media saying, look, I don't necessarily

00:07:30.820 agree with you.

00:07:31.520 I didn't like you as premier, but you definitely did the honorable thing.

00:07:33.780 Your party is clearly very in battle.

00:07:35.700 It is clearly very split and Kenny felt that he just didn't have the mandate to move forward.

00:07:41.980 So he announced that he is stepping down.

00:07:44.540 And basically what I see from that is this party is split.

00:07:47.680 So go back to the history of the United Conservative Party.

00:07:50.820 It was the party that was founded by Jason Kenny.

00:07:53.300 He united two different parties.

00:07:54.860 He united the Progressive Conservative Party, which is more the establishment Edmonton political

00:08:00.040 party versus the upsert, the Wild Rose Party, which is the sort of more grassroots populist

00:08:05.500 libertarian party.

00:08:06.760 So we still have these two factions, right?

00:08:08.880 These two different types of conservative in Alberta.

00:08:11.840 I mean, there's many, many different types of conservatives, but they sort of fit nicely

00:08:15.060 into these two camps.

00:08:16.240 The camps merged together because they saw that the ultimate goal really was to be the

00:08:20.660 NDP in an election and to govern the province.

00:08:24.460 However, in practice, you could see how they didn't really want to govern.

00:08:27.500 They wanted, they still had that split.

00:08:30.160 They still have that divide where the populist libertarian party wants a certain set of policies

00:08:35.460 and the establishment Conservative Party has a different standard and a different, different

00:08:40.340 expectations of what may happen with a government.

00:08:44.220 So I want to get into the reasons why I think Jason Kenny lost because, because he did lose.

00:08:49.400 He, he lost control of the party that he himself created.

00:08:52.060 He didn't have his, his finger on the pulse in the province.

00:08:55.180 He allowed an uprising and an insurgency and a resistance movement that ultimately took

00:09:00.280 him down.

00:09:01.040 And, you know, as a premier of the province and as the head of the political party, that's

00:09:04.900 ultimately on Jason Kenny that he let that happen.

00:09:07.940 And I've been thinking about it, you know, this, this news just came out last night, but

00:09:11.560 I've been thinking about the reasons why I think that Jason Kenny lost.

00:09:15.340 And I think it can really be boiled down to four reasons.

00:09:17.940 So I'm going to go through the four reasons right now.

00:09:20.060 Number one, I think the most obvious reason that the pundits in the media are going to

00:09:24.000 is COVID, it's a COVID response, it's a COVID handling, it's the pandemic.

00:09:27.520 I think that's true.

00:09:28.440 But there was one particular part of the COVID pandemic management that really stuck out.

00:09:32.920 And I think that this really was a turning point and something that was a sticking point

00:09:36.680 for many conservatives.

00:09:37.520 And that was his flip-flop when it came to vaccine passports.

00:09:40.620 I think Kenny could have been forgiven by the conservative base, by many conservatives

00:09:44.060 in Alberta for the initial lockdowns, for closing down schools, for doing all the things

00:09:48.600 that everyone else was doing.

00:09:49.620 But when it came to the vaccine passports, this is like a red line for many conservatives,

00:09:55.280 especially those of us with libertarian leanings.

00:09:57.200 The idea that the state is going to track our health status and determine whether or not

00:10:01.100 we can get into certain places and have access to certain parts of society based on our personal

00:10:06.280 health status, that that's a bridge too far for most of us.

00:10:08.980 And the fact that it happened all over Canada is a total disgrace.

00:10:13.020 The thing about Jason Kenny, though, and the way he rolled it out, is that his initial response

00:10:16.700 to the idea of a COVID vaccine mandate was completely correct.

00:10:21.020 And he was incredibly articulate.

00:10:22.820 He was incredibly forceful in his opposition to the concept of a vaccine passport.

00:10:28.660 He came out with the exact correct position.

00:10:31.680 And this is in the summer of 2021.

00:10:33.640 This is a clip of Jason Kenny on July 12th, giving the correct response and saying exactly

00:10:39.220 why he vows to not cooperate with the federal government.

00:10:42.700 And he vows to not bring in a vaccine passport.

00:10:45.920 Here's that clip.

00:10:46.780 What's your position of vaccine passports for those individuals unwilling to be vaccinated?

00:10:50.760 Opposed.

00:10:51.300 And we've been very clear from the beginning that we will not facilitate or accept vaccine

00:10:55.220 passports and that, in fact, we regard, I believe that they would, in principle, contravene

00:11:00.600 the Health Information Act and also possibly the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy

00:11:06.820 Act.

00:11:07.120 We also amended the Public Health Act to remove the 110-year-old power, allowing Alberta to force

00:11:13.580 people to be inoculated.

00:11:14.820 So these folks who are concerned about mandatory vaccines have nothing to be concerned about

00:11:19.200 and there will be no vaccine passports in Alberta.

00:11:21.240 Will the provincial government act on behalf of Alberta citizens if the federal government

00:11:24.760 seeks to impose such restrictions?

00:11:26.800 Yes.

00:11:27.380 So there you have it.

00:11:28.080 Jason Kenny was unequivocal in his opposition to vaccine passports.

00:11:32.740 However, a mere two months later, on September 15th, Jason Kenny announced a new set of lockdowns,

00:11:38.780 a new set of restrictions, and yes, a vaccine passport.

00:11:41.680 So dealing with another surge in COVID that came after his, you know, open for the summer

00:11:46.720 marketing campaign that kind of fell flat because it caused a huge spread in COVID or at least

00:11:52.020 facilitated and allowed a huge spread in COVID in Alberta.

00:11:55.620 He sort of reluctantly came out and announced, he didn't even announce it as a vaccine passport,

00:12:00.300 though he called it a restrictions exemption program, which sounded very Orwellian.

00:12:05.000 And so here is a sort of defeated looking Jason Kenny announcing the exact opposite position

00:12:10.980 of the principled stance that he had taken just two months earlier.

00:12:13.780 Here's what that looked like.

00:12:14.840 But it has now become clear that to save lives and prevent business closures, we must go further

00:12:21.120 in encouraging vaccination and reducing the chance of infection for those who are unprotected.

00:12:26.760 That is why the government has reluctantly decided to adopt the restriction exemption program,

00:12:35.440 a proof of vaccination program for participation in certain discretionary activities that have

00:12:41.480 a higher risk of viral transmission.

00:12:44.540 No one will be compelled to get vaccinated against their wishes and a negative test option

00:12:50.100 will be offered as an alternative.

00:12:53.000 But with unvaccinated patients overwhelming our hospitals, this is now the only responsible 1.00

00:12:59.780 choice that we have.

00:13:01.280 So, so there was Jason Kenny even admitting that he had obviously done a flip-flop on this

00:13:06.320 issue.

00:13:07.320 And again, I think that this was just so damaging for the premier, so upsetting to principled conservatives

00:13:12.480 who, first of all, don't want to see a vaccine passport in their province.

00:13:16.260 And second of all, just don't like the idea of a politician reneging and flipping.

00:13:19.760 And, and so I think that was, that was to, to many people, the final straw and the reason

00:13:24.740 why they could just no longer support Jason Kenny.

00:13:27.260 Okay.

00:13:28.260 So the first reason COVID and specifically the COVID, uh, vaccines.

00:13:31.200 Second reason I think Jason Kenny lost this night was just bad timing.

00:13:33.940 This is the first opportunity that many people have had the opportunity to go to the ballot

00:13:37.940 box and express their frustration with the establishment, with the elites, with the experts, uh, since

00:13:42.540 the trucker convoy and since the COVID pandemic, really, I know we had a federal election

00:13:46.720 in 2021.

00:13:47.720 And I think a lot of Albertans were just disgusted because there were not a lot of differentiation

00:13:52.700 between the federal leaders and, uh, you know, regardless of how Alberta votes, uh, we all

00:13:57.800 know that really the, the, the, the people who determine a federal election are people in

00:14:01.740 around Toronto, um, and, and Ontario.

00:14:04.540 So I think that this was the first opportunity that many conservatives and many Canadians

00:14:08.820 had to just express their dismay and their anger and their frustration over government

00:14:13.960 lockdowns, government overreach, uh, this sort of expert class is completely out of touch

00:14:18.420 with the Canadian public.

00:14:20.280 And, and then we also have, you know, all kinds of sort of scary economic situations on

00:14:24.900 the horizon.

00:14:25.320 It looks like we're going into a recession, uh, inflation numbers are out of control.

00:14:29.560 Uh, we're going to have higher interest rates and there's just a lot of problems in the

00:14:33.340 economy in general.

00:14:34.340 I know the economy in Alberta is doing a bit stronger because of the high price of oil,

00:14:38.800 but still there's just sort of a lot of, uh, precarious situations on the horizon.

00:14:44.000 And I think Jason was a little bit of a victim of bad timing.

00:14:47.840 The third reason why I think Jason Kenney lost last night is just a total lack of organization

00:14:53.060 and awareness.

00:14:54.060 Now, if you look at the numbers of the vote last night, so Jason Kenney, as I said, he got

00:14:59.000 17,638 votes in favor, 16,000 votes against, there's only 34,000 people who voted in that

00:15:06.620 race.

00:15:06.960 So really we're talking about a few thousand people here.

00:15:10.380 A few thousand votes would have made all the difference in the world.

00:15:12.760 I think if Jason Kenney had managed to get say 55% of the vote, which is really just an

00:15:17.220 extra 3000 votes, uh, he would have been fine.

00:15:19.900 He would have been able to justify staying on.

00:15:22.000 Um, and yet he couldn't, he couldn't even muster up an additional 3000 votes.

00:15:26.380 So 17,000 was just to put that into context.

00:15:29.360 When Jason Kenney became leader of the party back in 2017, again, it was a party that he

00:15:34.000 founded and he created.

00:15:35.360 Um, he had 35,000 people vote just in favor of him, right?

00:15:39.500 Compare 35,000 to last night where he got 17,000.

00:15:42.640 So he, he, he just wasn't organized.

00:15:44.560 He wasn't able to get his vote out.

00:15:47.080 He wasn't able to mobilize his people, to energize his people, to get them.

00:15:50.380 All they had to do was just fill out a little ballot and put it in the mail.

00:15:53.920 It wasn't like they even had to go and leave their house and go show up somewhere.

00:15:57.200 All they had to do was fill out a ballot, but the sort of groundwork and the organization

00:16:00.640 work, uh, just wasn't there.

00:16:02.860 And again, I, I mentioned, I think Jason Kenney is one of the hardest working people

00:16:06.520 I've ever met and one of the hardest working, if not the most hard working person in Canadian

00:16:11.080 politics.

00:16:11.820 And yet for some reason they couldn't find an extra 3000 people out there in the entire province

00:16:16.800 of Alberta, uh, to lend them support and to vote in this race.

00:16:20.520 So, I mean, just going back to when Jason Kenney was a member of parliament in the 2015

00:16:25.380 federal election, he managed to get 42,000 votes.

00:16:29.720 And this is just in his Calgary, Minneapolis riding in Calgary Southeast.

00:16:33.400 He got 42,000 people to vote for him in an election when everyone knew that the conservatives

00:16:39.240 were going to win in Calgary, uh, regardless, because there wasn't really any opposition.

00:16:43.400 I mean, look at these numbers, Jason Kenney won with 66% of the vote and he still managed

00:16:49.320 to get 42,000 people out just in Calgary.

00:16:52.520 Go back to the 2011 election campaign.

00:16:54.860 Again, when, when Jason's riding was Calgary Southeast, 48,000 people to vote for him in

00:17:01.400 one, in one riding, in one federal riding in one part of Calgary.

00:17:05.500 So if you can get 48,000 people to come out to vote for you in a general election, you can't

00:17:10.060 find an extra 3000 votes across the entire province of Alberta.

00:17:14.040 I think this goes to show that I don't think the premier took this vote very seriously.

00:17:18.640 I don't think that he was organized in the right way.

00:17:20.640 I don't think that he was working with the people of the grassroots level in Alberta to

00:17:26.400 mobilize a vote, activate the vote, energize a vote, and just wasn't, wasn't communicated,

00:17:32.160 wasn't organized in, in a way that he needed, obviously, because otherwise he, he would have

00:17:37.800 been in a much better position to continue to lead this party.

00:17:40.980 So I really think the lack of organization there was a problem.

00:17:44.760 And finally, the fourth reason why I think Jason Kenney lost, and this, this one hits

00:17:49.000 a little closer to home.

00:17:50.440 This was that the premier ignored the influence of independent media.

00:17:54.280 There is no doubt that the independent media in Alberta had a significant impact on this

00:18:00.380 vote.

00:18:00.620 And it is a major part of the reason why we are in this situation, why Jason Kenney will

00:18:05.120 no longer be premier of Alberta.

00:18:07.920 It's clear.

00:18:08.980 Albertans get their news increasingly from independent media.

00:18:11.680 I mentioned I was just in Calgary two weekends ago for a conference, and I couldn't believe

00:18:15.480 how many people came up to me, how many people recognized me, how many people knew about

00:18:19.580 True North and knew about the work that we do here.

00:18:23.000 And I think out of the entire country, there is an outsized interest and viewership of independent

00:18:28.900 media in Alberta, and specifically on the conservative side of the spectrum, right?

00:18:33.180 We're not talking about a general election last night.

00:18:35.560 We're talking about the conservative base and why the conservative base in the most conservative

00:18:39.800 province in the country, Alberta, voted against Premier Kenney.

00:18:44.400 And I think that most of those people, more of those people than anywhere and any other

00:18:48.420 sample group in society gets their news from the independent media.

00:18:51.880 And I'm not just talking about True North.

00:18:53.180 I'm talking about the rebel, the Western Standard, and many other independent journalists,

00:18:57.080 people like Kian Bexte, and of course, us here at True North.

00:19:00.760 But I think as far as a premier goes, it wasn't part of his strategy.

00:19:03.920 He didn't take an interest.

00:19:04.880 He's never really liked the rebel.

00:19:06.360 He's never wanted to have anything to do with the rebel.

00:19:09.040 He doesn't go on their shows.

00:19:10.080 He doesn't really engage with them.

00:19:11.180 Maybe he did five, six years ago, but it's not on his horizon now.

00:19:15.300 And the rebel was really relentless in the way that they covered the premier, covered the

00:19:19.940 United Conservative Party.

00:19:21.280 They didn't treat him with kid gloves.

00:19:24.440 They weren't friendly to him.

00:19:25.620 They didn't give him the benefit of the doubt.

00:19:26.980 They pushed hard against the UCP and against Premier Kenney, trying to embarrass him at

00:19:32.980 any opportunity, trying to expose the things that were happening.

00:19:36.380 And frankly, thank goodness they did.

00:19:37.820 I mean, the high-profile arrests of Christian pastors, I'm talking about Tim Stevens, the

00:19:43.420 Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary, Archer and David Polunsky in Calgary, and James Coates

00:19:48.880 of Grace Life Church in Edmonton.

00:19:51.160 So the rebels' relentless coverage of the attacks on churches, the attacks on Christian

00:19:56.600 pastors, the way that they were treated.

00:19:58.540 And sure, you could say, look, they were breaking the law.

00:20:00.340 They weren't supposed to be having their church service and their church gatherings.

00:20:03.920 I don't care about that.

00:20:05.240 Anytime that you have a government telling a church, telling religious people that their

00:20:10.440 right to pray and their right to go to church has been upended.

00:20:14.360 Meanwhile, you know, grocery stores and Walmart are still open.

00:20:17.700 It is absolutely unconscionable.

00:20:20.400 And for Jason Kenney, who has been a heroic advocate for religious freedom throughout his

00:20:25.160 entire career, to see that happen in his province under his watch was just a level of hypocrisy

00:20:33.640 that I think that many conservatives in Alberta just couldn't get over.

