Western Standard - FILDEBRANDT - Inside the long revolt against Kenney

00:00:00.000 The most indomitable force in Canadian conservative politics came to a sudden end this week.

00:00:05.600 Jason Kenney has never lost anything before, not even close.

00:00:09.680 None of his seven elections as a federal conservative MP or their accompanying nominations.

00:00:14.860 Not the PC leadership race, not the Wild Rose PC merger war, not the UCP leadership race, not his by-election, not the 2019 Alberta election that some crowned premier.

00:00:26.560 In all of those contests, his opponents were lucky to get close enough to taste the dust from his heels.

00:00:33.240 Many of his supporters believed he would win the leadership review vote because, well, he always wins.

00:00:39.000 It's a logical fallacy that could be made of the Roman Empire, until it couldn't.

00:00:44.000 Most puddings didn't really take notice that there was anything amiss in Tory land until roughly nine months ago.

00:00:50.320 But the seeds of Jason Kenney's undoing were planted much earlier.

00:00:54.020 And those seeds were not simply libertarian and populist outrage at his lockdowns and mandatory mask orders and vaccine mandates.

00:01:04.100 Friends make the worst enemies.

00:01:06.120 Soon after winning the UCP leadership, Kenney showed early signs that loyalty was a one-way street for him.

00:01:11.980 Those that would fight for him would be rewarded, but only so long as they were useful at the moment.

00:01:16.500 Over the first two years of his leadership, he made a growing list of enemies out of those who had been his friends.

00:01:24.200 Those dissidents were not sore losers from the defeated Bryan Jean camp, although the Jean team certainly kept the embers of their fight burning in belief that their man was cheated in 2017.

00:01:34.260 Much of this would be manifest in Take Back Alberta, an organization made up mostly of former Kenney allies.

00:01:42.600 By the fall of 2021, those two camps would form an alliance that would eventually topple the premier.

00:01:50.780 Kenney is a political creature of Stephen Harper's Federal Conservative Party.

00:01:55.100 Despite the Alberta and Reform roots of some parts of that party, Alberta politics and Alberta itself are fundamentally different creatures.

00:02:06.380 For most of its history, the base or right flank of the Reform Party and Federal Conservative Party have been social conservatives.

00:02:14.400 Kenney was born of this part of the conservative coalition and made himself its darling.

00:02:17.860 But federal social conservatives are a remarkably easy group to pacify.

00:02:23.500 With such low expectations of their own political party, most social conservatives are willing to accept a policy statement that can be surmised as,

00:02:32.140 don't make it any worse than it already is now.

00:02:34.940 A little rhetorical respect and a few token policy wins at the margins are normally enough to keep them happy in voting and oftentimes donating and volunteering.

00:02:43.420 When Kenney returned to Alberta to forge and lead the United Conservative Party, he believed that the Alberta Conservative Coalition was not fundamentally different than the national one.

00:02:55.520 Maybe a few degrees right of it, but still configured much the same.

00:02:59.540 It's not.

00:03:01.460 Jason Kenney and I argued about this several times, and I clearly lost it.

00:03:05.620 The Alberta Conservative Coalition contains the moderate, urban, and transactional political elements that define the former federal and Alberta progressive conservative parties.

00:03:16.760 But on the other side, the Wild Rose side was much more complex and less of a straightforward parallel with the Reform Party.

00:03:26.580 Like the Reform Party, the Wild Rose contained social conservatives, but it was hardly the only large and passionate force in it.

00:03:33.760 It contained autonomists, many of whom are now full-fledged sovereigntists and libertarians.

00:03:39.800 Kenney tapped into all of these groups in his unity campaign and subsequent elections as UCP Premier.

00:03:46.420 But as Premier, he struck a significantly more centrist approach.

00:03:52.040 He believed rhetoric and a few token policy actions were enough to appease these groups,

00:03:57.500 as social conservatives are normally willing to accept at the federal level.

00:04:01.260 But when the Wexit movement exploded in the days following the 2019 federal election that saw Justin Trudeau re-elected,

00:04:10.280 Kenney recognized the discontent and struck up the Fair Deal panel.

00:04:14.040 It signaled that under Kenney's leadership, Alberta would launch a campaign to achieve maximum autonomy in Canada,

00:04:20.900 short of independence, much as Quebec has done.

00:04:22.840 But the report fell short, advocating some distance from Ottawa, but far short of many's expectations.

00:04:30.360 In the rest of Kenney's time as Premier, he would only implement a few token items in it.

00:04:35.880 He appointed an Alberta Chief Firearms Officer, which has the potential to do good, if they actually do anything with that job,

00:04:42.660 and he called a referendum to remove equalization from the Constitution.

00:04:46.100 But from the beginning, Kenney undercut the leverage of this action by saying that the vote wasn't really about abolishing equalization,

00:04:54.780 but about obtaining leverage to obtain a few minor tweaks on the formula.

00:04:59.340 It left little negotiating leverage to be had with Ottawa when Albertans voted overwhelmingly to scrap it.

00:05:04.680 The Alberta Firsters in his party and voter base expected him to jump on a plane the next day to Ottawa

00:05:10.780 and browbeat Trudeau until he got them the Fair Deal that he promised them.

00:05:15.440 But he didn't.

00:05:16.720 It was a total and complete silence.

00:05:19.960 Alberta held a referendum on equalization, and its government didn't lift a finger to do anything about it.

00:05:26.220 Kenney's inaction on this front, in no small measure, led to the rise on his right flank of the Wildrose Independence Party.

00:05:32.960 For many who had supported Kenney, they began to see him as a sheep in wolf's clothing.

00:05:39.320 COVID-19 was a disruptive policy force in Alberta, more so than anywhere else in Canada, by far.

00:05:46.320 Repeated lockdowns, police attacking kids for playing hockey, shuttering small businesses with brute force,

00:05:53.480 arresting pastors, raiding churches that refused to close down, force masking, and mandatory vaccines.

00:05:59.860 Each of these actions by his government outraged libertarians and many social conservatives.

00:06:06.060 They weren't just upset that he broke his promise on some obscure policy like income tax bracket creep.

00:06:11.960 His core supporters saw him as an authoritarian attacking their core liberties.

00:06:18.020 When a rancher in central Alberta held a legal rodeo to protest against Kenney's lockdowns,

00:06:25.360 Kenney told his caucus,

00:06:26.780 If they are our base, I want a new base.

00:06:30.300 Kenney defended himself, arguing that these measures were lighter and shorter than in other provinces.

00:06:35.020 But therein lays the fundamental problem with Kenney's leadership.

00:06:38.620 Alberta is, at its core, different than other provinces.

00:06:42.660 Ontario Conservatives, by and large, may have been upset with Doug Ford's COVID-19 crackdowns,

00:06:49.140 but the Ontario Conservative culture is, at its core, loyalist Toryism.

00:06:54.720 It's British in character, and it values stability and competency and tradition as its chief virtues.

00:07:01.600 Alberta's Conservative culture draws much of its inspiration from the American Revolution,

00:07:06.640 prizing liberty and the restraint of government power as its chief virtues.

00:07:10.900 Kenney would likely have gotten away with his COVID-19 crackdown if he was the premier of any other province of Canada.

00:07:18.260 But he wasn't.

00:07:19.560 He was, and still technically is, the premier of Alberta.

00:07:24.420 Volcanism and rhetoric without substantive action may have pacified social conservatives with low expectations

00:07:30.560 at the federal level for nearly two decades of his political career,

00:07:34.240 but it was wholly unsuitable to the much more unruly political culture of Alberta.

00:07:38.940 Alberta, I'm not as bad as the NDP, was not a sufficient argument to save his leadership

00:07:44.860 when he raised the hopes and expectations of his supporters to such high levels.

00:07:50.300 There were a few troublemakers in the party.

00:07:52.500 When UCP MLA Todd Lowen publicly called for Kenney's resignation,

00:07:56.320 the premier moved swiftly to have him removed from the caucus.

00:07:59.660 And while he was at it, he also sat Drew Barnes,

00:08:01.880 who had made increasingly public comments about supporting Alberta independence,

00:08:06.580 or at least strict autonomy.

00:08:08.200 The entire episode was live-blogged on the Western Standard,

00:08:11.720 exposing every lurid detail of the confidential meeting.

00:08:15.640 Kenney may have believed that the dissidents were gone,

00:08:18.560 but the very next day, from his caucus and his own office

00:08:21.760 to the Western Standard, the leaks kept coming.

00:08:24.720 His purge failed to remove but only a few of the dissidents in his ranks

00:08:29.480 and allowed for the two rebel MLAs to speak more freely than ever.

00:08:34.560 When the UCP met for its annual general meeting in November of 2021,

00:08:39.460 a small group of dissidents put their names forward for election to the party's executive.

00:08:43.800 Kenney's easy victory over them gave him and his team a belief

00:08:47.340 that the rebels were paper tigers.

00:08:49.120 They had lots of talk and increasingly got some press beyond the Western Standard, 0.96

00:08:54.920 but they were just a few Brian Jean sore losers 0.65

00:08:57.440 and crackpot conspiracy theorists that couldn't mount a serious political threat. 0.94

00:09:01.840 So went the reasoning.

00:09:03.780 Little did Kenney know that the executive election at that convention

00:09:07.920 was not a coordinated effort and had next to no organization put into it.

00:09:12.660 Their belief that it was a pitched battle gave them a massive sense of overconfidence

00:09:17.280 that would prove fatal when the real fight came a few months later.

00:09:22.520 When enough rebel constituency associations succeeded in forcing a leadership review vote,

00:09:27.940 Kenney's loyalist executive decided upon an in-person vote in Red Deer.

00:09:31.940 They believed his legendary reputation as a political organizer

00:09:34.960 would give him a massive advantage in having delegates signed up,

00:09:38.540 paid, registered, and transported to and from the polling stations.

00:09:42.440 Unbeknownst to Kenney and his team, take back Alberta,

00:09:44.880 mostly his former friends, were prepared and equipped to fight him on his own turf.

00:09:50.920 Their town halls, often several in a single evening,

00:09:53.640 popped up like gophers in different cities,

00:09:55.880 small towns, villages, and even barns in every corner of Alberta.

00:10:01.040 Kenney shrugged this off,

00:10:02.340 claiming that he had the support of broad mainstream conservatives

00:10:05.620 and that, quote,

00:10:06.760 Some are angry with a government that promoted safe and effective vaccines.

00:10:11.160 Well, it was a massive missing of the mark.

00:10:14.680 A great many mainstream conservatives were turning on Kenney,

00:10:18.020 and most of those angry at him were not vexed at his support for vaccines.

00:10:22.640 They were miffed at him for forcing vaccines on them against their personal choices

00:10:26.860 and a great many other authoritarian COVID policies.

00:10:29.760 The annoyance at government COVID-19 policies had already caught fire

00:10:35.540 and sparked the Freedom Convoy, led mostly by Albertans.

00:10:39.680 Soon after its arrival in Ottawa,

00:10:41.420 Aaron O'Toole was toppled as federal conservative leader.

00:10:44.760 The premier's office at Edmonton

00:10:46.200 eyed that development uneasily,

00:10:48.300 the first signs of trouble at home.

00:10:50.120 It was not until about a week before the membership caught off for the Red Deer vote

00:10:54.600 that the Kenney camp appeared to take any notice at all

00:10:57.980 that the threat against them was actually real.

00:11:01.300 In a leaked audio recording of Kenney speaking to his staff, 0.89

00:11:04.800 he labeled his opponents as lunatics and right-wing extremists. 0.90

00:11:09.040 He said, quote, 0.99

00:11:09.980 The lunatics are trying to take over the asylum.

00:11:13.080 He told a group of visible and religious minorities in northeast Calgary 0.91

00:11:16.360 that his opponents were fueled by, quote,

00:11:18.800 racism, hatred, and intolerance.

00:11:22.560 To many, this smacked of Hillary Clinton's basket of deplorables 1.00

00:11:26.700 and Justin Trudeau's fringe minority with unacceptable views.

00:11:31.480 It was a stunning tactic for a man who hailed himself 1.00

00:11:33.800 as the great uniter of conservatives

00:11:35.320 to label those opposing his continued leadership

00:11:38.260 as unfit for participation in party democracy.

00:11:42.740 Kenney's argument that he was the only man

00:11:44.860 who could keep the united conservative party united

00:11:47.160 began to appear increasingly out of step with his own words.

00:11:52.040 In the background to all of this,

00:11:53.920 nominations for Kenney-allied MLAs began to open up.

00:11:57.360 Unexpectedly, for them at least,

00:11:59.620 serious challengers emerged running on an anti-Kenney platform,

00:12:03.480 selling huge numbers of memberships.

00:12:05.120 Unsurprisingly, the party brass disqualify these challengers

00:12:08.920 against Jason Nixon and Joseph Shao on the flimsiest of grounds.

00:12:13.400 While this may have protected Kenney's allies

00:12:15.280 against losing their nominations at home,

00:12:17.540 it swelled the ranks with even more angry members

00:12:20.320 looking to settle a score with the premier.

00:12:22.180 As the membership cutoff approached,

00:12:26.060 15,000 people registered to vote in Red Deer.

00:12:28.940 From the data I was provided,

00:12:30.620 the result would not have even been close.

00:12:33.380 The premier would have struggled

00:12:35.420 to break above 30% in that scenario.

00:12:38.940 The in-person vote was designed

00:12:40.640 to play to Kenney's strength as an organizer,

00:12:43.620 but its real effect

00:12:44.600 was to advantage the side with the most motivation.

00:12:47.940 You can guess which side that was.

00:12:50.240 So his executive voted to scrap the in-person vote altogether

00:12:53.320 and move to a mail-in vote.

00:12:55.580 While some accommodation needed to be made

00:12:57.240 for the unprecedented number of voters,

00:12:59.680 they changed the rules of the game entirely

00:13:01.540 to Kenney's favor.

00:13:03.440 They gave Kenney an extra entire month

00:13:05.980 in which to campaign

00:13:06.920 and to put some more distance between the vote

00:13:09.780 and the stench of his unpopular COVID policies.

00:13:13.380 The Kenney campaign was racked

00:13:14.760 by allegations of misdeeds,

00:13:16.780 common among them the bulk buying

00:13:18.740 of memberships in ethnic communities

00:13:20.500 on single credit cards.

00:13:23.680 When we began the live broadcast

00:13:25.580 of the leadership review vote this week,

00:13:28.780 the party promised that the results

00:13:30.280 would have been released sometime

00:13:31.480 between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

00:13:34.280 I predicted that if the results came early,

00:13:36.920 it would have been good news for the premier,

00:13:39.360 but a later result would be an omen of doom.

00:13:41.800 Well, the results came late, very late at 6.40.

00:13:47.220 And for what seems like a pretty good reason.

00:13:49.560 At 51% of the vote,

00:13:51.180 even after favorably rewriting the rules

00:13:53.400 and stacking the deck,

00:13:54.920 it was clearly impossible for Kenney

00:13:56.720 to lead the party forward.

00:13:58.560 No leader of any party in Canada

00:14:00.100 has been able to successfully continue leading a party

00:14:02.800 with less than 70% at a minimum.

00:14:05.380 Kenney had given every indication

00:14:08.860 that he would attempt to hang on to power

00:14:10.580 with even the narrowest margin of victory,

00:14:13.460 consequences to the unity

00:14:14.820 of the United Conservative Party be damned.

00:14:17.820 Make no mistake, 0.72

00:14:19.160 it certainly would have meant the end

00:14:21.040 of the United Conservative Party in Alberta.

00:14:23.900 Much to my surprise,

00:14:25.700 he actually resigned.

00:14:27.260 He was humble and even graceful

00:14:28.900 in a very difficult moment.

00:14:30.040 Well, he sort of resigned.

00:14:33.340 As Don Braid of the Calgary Herald wrote in his column,

00:14:36.580 Kenney intends to stay on

00:14:37.940 as a caretaker, leader, and premier

00:14:39.520 until his successor is elected.

00:14:42.740 Even running to succeed himself isn't off the table.

00:14:45.680 However, some staff close to him

00:14:47.540 tell me that's pretty unlikely.

00:14:49.660 Kenney is without a doubt

00:14:50.600 the most internally divisive leader

00:14:52.220 any of Alberta's Conservative parties have ever had.

00:14:55.100 His desire to stick around a while longer

00:14:57.640 is probably motivated by a desire

00:14:59.240 to do at least a few last popular things

00:15:01.680 and try to build some kind of legacy for posterity.

00:15:06.200 But it would be at odds

00:15:07.500 with the desire of the party to move on

00:15:09.380 and Kenney's own stated goal

00:15:11.040 of putting the past behind them.

00:15:13.140 The two as yet frontrunners for Kenney's successor,

00:15:16.560 Brian Jean and Daniel Smith,

00:15:18.300 are both openly anti-Kenney.

00:15:20.460 There's a good chance

00:15:21.240 they will run against the record

00:15:22.480 of the sitting premier

00:15:23.560 and it could prove a little awkward

00:15:25.200 for him hanging around the place

00:15:26.920 like a guest who stayed too long

00:15:28.640 after everyone else has left the party.

00:15:31.100 For the good of the United Conservative Party,

00:15:33.360 Kenney should allow his caucus

00:15:34.540 to select an interim leader

00:15:35.740 and the premier to mine the furniture

00:15:38.240 until a full-time replacement is elected.

00:15:41.060 And for God's sakes,

00:15:42.420 pause these phony nomination races

00:15:44.340 until the new leader is elected.

00:15:48.480 Kenney never lost until he did.

00:15:50.700 He was very likely

00:15:52.540 the most celebrated force

00:15:53.660 of political nature in Canada,

00:15:55.300 a man who has never been stopped.

00:15:57.900 Nobody could beat him.

00:15:59.980 He's beat.

00:16:01.680 In all his many battles

00:16:02.960 against the federal liberals,

00:16:04.640 Brian Jean,

00:16:05.960 their merger refuseniks,

00:16:07.480 he crushed them all.

00:16:09.100 It was only against his former supporters

00:16:10.980 who once believed

00:16:12.180 that he was their champion

00:16:13.380 did he finally break.

00:16:14.940 Now Kenney joins the ranks

00:16:17.320 of the three PC premieres

00:16:18.820 that preceded him.

00:16:20.060 A single, incomplete term.

00:16:22.500 Not since Ralph Klein nearly 20 years ago

00:16:24.760 has a conservative premier

00:16:26.080 even been given the opportunity

00:16:27.540 to stand for re-election.

00:16:29.640 Since then,

00:16:30.800 Ed Stelmack,

00:16:31.720 Alison Redford,

00:16:32.620 and Jim Prentiss

00:16:33.340 have only had a single kick at the can.

00:16:36.040 As Kenney used to say of Rachel Notley,

00:16:38.700 one and done.

00:16:39.740 It's entirely possible,

00:16:40.980 and I think increasingly likely,

00:16:42.620 that Alberta's conservatives

00:16:43.560 are ungovernable

00:16:44.980 as a single,

00:16:46.040 monolithic party.

00:16:47.460 Jason Kenney

00:16:48.040 is only the latest

00:16:49.340 to fail at this unenviable task.

Western Standard - May 20, 2022

FILDEBRANDT - Inside the long revolt against Kenney

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript