CORY'S RANT The elitism in the UCP
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Summary
The new rules for the UCP leadership race have been released, and they re a slap in the face to supporters of grassroots politics. If a candidate wants to run for the leadership, they have to pay a hefty deposit of $175,000, plus a $25,000 deposit, and the remaining $50,000 has to be paid within a month and a half.
Transcript
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rules for the UCP leadership race have finally come out. I shouldn't say finally, they weren't
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terribly delayed. They got it going in a reasonable speed. But unfortunately, it's not good. The UCP
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has now shed the last remnants of being a grassroots-based party with the release of
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these leadership rules. Now, if a person wants to throw their hat into the ring and run for the UCP
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leadership, they're going to have to come up with no less than $175,000 in order to do so.
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So, $100,000 of that fee plus a $25,000 deposit has to be paid by July 29th, you know, a month and
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change. And the remaining $50,000 has to be paid two weeks later. That sort of fee for participation
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in what's supposed to be a democratic exercise is a slap in the face for people who value bottom-up
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grassroots politics. Now, there's good reasons for deposits and adding a cost for entry in
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leadership races. I'm not denying that. Leadership races are serious business, particularly when
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the new leader will become the premier of the province. A bar has to be set to ensure the
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contender is making a serious bid for the position and has the ability to reasonably contest it.
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It's difficult to run a race if there's over a dozen contestants in there. So, you know,
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you want to kind of narrow the field. That said, too damn bad. Who said it's supposed to be easy?
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If we end up with 12 in there, so what? Let's have at it. May the best candidate win.
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The bar has never been set for a provincial race like this as ridiculously high as $175,000.
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In the 2017 race, contestants had to pay two installments of $37,500 and they had months to
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do it. There was also a $20,000 deposit. That totaled $80,000 less than this upcoming race and
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with a much longer timeline for organization and getting ready to do it. In 2017, despite the much
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lower bar for entry as well, only four candidates entered that race. It's safe to say the bar was
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high enough to be effective. It may, in fact, even have been too high at that time. No signatures were
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required from members in 2017 either, by the way. In the 2022 race, you need a thousand signatures
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from members and it's going to be required from a number of regions. Now, I'm okay with setting a
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high bar for petition signatures. A candidate can meet that requirement with hard work and good
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organization, even if they don't have a large campaign war chest. It also stops somebody who may
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have more money than they know what they do with and they're just going to toss a whimsical application
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in for the job. There's a minimum bar of work that's going to be required. A deposit for compliance
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is good policy as well. I've served on leadership committees and I know all too well what kind of
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stunts some campaigns can try and pull off. Having a deposit on file helps encourage good behavior on
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the part of the campaigns and it gives the party a means to quietly discipline campaigns if it's required
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rather than turning it into a public debacle. If a candidate is trustworthy and has good connections,
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they could perhaps find sponsors confident enough to front the fee at least for the deposit
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with the knowledge they'll get it back later. Now, Albertans rejected the progressive conservative
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party because it'd become too elitist and disconnected from ground level citizens.
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The Wildrose party grew and flourished as people embraced the grassroots principles of the movement
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reminiscent of the reform party of the 1990s. We like the idea that as members we count and anybody
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can reasonably contest any position within the party even if they aren't part of a well-heeled
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establishment. Much of the decline of the UCP in support in this last couple of years has been
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due to the top-down management style of Jason Kinney since he became premier. People felt the party had
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returned to the PC style of closed-door elitism and they were right. To quote Rick Bell,
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Tory land had returned. In setting such a ridiculously high bar for entry into the leadership race,
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the UCP is demonstrating that they still don't have a clue why their support both in the polls and in
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grassroots financial contributions has plummeted. If they do have a clue, they're demonstrating they
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don't care and I'm not sure which is worse. This does not bode well for a party reliant on strong
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rural support for donations and volunteers. And of course, there's urban people who value grassroots
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participation as well. Elitism is not going to draw back the members who had turned away because the
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party's return to the old progressive conservative ways. UCP has an opportunity to rebrand itself and
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rejuvenate. They could demonstrate to former supporters, and there's a lot of former ones
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now, that they've learned their lesson in this last four years and they're going to return to
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the grassroots principles they sold to voters when the party was formed. Instead, the UCP is appearing
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tone-deaf and elitist. One can hope the new leader, and I'm not going to blame the leader candidates for
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this, for whoever it might be, can change this perception. For now though, Rachel Notley is rubbing her
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pants together in anticipation of another term as premier while the UCP appears as determined as
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ever to alienate its own support base. I'd really hoped for better.