00:20:36.760 And again, I credit the Rebel News for that.

00:20:39.500 I think that had Jason Kenney taken a more collegial approach to the rebel and been more willing

00:20:45.320 to talk to them and more willing to engage with them.

00:20:47.460 The rebel wouldn't have been so dead set on exposing this kind of stuff.

00:20:51.580 And of course, Jason Kenney should have never allowed for the arrests of Christian pastors

00:20:56.020 under his watch in his province.

00:20:58.000 So I think that regardless of which way you look at it, it was a failure on behalf of the

00:21:03.040 premier and his comms team.

00:21:05.220 So those are the four reasons why I think Jason Kenney lost.

00:21:07.960 And I think that there is a lot of room for valid criticism against the premier and the

00:21:13.280 way that he governed and the mistakes that he made.

00:21:15.480 And he'll have to live with that.

00:21:16.940 That is the fate that he has been delivered.

00:21:20.400 Now, I want to get into a bit of a broader analysis because I don't think this is really

00:21:25.400 good news for Albertans.

00:21:26.840 I don't think it is good news for conservatives.

00:21:28.800 And I don't think it is good news for Canada.

00:21:31.300 So I want to pick up on some of the analysis that I've seen out there that I think raises

00:21:35.640 some good points.

00:21:37.320 So we have Brian Lilly of the Toronto Sun tweet this.

00:21:39.660 He says, Alberta has lost a great champion and a great politician.

00:21:43.440 It's a case of people saying they won't accept anything but purity, a warning for the full

00:21:48.600 conservative movement.

00:21:50.160 And so this is the idea that Jason Kenney accomplished some good things.

00:21:53.980 He was a solid conservative leader.

00:21:56.100 And yet, you know, there was this anger.

00:21:58.900 There was this anger that existed over the pandemic.

00:22:01.200 There's this divide that persists in the UCP party between the old Wild Rose and PC factions.

00:22:08.500 And they just couldn't get over that.

00:22:10.380 They allowed sort of the petty differences within the party to bring down a leader.

00:22:14.180 And it's hard to imagine a year from now, the UPC really standing a chance against the

00:22:19.460 NDP.

00:22:19.980 You know, Rachel Notley, the former premier, sort of back.

00:22:22.780 She's popular among a certain subset of Albertans. 0.98

00:22:26.100 And they kind of feel like the government in waiting right now while the UCP party is in

00:22:30.620 shambles.

00:22:31.180 And so you could also observe this as, hey, the conservatives just took down their own leader

00:22:35.900 and they're going to suffer for the next five years because of it under an NDP government,

00:22:40.280 which will be way worse than Jason Kenney.

00:22:42.860 Another insightful analysis that I saw on Twitter came from Kaylin Ford.

00:22:46.760 Kaylin Ford was supposed to be a star candidate in Jason Kenney's caucus.

00:22:50.740 She ran for the UCP but ended up getting ousted before the 2019 election.

00:22:55.300 She was sort of the victim of cancel culture by a smear piece published by the left-wing activist

00:23:00.940 outlet press progress basically derailed her entire political career.

00:23:05.520 Well, she writes this.

00:23:06.500 And I think this is sort of the conventional thinking among many conservatives in Canada

00:23:10.520 right now.

00:23:11.120 She writes this.

00:23:12.340 Albertans, once again, living up to the stereotype as a congenitally quarrelsome bunch.

00:23:17.320 We become ungovernable.

00:23:19.540 There is something admirable about the libertarian spirit of Albertans, or if not always admirable,

00:23:24.920 then reassuring.

00:23:25.940 It's a pretty effective check against bad government.

00:23:28.100 Unfortunately, she writes, it's also a check against good and effective government.

00:23:32.540 Insofar as this leadership review reflects an unwillingness to just forget the damage caused

00:23:36.840 by COVID measures, especially school closures, masked children, and internal passports, I'm

00:23:42.040 sympathetic.

00:23:42.980 The war on memory should be resisted.

00:23:45.160 Accountability is important.

00:23:46.720 But of all the elected leaders who should face some kind of reckoning over zealous, irrational,

00:23:52.100 and inhumane COVID measures, it's ironic that this is the only leader who's likely to go

00:23:56.760 down for it.

00:23:57.660 And that sort of speaks to my point about bad timing for the Kenney government, because

00:24:02.740 had this review happened a year from now, I think a lot of men's would have been healed

00:24:07.120 and we would have moved on.

00:24:08.580 And the focus would have more been on economic management of the province as opposed to people

00:24:12.560 just casting their vote out of anger and frustration about COVID and putting it towards

00:24:17.380 any political elite they could find.

00:24:19.040 And Jason Kenney was sort of the target at the time.

00:24:22.160 I'm going to share one more piece that I thought was insightful this morning.

00:24:25.140 This came from Sean Spear, writing over in The Hub.

00:24:27.920 Sean Spear is a policy advisor and he is a founder of The Hub.

00:24:31.960 It's a great website.

00:24:32.680 I encourage everyone to go check it out at thehub.ca.

00:24:35.200 But he wrote this this morning.

00:24:36.680 He wrote,

00:24:37.040 He writes,

00:25:16.060 Yet nearly half of UCP members who cast their ballots in the party's leadership review disapproved

00:25:28.700 of Kenney's leadership.

00:25:30.200 The obvious question is, what gives?

00:25:32.260 Even accounting for the naked ambitions of some of the anti-Kenney forces, such as the

00:25:37.160 self-evidently unserious Brian Jean or serially foolish Danielle Smith, doesn't quite explain 0.94

00:25:42.400 it.

00:25:42.780 There's something bigger going on.

00:25:44.600 There's a small yet spirited minority of grassroots conservatives who's come to define their

00:25:48.780 politics in solely oppositional terms.

00:25:51.020 It derives from a position of perceived weakness in modern society.

00:25:54.840 They see mainstream institutions, including corporations, universities, and the media, succumbing

00:25:59.680 to an assertive form of progressivism and feel increasingly embattled in a culture war

00:26:04.860 that at times can be quite hostile to their ideas and values.

00:26:08.240 These feelings of powerlessness, marginalization, and condescension are reinforced by online sources

00:26:13.800 of American conservative media.

00:26:15.860 The result is a siege mentality that's more reactionary than it is conservative.

00:26:20.880 These people aren't interested in incremental policy reform.

00:26:23.880 They're looking for a fight.

00:26:25.360 They want to toss a hand grenade into a cathedral of our mainstream institutions.

00:26:30.900 This oppositional conservatism has, of course, been exacerbated by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

00:26:36.180 The entire pandemic experience laid bare in their minds the corruption of the political

00:26:40.680 class and so-called experts.

00:26:42.400 The so-called freedom convoy was the clearest expression of their anger.

00:26:46.520 Now, Kenny's sacking is its most significant.

00:26:49.840 So I think that there is a lot of truth to that.

00:26:51.520 I think there's a lot of anger.

00:26:52.920 But again, rather than blaming the masses or blaming the conservative base, as I think

00:26:57.320 Sean is sort of getting at here, and I think many sort of Kenny insiders and establishment

00:27:01.340 conservatives will do, I think that there needs to be some internal soul searching as

00:27:05.040 well.

00:27:05.300 And I think that there are real and significant missteps that the premier has taken that have

00:27:11.340 led to this situation.

00:27:13.220 Sadly, unfortunately, I'm not happy about it.

00:27:14.940 I do think it is a sad day for conservatism, an unfortunate day in our country.

00:27:21.200 But, you know, there are consequences to political actions.

00:27:23.740 And I think that that is what is playing out in Alberta right now.

00:27:27.720 All right.

00:27:27.880 Thank you so much, everybody, for tuning in.

00:27:29.400 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:27:31.240 Thank you.

The Candice Malcolm Show - May 19, 2022

The four reasons Jason Kenney got ousted as Alberta Premier

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript