OPINIONS

Kenney a liability for Conservatives on the election trail

By Graham Thomson. Published on Aug 18, 2021 

'The Liberals' election slogan might be “Forward. For Everyone,” but it should be: “Vote for O’Toole and his CPC and you’ll get a federal version of Kenney and his UCP.” '

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole (left) and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney appear at the UCP online convention from Nobelford, Alta., in October 2020. (Screengrab)

From Conservative pillar to pariah in just two years.

That’s been the fate of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who, in 2019, was so revered in Conservative circles that he campaigned for Andrew Scheer’s Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) in Ontario in that year’s fall federal election.

Since then, however, Kenney has devolved into the country’s least popular premier to serve during the pandemic. He also failed to keep his promises to Albertans of more jobs, more pipelines, and a stronger economy.

The political godfather has become the deadbeat dad.D

During the federal election campaign, Kenney has kept such a low profile so far, you’d need a backhoe to find him.

Oh, he’s still making appearances. But they’re on Facebook and carefully orchestrated. On Wednesday, for example, he posted a video announcing a maternity clinic in northern Alberta, and another visiting a successful farm run by a Syrian immigrant that was targeted by vandals.

Not one mention of Justin Trudeau or the Liberals, or even a nod to the federal campaign.

This must be driving Kenney a little batty. He’s a skilled and combative politician who relishes a good campaign fight. But this time around, he seems to be stuck on the sidelines.

Not so long ago, he was scrappily playing the game.

As part of his “fight back” strategy against the federal government, Kenney announced he’d hold Senate elections and a referendum against the equalization program in October. Both are purely symbolic gestures, but Kenney is happy to flip the bird, politically speaking, at Trudeau, and as often as possible.

Kenney has loudly railed against the federal $10-a-day child-care program that promised money to Quebec but not Alberta. Never mind that Quebec already has a government-subsidized daycare system, and therefore qualifies for the federal money, while Alberta doesn’t. Kenney saw this as another opportunity to frame Trudeau as an Alberta-hating hypocrite. Unfair, of course. But when it comes to scolding Ottawa, Kenney is as subtle as a hand grenade.

In July, when federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu questioned Alberta’s plan to stop routine testing and tracing of COVID — and allow those who are sick to mingle freely in public — Kenney shot back: “We’re not going to take lectures from Minister Hajdu.”

But then, just as critics had warned, Alberta’s COVID numbers began to rise, and, suddenly, Kenney was taking lectures from Minister Hajdu, not that he’d admit it.

Last Friday, with a federal election looming, the Kenney government reversed its widely questioned, if not outright condemned, COVID plans. Alberta’s chief medical officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, announced the province would postpone its controversial lifting of COVID restrictions until Sept. 27.

Hinshaw said she was simply following the latest scientific data. Of course.

But a skeptic might notice that the postponement — approved by Kenney and his cabinet ministers — will suspiciously last through the federal election campaign, and thus help prevent a major spike in COVID cases that would embarrass Kenney, and, by extension, federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.

The two might not be campaigning together, but that won’t stop Trudeau from dragging Kenney into the fray.

Kenney has become a whipping boy for Trudeau, who, over the summer, has attacked the Alberta premier overtly and obliquely for a number of things, including equalization and climate change.

“The fact that some politicians here in Alberta have been fighting against even recognizing that climate change is real has slowed down Alberta’s ability to prepare for the economic future and the jobs of the future,” said Trudeau while on a pre-election swing through Calgary in July.

Trudeau wants to shackle the untested O’Toole to the unpopular Kenney, conflating the two in voters’ minds.

The Liberals’ election slogan might be “Forward. For Everyone,” but it should be: “Vote for O’Toole and his CPC and you’ll get a federal version of Kenney and his UCP.”

What’s interesting, though, is that even though O’Toole might be happy to keep Kenney off the federal campaign trail, he’s happy to have him on the trail in another form: Kenney’s successful platform policies from Alberta’s 2019 provincial election.

Among them are promises to cut red tape, scrap the carbon tax on consumers, respect provincial elections of senators, increase financial help to Alberta through the Fiscal Stabilization Program, and aggressively defend the oil and gas industry.

And there’s this sweeping comment in O’Toole’s campaign platform aimed squarely at the West, which could have been written by Kenney himself: “The current government’s disregard for Western Canada, which sometimes crosses the line into outright hostility, has pushed Canada to the brink of a national unity crisis. This government simply does not understand or respect the West.”

This will play well among Conservatives on the Prairies, perhaps even those in Central Canada, too.

But one thing that’s not playing well in Canada these days, including in Alberta, is Jason Kenney himself.

If the first few days of the federal campaign are any indication, the Conservatives’ godfather of the 2019 campaign will be wearing cement overshoes for the duration of the 2021 campaign.

MORE THOMSON: Kenney’s COVID response pits pandemic against politics