There’s a leadership review going on right now in Alberta. The United Conservative Party is holding a mail-in ballot on their party leader, Premier Jason Kenney. If he gets a good result, he stays leader and Premier. If not, then there will be a leadership contest.
Kenney won the provincial election in 2019, but discontent has been growing, in part over his handling of the covid pandemic. His poll numbers aren’t doing so well:
Results to be known May 11; stay tuned.
Kenney has the problems of trying to appeal to a party dividing into two different paths. I think this will be a big challenge and that some people are unsympathetic, especially with Covid. Time will tell.
Kenney gave an interview with the National Post:
Nice to see tone-deaf juxtapositions also exist in Canadian politics:
Kenney ended his speech by saying uniting conservatives in Alberta requires “constant effort”, and that it is much easier to criticize than to lead during historic crises.
…/Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, said Kenney’s speech — where he suggested the NDP and federal Liberal government pose “a great threat” — went as expected.
Kenney, when “Minister of Curry in a Hurry” (not my characterization) was smart to broaden Conservative appeal by courting religious and ethnic groups. More useful in Toronto than Taber? I couldn’t say.
The health contingent I know in Alberta really have few kind words for Kenney. I do not know enough about his opposition to assess his chances. But he is certainly very vulnerable. He has nothing to fear from Alberta Liberals, probably, but many were probably surprised when the NDP got elected before.
If he stays, there will be trouble…
This is key. Albertans hated the Covid restrictions that Kenney brought in. He almost redeemed himself when he opened Alberta fully last summer, but when he locked it down again in September, he sealed his fate. It’s not that he’s a bad premier, or that he’s not conservative enough; it’s that he took our freedoms away (again), caused yet more businesses to go out of business (like we didn’t lose enough the first time around), got a lot of people unemployed who worked at those businesses, and in the words of one friend, “made us wear useless face diapers for far too long.”
Mr. Kenney is dealing with what every premier is dealing with: a discontented population that simply will not tolerate any more restrictions, lockdowns, closures, or other things that his government orders in relation to Covid. Not after two years of nothing but that. I’d suggest that we will see many provincial governments change after their next elections.
Including Alberta. The NDP is currently running TV commercials telling us how much better off we’d be under an NDP government. Given the front-runners of Brian Jean or Danielle Smith for the UCP, neither of which impress me, the NDP may be a reasonable choice.
Results of the mail-in ballot will be released today.
Some of Kenner’s opponents say they won’t accept a Kenney victory.
Kenney is saying that the results are going to be skewed because of large numbers of members who signed up to get rid of him but have no real relationship to the party.
'He has lost': Kenney critic warns his UCP constituency won't accept premier win in review
Understand he is not popular but don’t know enough about his opponents to guess at his chances. This should possibly have received more coverage in our local news.
He’ll go. He resigned as leader after getting 51.4%.
Looks like instead, it will be double.
In the opinions of smarter folks than me, are the alternatives better?
Kenney confirmed he will stay on as Premier until the new leader is chosen by the party.
There is speculation he might run again for the leadership.
Opponents in the caucus are calling for him to be gone and replaced by an interim leader, pending the leadership contest.
One very interesting comment, right at the end of the article, about the infighting in the Alberta conservative parties over the past couple of decades:
I think this vote continues to highlight the problems for Conservative parties in Canada. They are a house divided. You have some reasonable people who have legitimate thoughts on how to best govern a country (whether I agree with them or not), and then you have social conservatives and the far-right/conspiracy theory conservatives. And those last two are big enough to cause this kind of near 50/50 split. Although I think it was more of the far-right/conspiracy theory types in this case that do not support Kenney because he actually tried to manage the pandemic at least a little bit and they are sooooooooo deep into the COVID conspiracy garbage that even the little he did do is enough for them to cry Freeeeeduuuuuuuuuumb!
This is the thorny problem that Kenney faced. 50% of conservative voters felt this way; They have a tenuous grasp of science and the germ theory of disease, thinking that Covid was a hoax, or was caused by bad vapours or evil spirits or whatnot. They wanted the “freedom” to infect and kill other people. They represent the type of conservatism that is completely self-centered, lacking understanding and empathy for others, and rejecting science and knowledge.
The other 50% of conservative voters accept medicine and science and understand that they live in a connected community that depends on each other for continued success, and we are NOT all rugged, self made individualists.
The rest of the population who does not vote conservative are much more heavily skewed towards the latter; they understand that sometimes the implementation of social systems are needed in order to protect others - They have empathy towards people they don’t even know, and realize that we live in a highly organized society, not as a bunch of individuals fighting each other.
This left Kenny with a Kobayashi Maru scenario. He could not win over both groups, no matter what he did. Within his own party, the divisions between science believing/understanding people and selfish “freedom, me me ME!” people was just too great.
Kenney will not be candidate in leadership contest: