Will the UCP survive in 2022？
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Summary
What will 2022 look like for Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party of Alberta? We ll talk to an insider to find out. On this episode of The Candice Malcolm Show, host Candice talks to Vitor Marciano about the UCP's upcoming leadership review, and what it could mean for the party.
Transcript
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What will 2022 look like for Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party of Alberta?
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We'll talk to an insider to find out. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
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Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. And over the Christmas holidays,
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things slow down a little bit. So rather than talking about the news of the day,
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we like to take a step back and sort of analyze what the state of affairs are
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in the conservative movement in Canada and conservative parties and conservative governments
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like the one in Alberta. And so to do that, we're going to look ahead to see what is in store for
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the conservatives, specifically in Alberta, but also conservatives across the country. We're going
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to look at that UCP convention that's coming up probably in April and we want to sort of break
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it down and understand what the year is going to look like. And to do that, I am joined by
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frequent guests here on True North and The Candice Malcolm Show, conservative strategist Vitor Marciano.
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Vitor is a longtime conservative strategist. He was a senior advisor to former Wildrose leaders,
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both of them, Danielle Smith and Brian Jean. He was also an Alberta National Counselor for the
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Conservative Party of Canada. And Vitor is now an energy advocacy consultant based in Edmonton.
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Vitor Marciano, thank you so much for joining The Candice Malcolm Show.
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So in a recent interview we did, we talked a little bit about how Jason Kenney survived the
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UCP convention, but that the big question will come next year in a leadership review. So let's
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look ahead to 2022. Walk us through what does the year look like? What's going to happen to Jason
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Kenney? I mean, it's still hard to predict. Depending on the final voting method and all of the details of
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how the convention works, Jason Kenney may or may not survive it. If it's a, delegated is the wrong
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word, but if it's a leadership vote at a convention where you've got to pay $300, $400 to attend
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with some new rulings from Alberta's elections commissioner about what money PACs can put in,
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Jason's got a shot at surviving it. If it's a one member, one vote thing, he's not going to get
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enough results. But it looks like it's going to be a convention. So there's, I'd say it's 50-50
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whether or not Jason survives it. And then that makes for sort of a crazy year in Alberta politics,
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because we're going into the last, you know, we're right now we're 16 months away from an election.
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So by the time that the decision is made on Jason Kenney, they'll be 13 months away from an election.
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So when, when is the, when is the convention scheduled? First of all, right now it's scheduled
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for about April 9th, but that could change. There are discussions happening at the executive party
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level. There was a motion made by more than 22 ridings to force one before March 15th, whether
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or not the party will accept that, whether or not it'll end up getting in front of a judge, because
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that's actually inside the party constitution, the mechanism that was used to try to force this vote,
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that's all up in the air. But, you know, at the latest, by the second week of April,
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we'll know whether or not we have Jason Kenney staying or Jason Kenney going.
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And so, so walk us through the scenarios. So, so if the party, it looked like they rallied around
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Jason in the last leadership convention, Jason Kenney, you know, what would, what would the party
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look like if they rally around and what did they have to do to continue in office to maybe change
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things to govern in a more responsible, more popular way to get ready for the, the, the big
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sort of provincial election the following year? If Jason Kenney survives the leadership review,
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I think the party's in trouble and at some risk of coming apart. I do think, I think the way he'll
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survive it will cause all sorts of problems. And then, you know, his likelihood of winning an election
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against Rachel Notley will look, it looks highly unlikely that they have problems in every region
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of the province. They have problems with every voting segment. If Jason started to do a variety
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of things dramatically differently, maybe he could turn that around, but, but change has not been Jason's
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strong point. You know, an awful lot of Jason's experience, you know, if you watch Jason Kenney on
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any given day, he looks an awful lot like the Jason Kenney you saw the month before and last year and the
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year before that. It's just, there's no, there's been no evolution in his presentation, in his style,
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in his format, in his ability to delegate jobs to other people in the government. It's still very
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much government by Jason. It's not working right now. So if, if Jason survives, that's a problem.
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If Jason doesn't survive, the party will go into hopefully a quickie leadership race, but maybe not.
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And, and whoever's the new leader is going to have to work really hard to sort of show Albertans
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change, a change in style, a change in approach that makes them march back to the UCP. Because
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right now they've been with Rachel Notley at a majority government level of support for over two
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years. And, you know, there's a real risk that that support level crystallizes. You know, we're all
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more actively involved in politics. We think that voters are political. Voters aren't that political.
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And, and you do get seat changes every now and then. And there's a risk that what's happened with
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the UCP will pile on to the seat change that happened with voters when they rejected the PCs in
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2015. Like that, that it may actually walk in that rejection, and that it becomes complicated.
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Well, and it's interesting, just given the mayoral elections that happened earlier in 2021, as well,
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you know, this idea that, that conservatives will always reign in, in Alberta. You know,
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we saw two very progressive mayors being elected in both Edmonton, which might not be so surprising,
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but Calgary as well. We've had over a decade of, of a left-wing progressive mayor and, and just
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elected another one. So, so there obviously is an appetite for something that's not conservative
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People forget this, that even in the heyday of Ralph Klein, north of 35% of Albertans were voting
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center-left. And, you know, the center-right party to win has to hold its base, motivate people,
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be doing good and interesting things. It's got to be, it's got to be good government. And one of the
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problems that's happening right now is that this government's got, it gets into tunnel vision,
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and it pays attention to one or two things at a time. And there's thousands of little issues that
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hundreds of little stakeholder groups would like the government to fix, and they can't get these
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things on the government's agenda. So they start to get mad at the government. And lately, an awful lot
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of those little things, a lot of, a lot of those little agenda items are coming out of rural Alberta.
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So now, you know, roughly just under half of the seats in Alberta are not in Edmonton proper or
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Calgary proper. Well, those used to be very secure for the Conservatives. They are not as secure anymore.
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And this is a problem. This is a, this is a dramatic problem. And, you know, the Kennedy government has
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been relatively ineffective. And it's, this is a, like, you know, if you don't want to blame them for
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COVID, if you don't want to blame them for the economy, but you could say everything else they
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got right, then they'd be in better shape. But what happens is, you know, there are subgroups
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within farmers who think that stuff has been done wrong, and realtors who think stuff has been done
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wrong, and charitable groups in rural Alberta who think stuff has been done wrong. There's all sorts
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of these little compounding grievances that create an issue. Absolutely. Okay, well, so when I think of
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the big issue, when I think of what Jason Kenney sort of got brought in, and the thing that when I
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talked to friends in Alberta who weren't political at all, that just what they saw and what they thought
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of Jason Kenney was somehow that the oil and gas sector in Alberta would be protected, would be
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boosted, that they'd have a fighter that would fight back against Justin Trudeau and his sort of
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heavy handed policies, you know, change the rhetoric from from Rachel Notley. But we look at the state of
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of energy in in the province of Alberta, you look at some of the things that Justin Trudeau has
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implemented. I mean, he was at the COP26 conference in October, November 2021. And he he he pledged a
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hard cap on oil and gas, his rhetoric is getting more and more vitriolic towards energy workers. And
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then at the same time, we see a sort of lawlessness that happens with activists, blocking critical
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infrastructure, stopping pipelines from being built or people from getting to their job sites. And it
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doesn't seem like there's a lot done. Now, obviously, Jason Kenney can't stop Justin Trudeau's
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rhetoric, he can't stop the lawlessness in British Columbia when it comes to allowing resource workers.
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But I think what what people really wanted was was an advocate and someone to champion this issue. So
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so what what can be done? I mean, I don't want to be unfair to Jason to say that he should be doing
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things that are outside of his jurisdiction. But but what what can be done from an Albertan perspective,
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even from a Canadian perspective, to push back against some of the stuff, Vitor and stand up
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for the industry that's so vital to our economy, the core industry, really, of our society?
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It's funny, because Jason Kenney, if you list those things off as what's the any and you're saying,
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what can be done? Jason Kenney is doing a lot of the correct what's the problem is, the how's stink.
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So we do we did need somebody out there defending the industry. Creating it as a sort of partisan war room
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that doesn't do things particularly well, that wasn't useful. You know, the war room should have been
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going out there looking for the thousand points of light of people who are prepared to defend the industry
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and providing grants and and subsidies and funding studies and doing lots of the clever things the left
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does. Instead, the war room decided that they would make themselves as important. It's not working.
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There's some amazing stories that are happening in our energy industry, stories about energy
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transformation, carbon recycling, carbon tech as a whole. This government's been not very good at
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telling them. The number of times the government has an announcement to make about interesting
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technological things in the oil and gas sector. And they show up and they hold the press conference.
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And they make the press conference so overtly political and they don't have any negotiations
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with the media that literally there's an oil and gas CEO standing there and they don't get any
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questions. All of the questions are for the premier or for the minister. And this is a
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inability of the government to negotiate the story. I mean, the politician should use their bully
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pulpit to get the media in the room. They should do a 20 second, 30 second introduction on how magical
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the technology is and then say, let me let you speak to the boss, the person who's invented this.
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Let me talk up these wonderful stories that actually have the potential to define Alberta for the next
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50 years. They haven't done those things well. And so everything ends up being viewed through a
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political veil. And the political veil is Jason Kenney. And a lot of the stuff that's happening isn't
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happening very well. And then the other part that Jason suffers from is he campaigned on and won because he
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was going to fight Justin Trudeau. And there's an awful lot of people in Alberta who are feeling like, no, no,
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you're fighting us more than you're fighting Trudeau. Because frankly, fighting Trudeau is difficult and
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complicated. And there's got to be clever ways to do it. And you've got to do it in a way that's, you know, you've got to
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disagree without being completely disagreeable, except for the times when you really should be
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completely disagreeable. A lot of this stuff hasn't been done very, very well. And it's made it
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complicated. It's complicated. The oil and gas sector are going to have a great year in 2022.
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And it's not going to help. Because they're having a great year. But they're banking that money. They're
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paying down debt. They're putting out dividends because they're not sure that there's going to be
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a great year in 2023 or 2024 or 2025. And so they're not reinvesting in the industry. And it's
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that capital reinvestment that really keeps people employed in the oil and gas sector. You know, it's
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going to be a great year for CNRL and Suncor and Imperial Oil, probably worth holding their stock.
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But it's not going to be a great year for energy workers, because there's not going to be as much
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energy work as everybody expects, even though the industry is going to be going.
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Interesting. I'll just change gears a little, Vitor. So one of the sort of good news stories,
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I think, from Alberta in the last year was this equalization referendum. Because I think that
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there was a pretty clear message that was sent to the federal government that Albertans aren't happy
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with the fiscal formula. They're not happy with the way they're treated federally. And if anything,
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maybe Alberta wants to be treated more like Quebec and be given more autonomy, more independence,
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allow more control over their own business. Do you think that the equalization referendum
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will have that impact? What do you think will happen in this next year with this vote?
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It should. And I honestly believe that a lot of the smaller provinces are actually going to be keen
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for constitutional discussions, because everybody's going to be hurting for money because of how COVID
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changes health care spending. But Jason Kenney's kind of half dropped it already. He celebrated that
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he got the vote, but he hasn't introduced the motion in the legislature that, you know, in Alberta,
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we actually have a law that says you needed to have a vote before you can have a motion in the legislature
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to introduce constitutional negotiations. The Supreme Court has said a motion in a legislature
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introducing constitutional negotiations puts an obligation on the other provinces in the federal
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government to negotiate. Well, Jason Kenney should act on that. He hasn't. But I do believe he will
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at some point. And I do believe that that will get the ball started. I think constitutional negotiations
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are a good thing for Canada. I'm very much in the minority. Everybody I know who's like a former senior
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staffer to a prime minister or a premier, they are all like, ah, constitutional negotiations.
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They're afraid of these things. You don't know what could come of it. And my answer is,
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unless you think Canada is perfect the way it is, whatever could come of it is probably a good
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thing. You know, the last time we tried this was 30 years ago in 1992 with Charlottetown. Heck,
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if you were to show Canadians have a debate today as to whether or not if Charlottetown had passed,
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things would be better. A lot of people might think they would be. Every 30 years discussing
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important constitutional matters is good for a country.
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Well, and to conservatives who might not like the 1982 charter and might not feel like it really
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cements some of the rights that we hold near and dear, you know, a constitutional discussion is the
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only way to make progress on that. I tend to agree with you on that one. I want to talk a little bit
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more about the federal scene and federal politics, because in our last discussion, we also talked about
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how Aaron O'Toole might be in a bit of trouble. Now, it seems like the Conservative caucus has sort
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of rallied around him and that, from my perspective, it's like, you know, they may not be happy with
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the job he's done and the direction he's taken, but the devil you know is better than the devil you
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don't know, and, you know, the uncertainty of who might run for leader of this party and what that
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might look. But that in of itself is a problem, Peter. Why aren't there more talent? Why aren't there
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more exciting people out there who want to have the chance to become prime minister? I mean, leading the
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Conservative Party, aside from leading the Liberal Party, and that job is taken. It's the best
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opportunity that you have to, you know, a couple years ago, we had a whole bunch of people running.
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There were, I think, 17, 18 candidates, and there was excitement around, you know, Kevin O'Leary
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joining the race and some high-profile cabinet ministers, whereas, you know, when it comes to
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the race that Aaron O'Toole ran and won, it was sort of uninteresting, and now there isn't really
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anyone sort of challenging him. So why is it that the Conservative Party leader job is
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so unpopular that no one wants it? And what do you think about Aaron O'Toole and the job he's doing?
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Okay, well, let me start with Aaron O'Toole. I think right now his caucus is giving him
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a chance to prove himself. Like, I don't think they're supportive, but I don't think they're
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ready to take him on just yet. They want to see whether or not he's learned from his mistakes,
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and he can improve things. I mean, to be fair to Aaron, he did talk about how Stephen Harper,
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after the 04 election, retooled, you know, still had a tough year in 05, late 05, 06 wins, because
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they're learning, they're changing, they're doing things differently. So an awful lot of the CPC caucus
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is looking to see if Team O'Toole does things differently. So far, it's not looking good. Like,
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this is, an awful lot of this is back to, you know, it's back to the hows. It's the how you manage
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caucus. It's the how you share the limelight. It's the what you put in the window. Actually,
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it's not even the what you put in the window. It's the how you put stuff in the window,
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how you communicate to Canadians, because you can take the exact same message and deliver it in a
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way that's boring and doesn't move people, or deliver it in a way that creates some sense of
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excitement and future optimism. He's got to get that act together. Right now, he's benefiting from
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the fact that there's only one or two people who, in his caucus, who look like they might be better
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at the job than he is. And they all have questions around them that slow people down, even though
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people might be emotionally intrigued by them. Nobody's super excited about someone because they've
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gone past the emotional intrigue to the intellectual certainty that they'd be a better leader.
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I presume you're talking about Leslie Lewis, Pierre Polyevs. Leslie, Pierre, Michelle Rempel.
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There's lots of wonderful people, but they all have little, little things that make people go,
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what, got to check that out a little bit more. Need to understand why that happened. Things like that.
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In terms of why the job is not particularly appealing. Well, it's because it's not really one
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conservative party. It's like three or four. And they're, it's hard to hold them together. It's a
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often a war to hold them together. So that part of the job isn't really appealing. Then the way we do
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politics isn't really appealing for outsiders to come in. Then frankly, when outsiders come in,
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they usually get their butts handed to them because politics is not the same as being an executive for
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a corporation. So people who might have the intellectual horsepower or the organizational
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horsepower or the business horsepower to do the job, man, that, that job's not that attractive.
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We've, we've evolved in a strange direction that kind of makes you, you'd have to be kind of crazy
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to want to lead a political party. And I say that as somebody who's helped people who like led political
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parties, it's, it's, it's not a pleasant job. So I think Aaron can survive the year by doing a series
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of small changes in process and, and probably reconsolidate that caucus, but he's, you know,
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he will get one more kick at the can. And if he doesn't succeed, he is gone. If he changes things
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dramatically, if he rethinks how we present stuff, if he rethinks how he shows off his caucus, if he
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rethinks how he big picture vision, a big Canada vision of the conservative party, if he does some
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innovative messaging things that change the nature of the conservative coalition in this country,
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then, then he could have some good success, but it's, it's going to be, it's going to be an
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interesting year to watch. I'd say, you know, like I said earlier about Jason Kenney, I think Aaron
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O'Toole, it's 50-50 on whether he's still the leader at the end of 2022.
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Oh, that's interesting. One of the things that I've been thinking a little bit about, Vitor,
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is how the conservatives have already fractured. I mean, if you go back to the 2017 leadership race,
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it was very, very close between Maxime Bernier and Andrew Scheer. I mean, Bernier was leading on
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every ballot all the way up to the very last one. And yet here we, here we are a few years later,
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and Bernier is like in a separate universe. And I sort of wonder, like, are libertarians still welcome
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in the conservative party? I mean, you sort of saw O'Toole's heavy-handed pro-vaccine mandate,
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pro-vaccine stuff during the campaign. It seemed like they just wanted the libertarians and the
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civil liberties people to shut up and go away and kind of wrote them off in the same way that
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Trudeau did. Do you think that presents a part, a problem for the party? And this is the last
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question, because I know you have to get going. But I just, I just wonder, like, do you think that
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the libertarians and Maxime Bernier wing would ever be welcomed back under any scenario to the
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conservative fold? Yes, but it's probably going to have to involve Aaron O'Toole and a whole bunch of people
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in our chase for security and safety, we might have given up more freedoms. And some of the things
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we were told and we repeated might not have been accurate. COVID is making fools out of politicians who
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think they have certainty. And one of the things that, that is missing is a smart politician would be
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talking continuously about the uncertainty around COVID. And, and appealing to Canadians to be decent
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and kind to each other. Because we have lots of different opinions based on the uncertainty and
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we're reacting to different parts of the uncertainty. And in different ways. Hopefully COVID goes away
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quickly, or doesn't go away at all, in which case more people will sort of say, Oh, yeah, we can't
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continue to live like this forever. And that will, that will adjust the curve. But bringing libertarians
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and civil liberties folks back into the conservative tent in the next little while, it's going to be
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tough. Interesting. All right, Vitor, well, I really appreciate you coming on. I hope you and your family
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have a wonderful Merry Christmas. And it's been great. We appreciate having you on True North and
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on the Candace Malcolm show throughout the last year. And hope, hopefully we'll see you again a lot in the
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new year. I'm looking forward to it. Happy New Year to you and everybody who's watching.
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All right. Thank you so much, Vitor. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Candace Malcolm. And this