It seems Alberta’s premier has decided to play out the tragedy of his time in Alberta politics. He was so eager and ready seven years ago when he bought a pick-up, a ten-gallon hat and fat-boy jeans and headed home for Alberta. It was Ottawa’s loss and the Alberta legislature’s gain. It was when many conservatives thought he should have followed Stephen Harper as leader and help rebuild the federal Tories.
But Jason Kenney knew well what he was doing. His path and strategy were carefully considered and planned. He easily took over the dispirited Alberta provincial conservative party. He was eager to accommodate when he united the right. He knew the key was in shutting down the Wildrose party. The distraction that worked for him was the success of the Alberta new democrats. Few made note early enough of Kenney’s rampant misogyny and his take-no-prisoners approach to politics.
But it was classic Kenney delivering his speech to the United Conservative Party faithful last Saturday in Red Deer. Most of the 45 minutes of customary conservative rhetoric was grinding at the inbred fear of a return to the ‘socialist’ new democrats and their leader Rachel Notley. He admitted that he might not be perfect but hopefully the listeners would forgive and forget about the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on pipelines that could not be built.
He glibly asked for forgiveness while clutching at the one last arrow in his quiver. He knew it was the bitter and those wanting blood who came to Red Deer for the party conclave. He was talking to about 16,000 live bodies and more at home watching his speech streamed to them.
But it will be the party’s 60,000 some members who are invited to vote on his future. He is betting on those stay-at-home voters to keep him employed as leader of the united conservatives and premier of Alberta.
It takes time for those ballots to be delivered to 60,000 voters. You have to give them time to consider it and then Canada Post time to return the ballots. And, since it takes time to carefully count those ballots, the results will not be announced until May 18. And that is plenty of time for Kenney to find a way to cheat his defeat by a really angry party.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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