Interesting note in Tom Olson's column in today's Calgary Herald where he notes a potential Unite the Right campaign in Alberta between the Alberta Alliance and the Alberta Social Credit party. Hinman, the rookie Alliance leader, tabled a petition from the province's Social Credit party demanding the government reverse itself on electricity deregulation. Seemed odd, until Hinman confirmed the two parties are looking at merging. Still small potatoes (neither has a massive membership), but any union of conservative forces in small-town Alberta makes the rural Tory rump nervous. Not that there is much to unite since the AA was formed by former Socred Leader Randy Thorsteinson.
But what will they call themselves? Alberta Social Credit Alliance? Social Alberta Credit Alliance? Credit Alberta Social Alliance? That should take them at least a year to figure out. No threat here, except in the rural south of the province, where the left hasn't a snowballs chance anyways. But a right-wing alternative to the Tories would be welcome to help split the vote.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hinman. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Hinman. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Saturday, September 25, 2021
THE FRIENDS OF MR. KENNEY
David Staples: COVID threatens to take out Jason Kenney and his greatest political achievement, the UCP
It's no easy thing to hold on to the job of premier of Alberta. The previous four premiers, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, Jim Prentice and Rachel Notley, were all turfed before winning a first or second term
Author of the article:David Staples • Edmonton Journal
Publishing date:Sep 24, 2021 •
UCP members face a few big questions in deciding Kenney’s fate: How much of the problem is simply COVID presenting a unique political challenge to all conservative parties? And how much of the UCP’s problem comes from Kenney’s own blunders?
There’s no doubt COVID presents a nasty political dilemma for conservatives. Kenney himself is well aware of it. On Tuesday, he pointed out how COVID cut into Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s vote in the federal election. In Alberta, 7.4 per cent of voters went for the one anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine party, the People’s Party of Canada. “It was a largely a statement against public health restrictions and the vaccine program,” Kenney said, noting this group is “very angry.”
As for his own UCP, Kenney said: “It’s no secret that there are a lot of supporters of my party who don’t like public health restrictions. There are others who don’t like our very focused efforts to increase vaccination.”
But along with COVID’s tricky politics for conservatives, Kenney’s leadership has been hammered by his own mistakes and shortcomings.
I go by the “nine lives rule” when it comes to assessing leaders in highly contested arenas, from professional sports to big league politics. After a leader makes nine major mistakes — errors that many of his own supporters admit were errors or are widely perceived by a majority of the general public as errors — he or she is in big trouble.
As I see it, Kenney has used up his nine lives.
1. His government invested in the Keystone XL pipeline in April 2020, essentially making a bet that pro-pipeline U.S. president Donald Trump would be re-elected. It was a poor bet.
2. The UCP put forward a K-6 curriculum with a social studies curriculum that had sections deemed offensive by a great many Albertans. If this wasn’t bad enough, the controversy undermined the entire curriculum rewrite project, even as the new UCP curriculum will bring in excellent improvements to huge problem areas in Alberta education, K-6 teaching in math, computer sciences and reading and writing.
3. Kenney was slow to recognize how poorly having his staff and MLAs travel at Christmas played with the public, especially with that faction of his supporters who hated strict lockdown measures. They blamed Kenney for imposing restrictions and were gobsmacked that his own people would travel to places such as Hawaii and England.
4 & 5. When major COVID waves brewed up in Alberta in November and this past month, Kenney was slow both times to bring in strict measures to help slow the outbreak. Nor did he do a strong job explaining the nature of his COVID policy dilemma. Those of us who recognize the grave harms of lockdowns give credit to Kenney for mentioning them as much as any premier, but he hasn’t effectively sold that message to Albertans, many of whom still act as if there are no dire consequences to lockdown and still believe his slowness to act comes down to “ideology,” instead of this complicated balancing of harms.
6. In early June, photos were taken of Kenney and his ministers on the Sky Palace patio relaxing with drinks, and not properly social distancing. It blew up big, but mainly because Kenney was slow to apologize for a relatively minor social distancing infraction.
7. Kenney’s base firmly supports investigating the foreign funding of environmental groups, but how many of them support the years it’s taking for the Allan Inquiry to issue a report?
8. Alberta’s “Open for Summer” policy turned out to be an over-reach, but that mistake was greatly compounded by Kenney’s over-enthusiastic messaging this summer about the pandemic being over once and for all.
9. At the start of the pandemic, Kenney continued to have a cold attitude towards health-care workers over ongoing pay disputes. It was no time to engage in such fights but, again, Kenney was slow to realize it.
It’s no easy thing to hold on to the job of premier of Alberta. The previous four premiers, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, Jim Prentice and Rachel Notley, were all turfed before winning a first or second term.
Adding COVID to the mix increased the degree of difficulty for Kenney from a double to a quadruple jump.
The only thing that might save him? COVID ICU rates dropping fast pronto and not coming back, taking COVID off the table as a major issue.
I don’t like those odds.
And if the virus continues to roll over us, the UCP is likely to formally fracture into warring camps.
Carson Jerema: Jason Kenney was never in danger of being overthrown by the party he created
But the premier remains unpopular and the health system is still in crisis
Author of the article: Carson Jerema
Publishing date:Sep 24, 2021 •
Carson Jerema: Alberta travel controversy makes Jason Kenney even more vulnerable on the right
Whatever one’s opinions of the Alberta NDP’s policies, former premier Rachel Notley’s four years in government were relatively drama free thanks to party discipline — a trait that has also made it effective in opposition. The NDP has been relentless in highlighting every COVID failure and has mobilized an army of supporters on social media. Notley always appears in control.
Even if Kenney has subdued this most recent challenge, and even if he survives a leadership review in the spring, he remains unpopular in Alberta. A Leger survey from late July had the NDP leading, with 45 per cent support among decided voters, compared to 33 per cent for the UCP. The lead holds in all areas of the province and among most age groups.
A more recent poll from Maru Public Opinion has Kenney’s approval rating at 32 per cent, the lowest among provincial premiers, and over 20 points below his rating after winning the 2019 election. Speculation abounds about whether the premier will step down on his own terms to save the party.
Alberta’s handling of the pandemic has ranged from disappointing to truly tragic. Just this week, the head of Alberta Health Services said that beds freeing up from dying patients is partly what’s keeping hospitals from overloading entirely. Restrictions were lowered or eliminated as quickly as possible and the government resisted bringing them back until it was forced to impose stricter rules than it otherwise might have. This was the case last fall, and is the case again today.
Kenney has tried to govern as if there was no pandemic, bringing in an aggressive legislative agenda throughout 2020, introducing a controversial school curriculum overhaul and scheduling a referendum on equalization for later this fall.
He kept his promise to cut corporate taxes by 40 per cent, which made sense before the pandemic, IT DID NOT MAKE SENSE EVEN THEN
Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Sep 24, 2021
How Alberta's Jason Kenney survived a possible caucus revolt — and what's next
'The premier is still a shrewd political operator'
Author of the article:Tyler Dawson
Publishing date:Sep 24, 2021 •
At Wednesday’s meeting, out of the 60-member UCP caucus, only around seven spoke up against Kenney’s leadership, a source with knowledge of the meeting told the National Post.
“The cabal was small, and then they … were nowhere near as aggressive as they were building up,” the source said.
“Jason was just like, ‘Cool, you know, let’s go around the room, let’s have a conversation, like, to be quite honest, I’m not afraid of this conversation.'”
“I think he actually believes he’s got to see Alberta through COVID and there’s nothing more politically important than that,” the source said.
Around 40 MLAs spoke in favour of the premier’s continued leadership, two sources told the Post, and the premier and cabinet ministers had to stop some of them from going after detractors, one source said.
It quickly became clear, sources said, there wasn’t enough momentum in the room to unseat Kenney, with just a few bullish and isolated anti-Kenney MLAs pushing the idea that Kenney needed to go. Once everyone spoke, it became clear that a silent majority were still backing Kenney, and that going forward with such a move would just end up destabilizing the party and province.
But caucus infighting is just one side of the story.
The other: the restive grassroots membership. And that’s where the leadership review comes into play.
Samantha Steinke, president of the Central Peace-Notley constituency association, said the local groups aren’t giving up — they want the review prior to March 1, 2022. Her board, she said, asked for an immediate review, back in spring 2021, to be held at the November 2021 convention.
“I think that the premier needs to resign,” Steinke said. “I’ve supported this party from the beginning, and I know that we’re founded on great things, but I don’t think Jason Kenney’s the guy that moves this conservative movement forward.”
While different people have different starting points for their discontent with Kenney’s leadership, much of the recent anger stems from a June 18 announcement: “On July 1, Alberta isn’t just open for summer, but I believe we will be open for good,” said Kenney.
Obviously, that hasn’t happened.
In fact, there has been considerable backtracking on that openness, and the severity of the fourth wave led the Kenney government to break one of its firmest promises: that there would be no vaccine passport. Paul Hinman, who’s now the leader of the Wildrose Independence Party, left in July 2020. Vaccine passports may have been the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said.
“But the camel has been kicking and biting for a long time,” Hinman said.
David Staples: COVID threatens to take out Jason Kenney and his greatest political achievement, the UCP
It's no easy thing to hold on to the job of premier of Alberta. The previous four premiers, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, Jim Prentice and Rachel Notley, were all turfed before winning a first or second term
Author of the article:David Staples • Edmonton Journal
Publishing date:Sep 24, 2021 •
Premier Jason Kenney standing in front of Jason Copping the newly appointed Minister of Health during a news conference in Edmonton, September 21, 2021.
UCP members face a few big questions in deciding Kenney’s fate: How much of the problem is simply COVID presenting a unique political challenge to all conservative parties? And how much of the UCP’s problem comes from Kenney’s own blunders?
There’s no doubt COVID presents a nasty political dilemma for conservatives. Kenney himself is well aware of it. On Tuesday, he pointed out how COVID cut into Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s vote in the federal election. In Alberta, 7.4 per cent of voters went for the one anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine party, the People’s Party of Canada. “It was a largely a statement against public health restrictions and the vaccine program,” Kenney said, noting this group is “very angry.”
As for his own UCP, Kenney said: “It’s no secret that there are a lot of supporters of my party who don’t like public health restrictions. There are others who don’t like our very focused efforts to increase vaccination.”
But along with COVID’s tricky politics for conservatives, Kenney’s leadership has been hammered by his own mistakes and shortcomings.
I go by the “nine lives rule” when it comes to assessing leaders in highly contested arenas, from professional sports to big league politics. After a leader makes nine major mistakes — errors that many of his own supporters admit were errors or are widely perceived by a majority of the general public as errors — he or she is in big trouble.
As I see it, Kenney has used up his nine lives.
1. His government invested in the Keystone XL pipeline in April 2020, essentially making a bet that pro-pipeline U.S. president Donald Trump would be re-elected. It was a poor bet.
2. The UCP put forward a K-6 curriculum with a social studies curriculum that had sections deemed offensive by a great many Albertans. If this wasn’t bad enough, the controversy undermined the entire curriculum rewrite project, even as the new UCP curriculum will bring in excellent improvements to huge problem areas in Alberta education, K-6 teaching in math, computer sciences and reading and writing.
3. Kenney was slow to recognize how poorly having his staff and MLAs travel at Christmas played with the public, especially with that faction of his supporters who hated strict lockdown measures. They blamed Kenney for imposing restrictions and were gobsmacked that his own people would travel to places such as Hawaii and England.
4 & 5. When major COVID waves brewed up in Alberta in November and this past month, Kenney was slow both times to bring in strict measures to help slow the outbreak. Nor did he do a strong job explaining the nature of his COVID policy dilemma. Those of us who recognize the grave harms of lockdowns give credit to Kenney for mentioning them as much as any premier, but he hasn’t effectively sold that message to Albertans, many of whom still act as if there are no dire consequences to lockdown and still believe his slowness to act comes down to “ideology,” instead of this complicated balancing of harms.
6. In early June, photos were taken of Kenney and his ministers on the Sky Palace patio relaxing with drinks, and not properly social distancing. It blew up big, but mainly because Kenney was slow to apologize for a relatively minor social distancing infraction.
7. Kenney’s base firmly supports investigating the foreign funding of environmental groups, but how many of them support the years it’s taking for the Allan Inquiry to issue a report?
8. Alberta’s “Open for Summer” policy turned out to be an over-reach, but that mistake was greatly compounded by Kenney’s over-enthusiastic messaging this summer about the pandemic being over once and for all.
9. At the start of the pandemic, Kenney continued to have a cold attitude towards health-care workers over ongoing pay disputes. It was no time to engage in such fights but, again, Kenney was slow to realize it.
It’s no easy thing to hold on to the job of premier of Alberta. The previous four premiers, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, Jim Prentice and Rachel Notley, were all turfed before winning a first or second term.
Adding COVID to the mix increased the degree of difficulty for Kenney from a double to a quadruple jump.
The only thing that might save him? COVID ICU rates dropping fast pronto and not coming back, taking COVID off the table as a major issue.
I don’t like those odds.
And if the virus continues to roll over us, the UCP is likely to formally fracture into warring camps.
Carson Jerema: Jason Kenney was never in danger of being overthrown by the party he created
But the premier remains unpopular and the health system is still in crisis
Author of the article: Carson Jerema
Publishing date:Sep 24, 2021 •
Jason Kenney greets supporters at the United Conservative Party 2019 election headquarters in Calgary on Tuesday, April 16, 2019.
PHOTO BY JIM WELLS/POSTMEDIA
Article content
To call Alberta’s would-be rebels disorganized would be a compliment. The handful of MLAs who reportedly spoke against Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership at a Calgary caucus meeting on Wednesday had complaints ranging from too many COIVD restrictions, to not enough, to personal grievances, to concerns over the United Conservative Party’s electability. Yet after days of agitating for the premier to resign, they dropped their knives as soon as they drew them.
This is how it was always destined to end. Kenney bears responsibility for a crashing health-care system when his “open for good” plan backfired after a wave of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients filled the province’s already-expanded intensive care spaces. But the UCP is Kenney’s party. It isn’t that much of an exaggeration to say he willed it into existence. Who on earth would this disparate group replace him with? Who would even want the job?
After the province introduced a vaccine passport last week, the group of malcontents succeeded in leaving the impression that there was a crisis of leadership to match the crisis in Alberta’s overflowing hospitals. The push to remove Kenney was, we now know, either an exaggeration or embarrassingly haphazard. Enough MLAs supported the UCP leader at the meeting, or as the Calgary Sun’s Rick Bell put it, were “willing to kiss the premier’s ring.” An anticipated motion of non-confidence was dropped.
That proposal was brought by R.J. Sigurdson, a southern Alberta MLA who’s opposed to restrictions. The others who spoke against Kenney haven’t been publicly confirmed, but unruly MLAs haven’t exactly been quiet. Sigurdson was among 15 members who signed a letter criticizing health measures back in April. The signatories also included Angela Pitt, who advises her constituents to “do their own research” on vaccines, and Jason Stephan, one of the MLAs caught up in the travel controversy over Christmas.
Former culture minister Leela Aheer told the Calgary Herald’s Don Braid after Health Minister Tyler Shandro was shuffled to a new post Tuesday, that, “The only thing that should have happened today is that the premier says he had failed and is stepping down.” Aheer, unlike the others, has been an advocate for stronger health measures, but she may hold a grudge after being kicked out of cabinet earlier this year. Richard Gottfried, one of the few members left over from the former Progressive Conservative party, also favours more restrictions and has been complaining publicly.
Never mind Alberta, is there anyone on the planet who could satisfy this group if they succeeded in turfing Kenney? What appeared to be a caucus in turmoil seems no more than the consequence of Kenney allowing MLAs a freer hand to say what they want, which is novel in Canada, where parties tend to whip their members into compliance.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Article content
To call Alberta’s would-be rebels disorganized would be a compliment. The handful of MLAs who reportedly spoke against Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership at a Calgary caucus meeting on Wednesday had complaints ranging from too many COIVD restrictions, to not enough, to personal grievances, to concerns over the United Conservative Party’s electability. Yet after days of agitating for the premier to resign, they dropped their knives as soon as they drew them.
This is how it was always destined to end. Kenney bears responsibility for a crashing health-care system when his “open for good” plan backfired after a wave of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients filled the province’s already-expanded intensive care spaces. But the UCP is Kenney’s party. It isn’t that much of an exaggeration to say he willed it into existence. Who on earth would this disparate group replace him with? Who would even want the job?
After the province introduced a vaccine passport last week, the group of malcontents succeeded in leaving the impression that there was a crisis of leadership to match the crisis in Alberta’s overflowing hospitals. The push to remove Kenney was, we now know, either an exaggeration or embarrassingly haphazard. Enough MLAs supported the UCP leader at the meeting, or as the Calgary Sun’s Rick Bell put it, were “willing to kiss the premier’s ring.” An anticipated motion of non-confidence was dropped.
That proposal was brought by R.J. Sigurdson, a southern Alberta MLA who’s opposed to restrictions. The others who spoke against Kenney haven’t been publicly confirmed, but unruly MLAs haven’t exactly been quiet. Sigurdson was among 15 members who signed a letter criticizing health measures back in April. The signatories also included Angela Pitt, who advises her constituents to “do their own research” on vaccines, and Jason Stephan, one of the MLAs caught up in the travel controversy over Christmas.
Former culture minister Leela Aheer told the Calgary Herald’s Don Braid after Health Minister Tyler Shandro was shuffled to a new post Tuesday, that, “The only thing that should have happened today is that the premier says he had failed and is stepping down.” Aheer, unlike the others, has been an advocate for stronger health measures, but she may hold a grudge after being kicked out of cabinet earlier this year. Richard Gottfried, one of the few members left over from the former Progressive Conservative party, also favours more restrictions and has been complaining publicly.
Never mind Alberta, is there anyone on the planet who could satisfy this group if they succeeded in turfing Kenney? What appeared to be a caucus in turmoil seems no more than the consequence of Kenney allowing MLAs a freer hand to say what they want, which is novel in Canada, where parties tend to whip their members into compliance.
Carson Jerema: Alberta travel controversy makes Jason Kenney even more vulnerable on the right
Whatever one’s opinions of the Alberta NDP’s policies, former premier Rachel Notley’s four years in government were relatively drama free thanks to party discipline — a trait that has also made it effective in opposition. The NDP has been relentless in highlighting every COVID failure and has mobilized an army of supporters on social media. Notley always appears in control.
Even if Kenney has subdued this most recent challenge, and even if he survives a leadership review in the spring, he remains unpopular in Alberta. A Leger survey from late July had the NDP leading, with 45 per cent support among decided voters, compared to 33 per cent for the UCP. The lead holds in all areas of the province and among most age groups.
A more recent poll from Maru Public Opinion has Kenney’s approval rating at 32 per cent, the lowest among provincial premiers, and over 20 points below his rating after winning the 2019 election. Speculation abounds about whether the premier will step down on his own terms to save the party.
Alberta’s handling of the pandemic has ranged from disappointing to truly tragic. Just this week, the head of Alberta Health Services said that beds freeing up from dying patients is partly what’s keeping hospitals from overloading entirely. Restrictions were lowered or eliminated as quickly as possible and the government resisted bringing them back until it was forced to impose stricter rules than it otherwise might have. This was the case last fall, and is the case again today.
Kenney has tried to govern as if there was no pandemic, bringing in an aggressive legislative agenda throughout 2020, introducing a controversial school curriculum overhaul and scheduling a referendum on equalization for later this fall.
He kept his promise to cut corporate taxes by 40 per cent, which made sense before the pandemic, IT DID NOT MAKE SENSE EVEN THEN
but has failed to attract the investment it might have under normal circumstances. The removal of restrictions over the summer seemed as much foolish optimism as an attempt to fix rifts within his party and the province.
Kenney is now losing support to the left and the right, with a newly formed independence party garnering eight per cent support, despite having almost no profile.
The premier spent years campaigning in Alberta, first winning the Progressive Conservative leadership despite much hostility from within that party, then merging it with the Wildrose and finally winning government. All the while, Kenney preached the gospel of free markets, limited government, low taxes, good jobs and personal choice. He was often angry, but he had a clear vision. He presented himself as a rebel, despite being a career politician.
The rebels that have now come for Kenney definitely lack his drive. Will the voting public prove more determined?
Kenney is now losing support to the left and the right, with a newly formed independence party garnering eight per cent support, despite having almost no profile.
The premier spent years campaigning in Alberta, first winning the Progressive Conservative leadership despite much hostility from within that party, then merging it with the Wildrose and finally winning government. All the while, Kenney preached the gospel of free markets, limited government, low taxes, good jobs and personal choice. He was often angry, but he had a clear vision. He presented himself as a rebel, despite being a career politician.
The rebels that have now come for Kenney definitely lack his drive. Will the voting public prove more determined?
Don Martin: Jason Kenney's political fate is in the ICU - and failing fast
Don Martin Contributor
@DonMartinCTV
Voters dump political leaders for strange reasons; be it dithering (Paul Martin), poor House of Commons attendance (Michael Ignatieff), botched TV interviews (Stephane Dion) or simply because they’re tired of them (Stephen Harper).
But Kenney is confronting a full-throated justification for a pink slip thanks to his chronic tone-deafness during the pandemic, incredulously topped off by taking a two-week vacation in Europe this month as Albertans were dying from the consequences of his policies.
He’s lurched from pathetically bribing the vacillating unvaccinated with $100 to get their shot to now unleashing his Restriction Exemption Program, which is essentially the vaccine passport he promised to never introduce.
He’s shown more enthusiasm in funding a $30-million Ministry of Truth to attack those who tarnish the oil industry’s halo than he has refuting the epidemic of fake news driving vaccine hesitancy in Alberta.
And he couldn’t contain his own out-of-step ideology early in the pandemic by taking on doctors over their compensation scheme, triggering some to exit the province in its hour of greatest need.
If his leadership survives the party membership vote - a huge IF in my view - Kenney has two years to resurrect the UPC fortunes before facing the voters.
Now, lest we forget, Jason Kenney can change a lot in two years.
Kenney performed his version of Ralph Klein’s Miracle on the Prairie when he quit being an MP to claim the Alberta PC leadership, to merge that party with the Wild Rose Party, to clinch the leadership of the reunited Conservatives to winning a legislature seat to becoming premier, all of that in under three years.
But it’s now almost a given Kenney will enter the Alberta history books as a one-term blunder.
This week his negative influence was partly blamed for giving federal Liberals and the NDP a combined four-seat stake in their Alberta dead zones.
And there are concerns his raging unpopularity could contagion into Saskatchewan, Ontario and even New Brunswick if all conservative premiers are unfairly tarred as vaccine-hesitant and passport-adverse.
Jason Kenney, one of the most successful federal cabinet ministers under Stephen Harper, has become the Canadian textbook on how to do things wrong in a pandemic.
It’s been almost 30 years since Kenney’s star first started to shine as the anti-tax advocate who confronted then-premier Klein over the province’s lucrative MP pension plan.
Klein smelled a political threat from the articulate youngster, admitted it was too rich and cancelled the MP pension plan outright while asking voters to forgive him for being human.
The pugnacious Kenney, who dodges blame for his many mistakes and delivers cold shoulders better than empathy, would never consider going full reverse-thrust into such drastic change - and couldn’t successfully sell it even if he did.
That’s why the un-Klein of Alberta is in rapid decline with no Miracle on the Prairie repeat in sight.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney answers questions at a news conference where the provincial government announced new restrictions because of the surging COVID cases in the province, in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.
Don Martin Contributor
@DonMartinCTV
September 24, 2021
OTTAWA -- All that was missing were pitchforks and torches when the United Conservative government MLAs gathered this week to decide the fate of their dead-premier-walking.
The caucus was seething - and fearing for their political lives – as fourth-wave case counts went tsunami, forcing the province to go bended-knee to the feds to help with ICUs filled to cattle-car capacity by the ventilated and the unvaccinated.
But then came a sign you should probably never underestimate Jason Kenney.
The premier pre-empted the kill-Kenney mood in the room by offering a leadership review next year so he could build the party back from the grave. If that vote tilted against him, he pledged to quit quietly and leave the party in recovery mode for his successor.
And then sources say a strange thing happened - Kenney stayed mostly silent for about five hours as MLAs vented at his failed coronavirus containment measures, which have made Alberta’s viral spread the worst in the country.
This is not normal Kenney behaviour. He’s a lousy listener, particularly in his caucus, and reacts harshly when challenged.
But despite slipping the noose until next year, a reprieve where he will no doubt use next month’s provincial referendum on ending equalization (which will never happen) to whip up anti-Ottawa hysteria, his reign as premier is in extreme peril.
OTTAWA -- All that was missing were pitchforks and torches when the United Conservative government MLAs gathered this week to decide the fate of their dead-premier-walking.
The caucus was seething - and fearing for their political lives – as fourth-wave case counts went tsunami, forcing the province to go bended-knee to the feds to help with ICUs filled to cattle-car capacity by the ventilated and the unvaccinated.
But then came a sign you should probably never underestimate Jason Kenney.
The premier pre-empted the kill-Kenney mood in the room by offering a leadership review next year so he could build the party back from the grave. If that vote tilted against him, he pledged to quit quietly and leave the party in recovery mode for his successor.
And then sources say a strange thing happened - Kenney stayed mostly silent for about five hours as MLAs vented at his failed coronavirus containment measures, which have made Alberta’s viral spread the worst in the country.
This is not normal Kenney behaviour. He’s a lousy listener, particularly in his caucus, and reacts harshly when challenged.
But despite slipping the noose until next year, a reprieve where he will no doubt use next month’s provincial referendum on ending equalization (which will never happen) to whip up anti-Ottawa hysteria, his reign as premier is in extreme peril.
Voters dump political leaders for strange reasons; be it dithering (Paul Martin), poor House of Commons attendance (Michael Ignatieff), botched TV interviews (Stephane Dion) or simply because they’re tired of them (Stephen Harper).
But Kenney is confronting a full-throated justification for a pink slip thanks to his chronic tone-deafness during the pandemic, incredulously topped off by taking a two-week vacation in Europe this month as Albertans were dying from the consequences of his policies.
He’s lurched from pathetically bribing the vacillating unvaccinated with $100 to get their shot to now unleashing his Restriction Exemption Program, which is essentially the vaccine passport he promised to never introduce.
He’s shown more enthusiasm in funding a $30-million Ministry of Truth to attack those who tarnish the oil industry’s halo than he has refuting the epidemic of fake news driving vaccine hesitancy in Alberta.
And he couldn’t contain his own out-of-step ideology early in the pandemic by taking on doctors over their compensation scheme, triggering some to exit the province in its hour of greatest need.
If his leadership survives the party membership vote - a huge IF in my view - Kenney has two years to resurrect the UPC fortunes before facing the voters.
Now, lest we forget, Jason Kenney can change a lot in two years.
Kenney performed his version of Ralph Klein’s Miracle on the Prairie when he quit being an MP to claim the Alberta PC leadership, to merge that party with the Wild Rose Party, to clinch the leadership of the reunited Conservatives to winning a legislature seat to becoming premier, all of that in under three years.
But it’s now almost a given Kenney will enter the Alberta history books as a one-term blunder.
This week his negative influence was partly blamed for giving federal Liberals and the NDP a combined four-seat stake in their Alberta dead zones.
And there are concerns his raging unpopularity could contagion into Saskatchewan, Ontario and even New Brunswick if all conservative premiers are unfairly tarred as vaccine-hesitant and passport-adverse.
Jason Kenney, one of the most successful federal cabinet ministers under Stephen Harper, has become the Canadian textbook on how to do things wrong in a pandemic.
It’s been almost 30 years since Kenney’s star first started to shine as the anti-tax advocate who confronted then-premier Klein over the province’s lucrative MP pension plan.
Klein smelled a political threat from the articulate youngster, admitted it was too rich and cancelled the MP pension plan outright while asking voters to forgive him for being human.
The pugnacious Kenney, who dodges blame for his many mistakes and delivers cold shoulders better than empathy, would never consider going full reverse-thrust into such drastic change - and couldn’t successfully sell it even if he did.
That’s why the un-Klein of Alberta is in rapid decline with no Miracle on the Prairie repeat in sight.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney answers questions at a news conference where the provincial government announced new restrictions because of the surging COVID cases in the province, in Calgary, Alta., Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol
DON MARTIN CTV NATIONAL POLITICAL AFFAIRS REPORTER CAME FROM CALGARY, HE WROTE A BIOGRAPHY OF RALPH KLEIN
Braid: Tears, grief and anger over the UCP's epic COVID-19 collapse
Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Sep 24, 2021
Calgary ICU staff working on patients in a crowded ICU.
PHOTO BY SUPPLIED BY AHS
Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt choked up while doing an interview. Dr. Verna Yiu, the head of Alberta Health Services, looked like she was about to cry as she said deaths are keeping the ICUs below capacity.
Coun. Jeff Davison, a candidate for mayor, told council that his six-year-old daughter had her vital kidney surgery postponed by AHS.
It’s unthinkable — a little child, denied crucial treatment because COVID-19 is spreading havoc through the whole health-care system.
So dire is the crisis that very sick patients may soon be “triaged” — a cold euphemism that means they will not get care.
A year ago, worried as we were by the pandemic, nobody would have dreamed the collapse could be so complete.
The government vowed then that its key goal was to protect the hospitals and health system, so that no Albertans would be denied service.
That promise — the very heart of the UCP’s whole pandemic policy — lies shattered, along with nearly every other health initiative.
The UCP backed away from a three per cent pay cut for nurses, but still wants a two per cent reduction, even as Quebec will give nurses a $15,000 bonus to stay on the job.
The government is locked in animosity with doctors 17 months after unilaterally cancelling their pay agreement.
The entire health system is filled with people who see the government that claims to support them as their sworn enemy.
It’s a toxic environment that I don’t believe can ever be cleared by this government, under this premier.
The UCP has inflicted on Albertans the worst policy and political failure since conservatives were first elected in this province in 1971.
I have some personal knowledge of Alberta government bungles going back to 1978 and can confidently say that no problem — not one political, social or economic uproar — comes close to this disaster that is killing people and wrecking a health-care system.
Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt choked up while doing an interview. Dr. Verna Yiu, the head of Alberta Health Services, looked like she was about to cry as she said deaths are keeping the ICUs below capacity.
Coun. Jeff Davison, a candidate for mayor, told council that his six-year-old daughter had her vital kidney surgery postponed by AHS.
It’s unthinkable — a little child, denied crucial treatment because COVID-19 is spreading havoc through the whole health-care system.
So dire is the crisis that very sick patients may soon be “triaged” — a cold euphemism that means they will not get care.
A year ago, worried as we were by the pandemic, nobody would have dreamed the collapse could be so complete.
The government vowed then that its key goal was to protect the hospitals and health system, so that no Albertans would be denied service.
That promise — the very heart of the UCP’s whole pandemic policy — lies shattered, along with nearly every other health initiative.
The UCP backed away from a three per cent pay cut for nurses, but still wants a two per cent reduction, even as Quebec will give nurses a $15,000 bonus to stay on the job.
The government is locked in animosity with doctors 17 months after unilaterally cancelling their pay agreement.
The entire health system is filled with people who see the government that claims to support them as their sworn enemy.
It’s a toxic environment that I don’t believe can ever be cleared by this government, under this premier.
The UCP has inflicted on Albertans the worst policy and political failure since conservatives were first elected in this province in 1971.
I have some personal knowledge of Alberta government bungles going back to 1978 and can confidently say that no problem — not one political, social or economic uproar — comes close to this disaster that is killing people and wrecking a health-care system.
Calgary ICU team check a screen to help intubate a patient.
PHOTO BY SUPPLIED BY AHS
The government caused the crisis through ideological rigidity, political influence on pandemic measures and the arrogant belief that men of power can simply declare COVID-19 over (“The pandemic is ending. Accept it.”) when scientists everywhere warned that it was not
The usual political scandals — ex-premier Alison Redford’s travels, for instance — can be highly emotional, but they rarely touch people’s lives at a deep level.
Most of all, they don’t cost lives. Today, death, misery and primal fear of a failed health system are making grown people of genuine empathy (a quality that seems lacking in leadership) weep with sadness and anger.
It is maddening, frankly, to hear Premier Jason Kenney try to diminish this crisis by stating Alberta has done well by national standards.
There was some truth to the claim through the third wave. But now Alberta is rivalled only by Saskatchewan, distantly, in the depth of defeat by the fourth wave.
When Kenney and his cabinet committee declared the pandemic over and done, there seemed to be no thought to the consequences of being wrong — lives lost, families grieving, medical staff exhausted to the point of collapse.
Kenney even managed to tie Open for Summer to the start of Stampede. This annoyed people elsewhere in the province who thought health care was being usurped by a Calgary rodeo.
Then the politicians went on holiday. The government started transferring people from COVID-19 duties to other areas. They were stripping staff even as the virus was gathering strength in plain sight.
One UCP insider told me that when Kenney was away (very likely in Europe, although he has never confirmed that), there was no place to go for advice or direction. Ministers and staffers just froze in place or went on vacation themselves.
The top leaders are like wartime generals who send the troops home on leave, and then watch helplessly as the enemy pours across the borders.
It’s tragic. And one day this government, when it finally faces the voters, may also come to tears.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.
The government caused the crisis through ideological rigidity, political influence on pandemic measures and the arrogant belief that men of power can simply declare COVID-19 over (“The pandemic is ending. Accept it.”) when scientists everywhere warned that it was not
The usual political scandals — ex-premier Alison Redford’s travels, for instance — can be highly emotional, but they rarely touch people’s lives at a deep level.
Most of all, they don’t cost lives. Today, death, misery and primal fear of a failed health system are making grown people of genuine empathy (a quality that seems lacking in leadership) weep with sadness and anger.
It is maddening, frankly, to hear Premier Jason Kenney try to diminish this crisis by stating Alberta has done well by national standards.
There was some truth to the claim through the third wave. But now Alberta is rivalled only by Saskatchewan, distantly, in the depth of defeat by the fourth wave.
When Kenney and his cabinet committee declared the pandemic over and done, there seemed to be no thought to the consequences of being wrong — lives lost, families grieving, medical staff exhausted to the point of collapse.
Kenney even managed to tie Open for Summer to the start of Stampede. This annoyed people elsewhere in the province who thought health care was being usurped by a Calgary rodeo.
Then the politicians went on holiday. The government started transferring people from COVID-19 duties to other areas. They were stripping staff even as the virus was gathering strength in plain sight.
One UCP insider told me that when Kenney was away (very likely in Europe, although he has never confirmed that), there was no place to go for advice or direction. Ministers and staffers just froze in place or went on vacation themselves.
The top leaders are like wartime generals who send the troops home on leave, and then watch helplessly as the enemy pours across the borders.
It’s tragic. And one day this government, when it finally faces the voters, may also come to tears.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.
How Alberta's Jason Kenney survived a possible caucus revolt — and what's next
'The premier is still a shrewd political operator'
Author of the article:Tyler Dawson
Publishing date:Sep 24, 2021 •
Premier Jason Kenney speaks at the daily COVID-19 update with Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, on March 13, 2020.
PHOTO BY ED KAISER /Postmedia, file
Article content
EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, having survived the possibility of a caucus revolt, now has roughly six months to prepare for a spring leadership review that has the potential to throw the United Conservative party into chaos prior to the next election.
In recent weeks, Kenney’s position has looked increasingly tenuous, while progressive Albertans, including the Opposition New Democrats, hammer the government for its handling of the pandemic.
But with no election immediately on the horizon, the most pressing threat to Kenney’s leadership has come from within his own party. With rumours swirling that Kenney could face removal by his caucus, sources floated names to reporters about potential replacements as UCP leader and premier, such as Finance Minister Travis Toews or Ric McIver, the transportation minister, and news reports detailed unhappiness within the ranks.
Alberta is no stranger to palace coups — similar plotting plagued premiers Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford — and political circles were aflame with gossip this week that yet another was about to unfold.
For now, though, Kenney has secured a stay on his political future.
“Going into that meeting, it was unclear whether or not we would see him come out as the leader of a united caucus or whether or not there would be some kind of move to express non-confidence in the leadership, and perhaps departures from caucus, either ejections or voluntarily,” said Matt Solberg, with New West Public Affairs, who also worked on the creation of the UCP. “The fact that none of that happened, I think is a demonstration that, first off, the premier is still a shrewd political operator.”
On Wednesday, when the caucus met in Calgary and over video link from Edmonton, an expected no-confidence motion on Kenney’s leadership never materialized.
Later in the evening, a letter was sent out to the party brass: Kenney had requested a review of his leadership to take place in the spring of 2022, at the party’s annual general meeting.
In a letter obtained by the National Post, Ryan Becker, the president of the UCP, said that would be the best way for the party’s grassroots to have their say about Kenney’s leadership.
“We are all aware that recent government decisions on responding to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused anger and frustration among some party members and there is a growing desire to hold a leadership review,” Becker’s letter said.
Kevin Wilson, the president of the Airdrie Cochrane constituency association, said this move “absolutely” takes some of the wind out of the sails of angry grassroots Albertans and members of the legislature.
“We’re in the fourth wave of the pandemic, it’s the worst we’ve ever seen it, do we want to change captains now? I don’t think so,” Wilson said. “The leadership review in the spring, I think, is the right move.”
For both sides — those who support Kenney, and those who do not, both inside and outside government — the leadership review “gives people a date to work towards,” Solberg said.
Kenney has made no secret of the fact that there are people within his caucus, and people who voted for his party, that have been angry about public-health restrictions and, more recently, the province’s vaccine passport system.
Wilson said any time the UCP does something, they’re looking at 80 per cent in favour to 20 per cent opposed within the party, and the pandemic has been no different. Nor has the internal fight over Kenney’s future.
“That 20 per cent seem to have the most noise,” Wilson said. “So what you’re hearing is ‘Yup, we want him to be removed as leader,’ but, again, that’s the 20 per cent.”
When reporters asked about his leadership, Kenney has said his focus is on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and not internal politics. On Tuesday, Kenney shuffled Tyler Shandro from the health portfolio, moving Jason Copping from labour into the role.
“Right now, 100 per cent of my attention and that of my team and the whole government has to be focus on a life and death crisis that we’re facing,” Kenney told reporters after the shuffle.
On Thursday, a Kenney spokesman reiterated in an email that the premier remains focused on dealing with the fourth wave, and not internal politics.
Article content
EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, having survived the possibility of a caucus revolt, now has roughly six months to prepare for a spring leadership review that has the potential to throw the United Conservative party into chaos prior to the next election.
In recent weeks, Kenney’s position has looked increasingly tenuous, while progressive Albertans, including the Opposition New Democrats, hammer the government for its handling of the pandemic.
But with no election immediately on the horizon, the most pressing threat to Kenney’s leadership has come from within his own party. With rumours swirling that Kenney could face removal by his caucus, sources floated names to reporters about potential replacements as UCP leader and premier, such as Finance Minister Travis Toews or Ric McIver, the transportation minister, and news reports detailed unhappiness within the ranks.
Alberta is no stranger to palace coups — similar plotting plagued premiers Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford — and political circles were aflame with gossip this week that yet another was about to unfold.
For now, though, Kenney has secured a stay on his political future.
“Going into that meeting, it was unclear whether or not we would see him come out as the leader of a united caucus or whether or not there would be some kind of move to express non-confidence in the leadership, and perhaps departures from caucus, either ejections or voluntarily,” said Matt Solberg, with New West Public Affairs, who also worked on the creation of the UCP. “The fact that none of that happened, I think is a demonstration that, first off, the premier is still a shrewd political operator.”
On Wednesday, when the caucus met in Calgary and over video link from Edmonton, an expected no-confidence motion on Kenney’s leadership never materialized.
Later in the evening, a letter was sent out to the party brass: Kenney had requested a review of his leadership to take place in the spring of 2022, at the party’s annual general meeting.
In a letter obtained by the National Post, Ryan Becker, the president of the UCP, said that would be the best way for the party’s grassroots to have their say about Kenney’s leadership.
“We are all aware that recent government decisions on responding to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused anger and frustration among some party members and there is a growing desire to hold a leadership review,” Becker’s letter said.
Kevin Wilson, the president of the Airdrie Cochrane constituency association, said this move “absolutely” takes some of the wind out of the sails of angry grassroots Albertans and members of the legislature.
“We’re in the fourth wave of the pandemic, it’s the worst we’ve ever seen it, do we want to change captains now? I don’t think so,” Wilson said. “The leadership review in the spring, I think, is the right move.”
For both sides — those who support Kenney, and those who do not, both inside and outside government — the leadership review “gives people a date to work towards,” Solberg said.
**
Kenney has made no secret of the fact that there are people within his caucus, and people who voted for his party, that have been angry about public-health restrictions and, more recently, the province’s vaccine passport system.
Wilson said any time the UCP does something, they’re looking at 80 per cent in favour to 20 per cent opposed within the party, and the pandemic has been no different. Nor has the internal fight over Kenney’s future.
“That 20 per cent seem to have the most noise,” Wilson said. “So what you’re hearing is ‘Yup, we want him to be removed as leader,’ but, again, that’s the 20 per cent.”
When reporters asked about his leadership, Kenney has said his focus is on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and not internal politics. On Tuesday, Kenney shuffled Tyler Shandro from the health portfolio, moving Jason Copping from labour into the role.
“Right now, 100 per cent of my attention and that of my team and the whole government has to be focus on a life and death crisis that we’re facing,” Kenney told reporters after the shuffle.
On Thursday, a Kenney spokesman reiterated in an email that the premier remains focused on dealing with the fourth wave, and not internal politics.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney during a news conference regarding the surging COVID cases in the province on Sept. 15.
PHOTO BY AL CHAREST / POSTMEDIA
Within caucus, there has been a small, but noisy, contingent in opposition to pandemic restrictions. Their activities culminated in April with a letter, signed by 16 UCP MLAs, that said they did not support reintroduced restrictions in the third wave.
Roughly a month later, two UCP MLAs, Todd Loewen and Drew Barnes, were kicked out of caucus for “undermin(ing) government leadership,” according to caucus whip Mike Ellis. Loewen had called on Kenney to resign, and Barnes has been a persistent critic of the government’s public-health restrictions throughout the pandemic.
But they were far from the only UCP MLAs who desire fewer restrictions.
There are also caucus members who have criticized Kenney’s approach for being too lax. Among them are Calgary MLA Richard Gotfried and Chestermere MLA Leela Aheer. Last week, Gotfried wrote in a Facebook post that he was “deeply apologetic” for the government’s sloth in introducing fourth wave restrictions.
“Nothing was done while we lacked any leadership at the helm,” Gotfried wrote. “It will cost us lives and I am gutted by the lack of responsiveness to unequivocal advocacy and clear warning signs.”
The day before Wednesday’s caucus meeting, Aheer told the Calgary Herald that Kenney should resign. “We need leadership that cares deeply about the human beings in this province,” she said.
Gotfried declined to comment and the National Post was unable to reach Aheer.
Prior to Wednesday’s meeting, sources close to Kenney, while seemingly frustrated with the agitating, seemed fairly confident the whole affair was going to blow over — and that’s what happened.
Within caucus, there has been a small, but noisy, contingent in opposition to pandemic restrictions. Their activities culminated in April with a letter, signed by 16 UCP MLAs, that said they did not support reintroduced restrictions in the third wave.
Roughly a month later, two UCP MLAs, Todd Loewen and Drew Barnes, were kicked out of caucus for “undermin(ing) government leadership,” according to caucus whip Mike Ellis. Loewen had called on Kenney to resign, and Barnes has been a persistent critic of the government’s public-health restrictions throughout the pandemic.
But they were far from the only UCP MLAs who desire fewer restrictions.
There are also caucus members who have criticized Kenney’s approach for being too lax. Among them are Calgary MLA Richard Gotfried and Chestermere MLA Leela Aheer. Last week, Gotfried wrote in a Facebook post that he was “deeply apologetic” for the government’s sloth in introducing fourth wave restrictions.
“Nothing was done while we lacked any leadership at the helm,” Gotfried wrote. “It will cost us lives and I am gutted by the lack of responsiveness to unequivocal advocacy and clear warning signs.”
The day before Wednesday’s caucus meeting, Aheer told the Calgary Herald that Kenney should resign. “We need leadership that cares deeply about the human beings in this province,” she said.
Gotfried declined to comment and the National Post was unable to reach Aheer.
Prior to Wednesday’s meeting, sources close to Kenney, while seemingly frustrated with the agitating, seemed fairly confident the whole affair was going to blow over — and that’s what happened.
At Wednesday’s meeting, out of the 60-member UCP caucus, only around seven spoke up against Kenney’s leadership, a source with knowledge of the meeting told the National Post.
“The cabal was small, and then they … were nowhere near as aggressive as they were building up,” the source said.
“Jason was just like, ‘Cool, you know, let’s go around the room, let’s have a conversation, like, to be quite honest, I’m not afraid of this conversation.'”
“I think he actually believes he’s got to see Alberta through COVID and there’s nothing more politically important than that,” the source said.
Around 40 MLAs spoke in favour of the premier’s continued leadership, two sources told the Post, and the premier and cabinet ministers had to stop some of them from going after detractors, one source said.
It quickly became clear, sources said, there wasn’t enough momentum in the room to unseat Kenney, with just a few bullish and isolated anti-Kenney MLAs pushing the idea that Kenney needed to go. Once everyone spoke, it became clear that a silent majority were still backing Kenney, and that going forward with such a move would just end up destabilizing the party and province.
But caucus infighting is just one side of the story.
The other: the restive grassroots membership. And that’s where the leadership review comes into play.
Samantha Steinke, president of the Central Peace-Notley constituency association, said the local groups aren’t giving up — they want the review prior to March 1, 2022. Her board, she said, asked for an immediate review, back in spring 2021, to be held at the November 2021 convention.
“I think that the premier needs to resign,” Steinke said. “I’ve supported this party from the beginning, and I know that we’re founded on great things, but I don’t think Jason Kenney’s the guy that moves this conservative movement forward.”
**
While different people have different starting points for their discontent with Kenney’s leadership, much of the recent anger stems from a June 18 announcement: “On July 1, Alberta isn’t just open for summer, but I believe we will be open for good,” said Kenney.
Obviously, that hasn’t happened.
In fact, there has been considerable backtracking on that openness, and the severity of the fourth wave led the Kenney government to break one of its firmest promises: that there would be no vaccine passport. Paul Hinman, who’s now the leader of the Wildrose Independence Party, left in July 2020. Vaccine passports may have been the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said.
“But the camel has been kicking and biting for a long time,” Hinman said.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Minister of Health Tyler Shandro update Albertans on a new lottery to help encourage everyone to get full COVID-19 vaccinations,
June 14, 2021. PHOTO BY CHRIS SCHWARZ/GOVERNMENT OF ALBERTA
Steinke said her board was done with Kenney long before vaccine passports, but the flip-flop was still critical.
“When your premier comes out and says ‘No, there’s no way we’ll ever do that, it’s illegal, we don’t support that,’ and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Actually we are going to do that,’ I mean, it makes people upset and it’s just another nail in the coffin for him of things he’s gone back on and another reason people don’t trust anything he says,” said Steinke.
Some, like Loewen, had called for Kenney’s resignation prior to the announcement of vaccine passports; an April letter circulated among party members sought signatures in a call for Kenney to resign.
In the case of Brian Hildebrand, who resigned from the constituency association in Taber Warner, one of the most conservative areas of the province, this was because of the perception there had been a centralization of power and the rejection of grassroots input.
Still, said Hildebrand, for many, the passports were the last straw.
“I’ve been very amazed at how compliant the population has been, at least up to this point. People have been very patient, in a lot of ways, (but) people’s patience does have an end,” Hildebrand said. “For there to be a demand to show your barista your vaccination papers, yet the premier refuses to disclose where he went on vacation, is a bizarre inconsistency for a lot of people.”
In August, COVID-19 case counts began to rise, rapidly outpacing any other Canadian jurisdiction in their severity.
As cases and hospitalizations climbed, Kenney was on holidays. Shandro, then the health minister, hadn’t been seen since July, and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, had given just one press appearance since July. In other words, there was the widespread perception in Alberta that the government simply wasn’t doing anything.
When the leaders did actually finally return to the public eye on Sept. 3, it was as the crisis was reaching a critical point. By Sept. 22, Alberta had more than 20,000 active cases, and is adding roughly 1,500 cases per day. There are more than 1,040 people in hospital, including 230 in intensive care; over roughly the past week, Alberta has logged, on average, just shy of 14 deaths per day.
New health measures were announced on Sept. 3, including a mask mandate, and a $100 gift card for those who got their vaccinations — a policy proposal meant to encourage the vaccine hesitant, but that was perceived by some as rewarding people for not doing the right thing earlier.
Among a number of constituency associations, there have been calls for a leadership review. As it stands, said Steinke, if 22 constituency associations call for an earlier leadership review, they should get it. Meetings are ongoing this week about that question.
If the ongoing push among constituency associations to have an earlier leadership review fails, there’s plenty of time between now and the spring. The perception is that it’s still Kenney’s race to lose — if he even still wants to stay on as leader.
“There’s a safe assumption that the premier will put together a strong campaign and a strong pitch for the membership for why he should continue to lead the party and lead it into that next election,” said Solberg. “He will put every ounce of his energy into trying to secure his leadership, I think that’s just who he is, that’s what has made him incredibly successful in his career to date.”
With files from the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal
• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson
Steinke said her board was done with Kenney long before vaccine passports, but the flip-flop was still critical.
“When your premier comes out and says ‘No, there’s no way we’ll ever do that, it’s illegal, we don’t support that,’ and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Actually we are going to do that,’ I mean, it makes people upset and it’s just another nail in the coffin for him of things he’s gone back on and another reason people don’t trust anything he says,” said Steinke.
Some, like Loewen, had called for Kenney’s resignation prior to the announcement of vaccine passports; an April letter circulated among party members sought signatures in a call for Kenney to resign.
In the case of Brian Hildebrand, who resigned from the constituency association in Taber Warner, one of the most conservative areas of the province, this was because of the perception there had been a centralization of power and the rejection of grassroots input.
Still, said Hildebrand, for many, the passports were the last straw.
“I’ve been very amazed at how compliant the population has been, at least up to this point. People have been very patient, in a lot of ways, (but) people’s patience does have an end,” Hildebrand said. “For there to be a demand to show your barista your vaccination papers, yet the premier refuses to disclose where he went on vacation, is a bizarre inconsistency for a lot of people.”
In August, COVID-19 case counts began to rise, rapidly outpacing any other Canadian jurisdiction in their severity.
As cases and hospitalizations climbed, Kenney was on holidays. Shandro, then the health minister, hadn’t been seen since July, and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, had given just one press appearance since July. In other words, there was the widespread perception in Alberta that the government simply wasn’t doing anything.
When the leaders did actually finally return to the public eye on Sept. 3, it was as the crisis was reaching a critical point. By Sept. 22, Alberta had more than 20,000 active cases, and is adding roughly 1,500 cases per day. There are more than 1,040 people in hospital, including 230 in intensive care; over roughly the past week, Alberta has logged, on average, just shy of 14 deaths per day.
New health measures were announced on Sept. 3, including a mask mandate, and a $100 gift card for those who got their vaccinations — a policy proposal meant to encourage the vaccine hesitant, but that was perceived by some as rewarding people for not doing the right thing earlier.
Among a number of constituency associations, there have been calls for a leadership review. As it stands, said Steinke, if 22 constituency associations call for an earlier leadership review, they should get it. Meetings are ongoing this week about that question.
If the ongoing push among constituency associations to have an earlier leadership review fails, there’s plenty of time between now and the spring. The perception is that it’s still Kenney’s race to lose — if he even still wants to stay on as leader.
“There’s a safe assumption that the premier will put together a strong campaign and a strong pitch for the membership for why he should continue to lead the party and lead it into that next election,” said Solberg. “He will put every ounce of his energy into trying to secure his leadership, I think that’s just who he is, that’s what has made him incredibly successful in his career to date.”
With files from the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal
• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson
Raffi Cavoukian
Raffi_RC
Alberta friends on my mind. when will @jkenney resign? he’s broken the province’s health system, caused many preventable deaths. friends consider him criminally negligent. grounds for removal. #vaccinated #WearAMask
Twitter
Jesse Hawken
jessehawken
I wonder sometimes what Jason Kenney's long game was on reopening the province for July 1...did he truly think Alberta was the only place in North America where the pandemic had been conquered? Was there really not one medical health expert to emphatically tell him he was wrong?
Twitter
Joe Ceci
joececiyyc
Well done, @jkenney, your catastrophic decisions have made it into the New York Times. "Alberta’s ‘Best Summer Ever’ Ends With an Overwhelmed Medical System." The UCP: Disastrous for our province. Disastrous for our reputation. #ableg #COVID19AB www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/world/canada/canada-alberta-covid-cases.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesworld
Twitter
Rachel Notley
RachelNotley
Jason Kenney declared over and over that Alberta was “Open For Summer” and “Open For Good.” Then, in July, it became obvious his declaration was wrong and the data was indicating a very bad fourth wave of COVD-19 was coming. 1/3 #ableg #abhealth
Twitter
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Hugo Stelmach
The tactics used by the oil bosses in Venezuela are now being used in Alberta.
A misleading headline, they aren't really the 'oil' workers. Like Venezuela they are the self interested oil bosses forcing their non-union workers to rally for their jobs that they threaten to cut to stop Albertans getting their fare share of royalties.
Don't Let Big Oil Set Our Royalty Rates make sure Ed hears from you
SEE:
I Am Malcontent
Who Will Decide About Royalties
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
royalties, oil, profits,
Bill Hunter, Alberta Royalty Review,
Alberta Cabinet, CAPP, Ed Stelmach,
Big Oil,oil royalties, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, NEP, Conservatives, Fort McMurray, One Party State,
Media Advisory - Oil Workers to Gather at Legislature to Save Jobs ...
A misleading headline, they aren't really the 'oil' workers. Like Venezuela they are the self interested oil bosses forcing their non-union workers to rally for their jobs that they threaten to cut to stop Albertans getting their fare share of royalties.
Digging a bit deeper we find like Venezuala it is a right wing political rally organized by the big oil supporters of the Alberta Alliance Party.Derrick Jacobson, the owner of Quattro Energy Services, a small oil and
gas service company operating in central Alberta, took the initiative of
organizing this rally with his employees and other concerned Albertans.
RE: Grassroots Oilworkers Rally
Hello all,
We have booked the grounds at the Alberta Legislature for Wednesday, October17th, 2007 at11:00 am. The address is10800-97th Avenue Edmonton, AB.
We will have MLA Paul Hinman as a guest speaker. If there are any others interested in speaking please let me know so that I may have some type of schedule in place.
I will have a link on my website with all of the reports, petition, as well as releases from Oil Companies. This rally will be designed to inform the public on the crippling effect passing the Royalty Review will have as well as protest the passing of it.
Please be advised it will be kept professional and is not intended to have a wolf pack mentality. We only have one shot at this so let’s be on our best behavior and let our concerns be heard. If anyone is lining up buses etc. I will also post it on my website. This link will be up and running by the end of the day.
The premier is booked to make a public address on the 22nd. Bring your hardhats and let’s show them what Alberta is about. The rally will take place in front of the main entrance steps.
Regards,
Derrick Jacobson
President-Quattro Energy Services Inc.
Don't Let Big Oil Set Our Royalty Rates make sure Ed hears from you
SEE:
I Am Malcontent
Who Will Decide About Royalties
Headline Says It All
Ohhh Pulllleeeaasse
Alberta Needs A Chavez
Albertans Are Simpletons Says Government
Royalty Is NOT A Tax
Morons
More Shills For Big OilStelmach Sells Out
King Ralph Shills For Big Oil
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
royalties, oil, profits,
Bill Hunter, Alberta Royalty Review,
Alberta Cabinet, CAPP, Ed Stelmach,
Big Oil,oil royalties, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, NEP, Conservatives, Fort McMurray, One Party State,
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Link Byfield's New Party
Living off the avails of his Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, which arose from the corpse of the politically and fiscally bankrupt Alberta Report, Link Byfield has decided that being an elected Senator in Waiting is not enough. So he and some pals have formed a new Right Wing Rump Party.
Whats interesting is that all these neo-con wannabe Reform Parties in Alberta seem to come from or originate in Calgary. The largest American city north of the 49th parallel. Which explains their Republican agenda.
A Canadian development without a direct parallel in Australia was the key role
played by “Calgary School” political scientists in new right party politics and freemarket think tanks like the Fraser Institute. In Australia a number of economists have played a prominent role in promoting public choice frames of analysis, but largely via think tanks rather than through direct involvement in party politics.
Members of the Calgary School reproduce the main features of US right-wing
anti-elite discourse, including a contrast between elite fashions and mainstream
traditional values, a campaign against the tyranny of political correctness, and an
attack on self-styled equality seekers—feminists, anti-poverty groups, the gayrightsmovement, natives and other ethnic and racial minorities.
To be honest they should quit calling themselves Albertans or Party of Alberta and call themselves what they are; the Calgary Republican Lobby. Since many of them believe Ronald Reagan Was Better Than Trudeau.
Background of AlbertansTheir appeal is limited to the Americanized Albertans who live in Southern Alberta. So they don't even appeal to the Lougheed liberals who made the PC's the Party of Calgary. And they don't appeal to urban voters.
Many Albertans have immigrated from the United States. The energy industry, as well as the ranching industry, has attracted many Americans. Attacking Americans attacks the family background of many Albertans. Prominent Albertans have American roots. Senator Ted Morton is originally from California. MP Myron Thompson is from the U.S..
And they certainly don't appeal to Northern Albertans who make Redmonton their capital.
SEE:
Not Before Alberta Votes
Link Byfield Goes AA
Mr Harper Forgets Redmonton
Leo Strauss and the Calgary School
Mormonism Cult of the Political Right
Creationism Is Not Science
Reform Party of Alberta
Return of the Socreds
Aboriginal Property Rights
Shop Keepers Liberty
Alberta Separatism Not Quite Stamped Out
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Tuesday, January 04, 2022
ALBERTA
NDP ready for 2022 byelection as Notley blasts UCP's handling of COVID-19
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said lifting COVID-19 restrictions for what the province called “the best summer ever” was “the government’s biggest failure” this past year.
In a year-end interview, Notley said it was this decision that worsened the fourth wave of the virus and pushed Alberta’s health care system to its breaking point.
More than 15,000 surgeries were delayed as hospitals were overwhelmed. COVID-19 hospitalizations peaked at 1,133 patients, including 267 patients in ICUs.
The Northern Lights Regional Health Centre (NLRHC) brought in seven health care workers from Newfoundland and Labrador to help staff.
During the third wave in the spring, the local ICU was regularly packed and patients were sent to hospitals in Edmonton.
“How many people had their treatment delayed at the same time we saw up to 1,000 preventable deaths?” said Notley.
Premier Jason Kenney; current health minister Jason Copping and his predecessor, Tyler Shandro; and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw have admitted lifting most COVID-19 restrictions on Canada Day put Alberta on course for the fourth wave in the fall.
Meanwhile, the NDP is ending the year on a high note. Party fundraising outpaced the UCP and the Opposition succeeded in getting the UCP to reverse course on multiple files.
This included coal mining along the eastern slopes of the Rockies, a widely-panned draft K-6 curriculum, and wage cuts for nurses.
Notley also attacked Kenney for making a $1.5 billion investment in the Keystone XL pipeline before the 2020 U.S. presidential election was held. President Joe Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to cancel the project during his first day in office.
“You didn’t have to be an oil and gas expert to know that it was a very reckless gamble, of $1.5 billion, at least, belonging to Albertans. We shouldn’t have lost that money,” said Notley.
Notley said her goals for 2022 include a focus on improving Alberta’s health care system and economic diversification. The party has called on the Alberta government to boost supports for long-term problems among recovered COVID-19 patients, particularly in rural Alberta.
“We know affordability is a problem. It’s always been a problem in Fort McMurray but it’s going up across the province,” said Notley . “[The provincial government] can put the cap back in place that we had around utilities They could put the cap on insurance rates back because people’s insurance rates are skyrocketing.”
Locally, the NDP is siding with the municipality’s fight to run its own EMS dispatch. The party is also lobbying for a reversal to changes made to the Disaster Relief Program (DRP). Earlier this year, the province limited homeowners to a one-time payment of $500,000 in government relief after a natural disaster. Municipalities and Métis settlements are also now on the hook for 10 per cent of damages.
“These changes will have sweeping effects on housing prices and the ability to sell a previously flooded home in Fort McMurray,” said Ariana Mancini, NDP candidate for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, earlier this month. “This is about protecting our community, encouraging people to raise their families here and ensuring those already living here can retire in peace.”
Mancini’s main opponent is former UCP MLA and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean. Jean lost to Kenney for UCP leadership and resigned in Feb. 2018.
Earlier this month, he announced a return to politics and won the UCP’s nomination by promising to out Kenney. Jean says the premier’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic is setting the NDP up for a victory in the next provincial election.
Mancini is also running against Paul Hinman, leader of the separatist Wildrose Independence Party and former Wildrose MLA for Cardston-Taber-Warner and Calgary-Glenmore. A date for the byelection must be scheduled by Feb. 15.
-with files from Vincent McDermott and the Canadian Press
JeHamilton@postmedia.com
Jenna Hamilton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Fort McMurray Today
NDP ready for 2022 byelection as Notley blasts UCP's handling of COVID-19
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said lifting COVID-19 restrictions for what the province called “the best summer ever” was “the government’s biggest failure” this past year.
In a year-end interview, Notley said it was this decision that worsened the fourth wave of the virus and pushed Alberta’s health care system to its breaking point.
More than 15,000 surgeries were delayed as hospitals were overwhelmed. COVID-19 hospitalizations peaked at 1,133 patients, including 267 patients in ICUs.
The Northern Lights Regional Health Centre (NLRHC) brought in seven health care workers from Newfoundland and Labrador to help staff.
During the third wave in the spring, the local ICU was regularly packed and patients were sent to hospitals in Edmonton.
“How many people had their treatment delayed at the same time we saw up to 1,000 preventable deaths?” said Notley.
Premier Jason Kenney; current health minister Jason Copping and his predecessor, Tyler Shandro; and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw have admitted lifting most COVID-19 restrictions on Canada Day put Alberta on course for the fourth wave in the fall.
Meanwhile, the NDP is ending the year on a high note. Party fundraising outpaced the UCP and the Opposition succeeded in getting the UCP to reverse course on multiple files.
This included coal mining along the eastern slopes of the Rockies, a widely-panned draft K-6 curriculum, and wage cuts for nurses.
Notley also attacked Kenney for making a $1.5 billion investment in the Keystone XL pipeline before the 2020 U.S. presidential election was held. President Joe Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to cancel the project during his first day in office.
“You didn’t have to be an oil and gas expert to know that it was a very reckless gamble, of $1.5 billion, at least, belonging to Albertans. We shouldn’t have lost that money,” said Notley.
Notley said her goals for 2022 include a focus on improving Alberta’s health care system and economic diversification. The party has called on the Alberta government to boost supports for long-term problems among recovered COVID-19 patients, particularly in rural Alberta.
“We know affordability is a problem. It’s always been a problem in Fort McMurray but it’s going up across the province,” said Notley . “[The provincial government] can put the cap back in place that we had around utilities They could put the cap on insurance rates back because people’s insurance rates are skyrocketing.”
Locally, the NDP is siding with the municipality’s fight to run its own EMS dispatch. The party is also lobbying for a reversal to changes made to the Disaster Relief Program (DRP). Earlier this year, the province limited homeowners to a one-time payment of $500,000 in government relief after a natural disaster. Municipalities and Métis settlements are also now on the hook for 10 per cent of damages.
“These changes will have sweeping effects on housing prices and the ability to sell a previously flooded home in Fort McMurray,” said Ariana Mancini, NDP candidate for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, earlier this month. “This is about protecting our community, encouraging people to raise their families here and ensuring those already living here can retire in peace.”
Mancini’s main opponent is former UCP MLA and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean. Jean lost to Kenney for UCP leadership and resigned in Feb. 2018.
Earlier this month, he announced a return to politics and won the UCP’s nomination by promising to out Kenney. Jean says the premier’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic is setting the NDP up for a victory in the next provincial election.
Mancini is also running against Paul Hinman, leader of the separatist Wildrose Independence Party and former Wildrose MLA for Cardston-Taber-Warner and Calgary-Glenmore. A date for the byelection must be scheduled by Feb. 15.
-with files from Vincent McDermott and the Canadian Press
JeHamilton@postmedia.com
Jenna Hamilton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Fort McMurray Today
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis
Meghan Sahli-Wells saw the pressure exerted by fossil fuel lobbying first-hand while she was mayor of Culver City, California, where she spearheaded a move to ban oil drilling near homes and schools. Culver City, part of Los Angeles county, overlaps with the Inglewood oilfield, and the close proximity of oilwells to residences has been blamed for worsening health problems, such as asthma, as well as fueling the climate crisis.
“It takes so much community effort and political lift to pass policies and then these lobbying firms come in and try to undo them overnight,” said Sahli-Wells, who ended her second mayoral term in 2020. Oil and gas interests, which spent $34m across California lobbying lawmakers and state agencies last year, mobilised against the ban, arguing it would be economically harmful and cause gasoline prices to spike.
“There was just a huge push from the fossil fuel industry,” Sahli-Wells said. “It’s not a good look to be funding lobbyists for fossil fuels, especially with public money.
“I hope that many people just don’t know they share lobbyists with fossil fuel companies and that this database will bring transparency and allow leaders to better vet these companies,” she added. “You shouldn’t be funding the person who is poisoning you.”
Story by Oliver Milman • THE GUARDIAN
More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
Lobbyists for oil, gas and coal interests are also employed by a vast sweep of institutions, ranging from the city governments of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; tech giants such as Apple and Google; more than 150 universities; some of the country’s leading environmental groups – and even ski resorts seeing their snow melted by global heating.
The breadth of fossil fuel lobbyists’ work for other clients is captured in a new database of their lobbying interests which was published online on Wednesday.
Related: State Farm stopped insuring California homes due to climate risks. But it shares lobbyists with big oil
It shows the reach of state-level fossil fuel lobbyists into almost every aspect of American life, spanning local governments, large corporations, cultural institutions such as museums and film festivals, and advocacy groups, grouping together clients with starkly contradictory aims.
For instance, State Farm, the insurance company that announced in May it would halt new homeowner policies in California due to the “catastrophic” risk of wildfires worsened by the climate crisis, employs lobbyists that also advocate for fossil fuel interests to lawmakers in 18 states.
Meanwhile, Baltimore, which is suing big oil firms for their role in causing climate-related damages, has shared a lobbyist with ExxonMobil, one of the named defendants in the case. Syracuse University, a pioneer in the fossil fuel divestment movement, has a lobbyist with 14 separate oil and gas clients.
When you hire these insider lobbyists, you are basically working with double agents. They are guns for hireTimmons Roberts of Brown University
“It’s incredible that this has gone under the radar for so long, as these lobbyists help the fossil fuel industry wield extraordinary power,” said James Browning, a former Common Cause lobbyist who put together the database for a new venture called F Minus. “Many of these cities and counties face severe costs from climate change and yet elected officials are selling their residents out. It’s extraordinary.
“The worst thing about hiring these lobbyists is that it legitimizes the fossil fuel industry,” Browning added. “They can cloak their radical agenda in respectability when their lobbyists also have clients in the arts, or city government, or with conservation groups. It normalizes something that is very dangerous.”
The searchable database, created by compiling the public disclosure records of lobbyists up to 2022 reveals:
Some of the most progressive-minded cities in the US employ fossil fuel lobbyists. Chicago shares a lobbyist with BP. Philadelphia’s lobbyist also works for the Koch Industries network. Los Angeles has a lobbyist contracted to the gas plant firm Tenaska. Even cities that are suing fossil fuel companies for climate damages, such as Baltimore, have fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists.
Environmental groups that push for action on climate change also, incongruously, use lobbyists employed by the fossil fuel industry. The Environmental Defense Fund shares lobbyists with ExxonMobil, Calpine and Duke Energy, all major gas producers. A lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund also works on behalf of the mining company BHP.
Large tech companies have repeatedly touted their climate credentials but many also use fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists. Amazon employs fossil fuel lobbyists in 27 states. Apple shares a lobbyist with the Koch network. Microsoft’s lobbyist also lobbies on behalf of Exxon. Google has a lobbyist who has seven different fossil fuel companies as clients.
More than 150 universities have ties to lobbyists who also push the interests of fossil fuel companies. These include colleges that have vowed to divest from fossil fuels under pressure from students concerned about the climate crisis, such as California State University, the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University and Syracuse University. Scores of school districts, from Washington state to Florida, have lobbyists who also work for fossil fuel interests.
A constellation of cultural and recreational bodies also use fossil fuel lobbyists, despite in many cases calling for action on the climate crisis. The New Museum in New York City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Sundance Film Institute in Utah all share lobbyists with fossil fuel interests, as does the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Florida Aquarium. Even top ski resorts such as Jackson Hole and Vail, which face the prospect of dwindling snow on slopes due to rising temperatures, use fossil fuel lobbyists.
Cities, companies, universities and green groups that use fossil fuel-linked lobbyists said this work didn’t conflict with their own climate goals and in some cases was even beneficial. “It is common for lobbyists to work for a variety of clients,” said a spokesperson for the University of Washington.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art said it had retained a lobbyist on the F Minus database “for a period during the pandemic … We are not currently working with the company.”
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art said it no longer works with the lobbying company that F Minus linked to fossil fuel interests.
More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
Lobbyists for oil, gas and coal interests are also employed by a vast sweep of institutions, ranging from the city governments of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; tech giants such as Apple and Google; more than 150 universities; some of the country’s leading environmental groups – and even ski resorts seeing their snow melted by global heating.
The breadth of fossil fuel lobbyists’ work for other clients is captured in a new database of their lobbying interests which was published online on Wednesday.
Related: State Farm stopped insuring California homes due to climate risks. But it shares lobbyists with big oil
It shows the reach of state-level fossil fuel lobbyists into almost every aspect of American life, spanning local governments, large corporations, cultural institutions such as museums and film festivals, and advocacy groups, grouping together clients with starkly contradictory aims.
For instance, State Farm, the insurance company that announced in May it would halt new homeowner policies in California due to the “catastrophic” risk of wildfires worsened by the climate crisis, employs lobbyists that also advocate for fossil fuel interests to lawmakers in 18 states.
Meanwhile, Baltimore, which is suing big oil firms for their role in causing climate-related damages, has shared a lobbyist with ExxonMobil, one of the named defendants in the case. Syracuse University, a pioneer in the fossil fuel divestment movement, has a lobbyist with 14 separate oil and gas clients.
When you hire these insider lobbyists, you are basically working with double agents. They are guns for hireTimmons Roberts of Brown University
“It’s incredible that this has gone under the radar for so long, as these lobbyists help the fossil fuel industry wield extraordinary power,” said James Browning, a former Common Cause lobbyist who put together the database for a new venture called F Minus. “Many of these cities and counties face severe costs from climate change and yet elected officials are selling their residents out. It’s extraordinary.
“The worst thing about hiring these lobbyists is that it legitimizes the fossil fuel industry,” Browning added. “They can cloak their radical agenda in respectability when their lobbyists also have clients in the arts, or city government, or with conservation groups. It normalizes something that is very dangerous.”
The searchable database, created by compiling the public disclosure records of lobbyists up to 2022 reveals:
Some of the most progressive-minded cities in the US employ fossil fuel lobbyists. Chicago shares a lobbyist with BP. Philadelphia’s lobbyist also works for the Koch Industries network. Los Angeles has a lobbyist contracted to the gas plant firm Tenaska. Even cities that are suing fossil fuel companies for climate damages, such as Baltimore, have fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists.
Environmental groups that push for action on climate change also, incongruously, use lobbyists employed by the fossil fuel industry. The Environmental Defense Fund shares lobbyists with ExxonMobil, Calpine and Duke Energy, all major gas producers. A lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund also works on behalf of the mining company BHP.
Large tech companies have repeatedly touted their climate credentials but many also use fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists. Amazon employs fossil fuel lobbyists in 27 states. Apple shares a lobbyist with the Koch network. Microsoft’s lobbyist also lobbies on behalf of Exxon. Google has a lobbyist who has seven different fossil fuel companies as clients.
More than 150 universities have ties to lobbyists who also push the interests of fossil fuel companies. These include colleges that have vowed to divest from fossil fuels under pressure from students concerned about the climate crisis, such as California State University, the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University and Syracuse University. Scores of school districts, from Washington state to Florida, have lobbyists who also work for fossil fuel interests.
A constellation of cultural and recreational bodies also use fossil fuel lobbyists, despite in many cases calling for action on the climate crisis. The New Museum in New York City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Sundance Film Institute in Utah all share lobbyists with fossil fuel interests, as does the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Florida Aquarium. Even top ski resorts such as Jackson Hole and Vail, which face the prospect of dwindling snow on slopes due to rising temperatures, use fossil fuel lobbyists.
Cities, companies, universities and green groups that use fossil fuel-linked lobbyists said this work didn’t conflict with their own climate goals and in some cases was even beneficial. “It is common for lobbyists to work for a variety of clients,” said a spokesperson for the University of Washington.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art said it had retained a lobbyist on the F Minus database “for a period during the pandemic … We are not currently working with the company.”
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art said it no longer works with the lobbying company that F Minus linked to fossil fuel interests.
A spokesperson for the Environmental Defense Fund said that working for big oil is “not, in itself, an automatic disqualification. In some cases it can actually help us find productive alignment in unexpected places.” Microsoft said despite its lobbying arrangements there is “no ambiguity or doubt about Microsoft’s commitment to the aggressive steps needed to address the world’s carbon crisis”.
But the vast scale of the use of fossil fuel lobbyists by organizations that advocate for climate action underlines the deeply embedded influence of oil, gas and coal interests, according to Timmons Roberts, an environmental sociologist at Brown University.
“The fossil fuel industry is very good at getting what it wants because they get the lobbyists best at playing the game,” Roberts said. “They have the best staff, huge legal departments, and the ability to funnel dark money to lobbying and influence channels.
“This database really makes it apparent that when you hire these insider lobbyists, you are basically working with double agents. They are guns for hire. The information you share with them is probably going to the opposition.”
Roberts said that climate-concerned organizations may get a “short term” benefit by gaining access to politicians close to the fossil fuel lobbyists they use but that the enduring impact is to simply reinforce the status of polluting industries. “It would make a big difference if all of these institutions cut all ties with fossil fuel lobbyists, even if they lose some access to insider decisions,” he said. “It would be taking one more step to removing the social license from an industry that’s making the planet uninhabitable.”
Nearly all states require lobbyists to register and submit periodic disclosure reports, and lobbyists tend not to advocate for both sides of the same piece of legislation. Beyond that, the laws around lobbying are scant. There is no bar to lobbyists working for clients with seemingly diametrically opposing aims, and there are few guardrails to ensure sensitive information isn’t shared with the other side.
This has led to lobbyists with client lists that are jarring in their juxtapositions. Hinman Straub, a New York-based advisory firm, lobbies on behalf of Koch Industries, known for its history of climate denial and muscular efforts to block action to cut emissions, as well as Bard College, one of the most liberal institutions in the US.
Seth McKeel, a former Republican state legislator in Florida, is lobbyist to both Apple, which has vowed to completely decarbonize its supply chain by 2030, and Kinder Morgan, which has more than 140 oil and gas terminals.
Syracuse University’s lobbyist, the Brown & Weinraub outfit, also has 14 fossil fuel clients, including Koch Industries companies, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a situation that Alex Scrivner, a Syracuse PhD student and campus climate advocate, described as “disheartening”. The Koch Industries network itself shares lobbyists with a broad range of institutions, from the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre to Google.
The practice of political lobbying has grown significantly since the 1970s, with the fossil fuel industry among the most prolific users of paid operatives to help shape favourable government policies. A study released in May found that not only is the industry more likely to lobby than others, its lobbying expenditures have jumped when faced with potential climate-linked threats to its business model.
This morass of fossil fuel lobbying now touches all flavours of political persuasion. Lobbying contracts can involve a range of different tasks that do not necessarily directly clash with the stated aims of another client, and some environmental groups feel that having fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists can open up pathways to Republican lawmakers who might otherwise not be amenable to them.
Denis Dison, director of communications for the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund, said the environmental group “as a rule” doesn’t use people who also work with the fossil fuel industry. But he added that “at times we retain vendors that specialize in engagement that can help build support for climate and equity progress across both sides of the aisle”.
Browning said his advice would be to avoid “cynical calculations”. He said: “We got into this mess on climate by groups seeking short-term wins but empowering the fossil fuel industry and giving them credibility.” State capitols can act as a sort of “alternate reality” where existential issues like the climate crisis are overshadowed by the desire to cultivate alliances and bolster influence, he added.
“People just assume there is no alternative to the status quo, but it’s time to take a side. It’s all about who is in the room when decisions are made, and the only way to force change is to get these fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists out of the room.”
Lobbyists, like lawyers, aren’t required to hold the same worldview as their clients, according to Sarah Bryner, director of research at OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks lobbying. “But you could see it would be problematic to represent clients with radically opposed views to other clients,” she said.
“The money thing matters, too. These environmental groups, and even cities, can’t pay lobbyists as much as huge multinational fossil fuel companies can, so there is an imbalance there. Loyalties would be split.”
But the vast scale of the use of fossil fuel lobbyists by organizations that advocate for climate action underlines the deeply embedded influence of oil, gas and coal interests, according to Timmons Roberts, an environmental sociologist at Brown University.
“The fossil fuel industry is very good at getting what it wants because they get the lobbyists best at playing the game,” Roberts said. “They have the best staff, huge legal departments, and the ability to funnel dark money to lobbying and influence channels.
“This database really makes it apparent that when you hire these insider lobbyists, you are basically working with double agents. They are guns for hire. The information you share with them is probably going to the opposition.”
Roberts said that climate-concerned organizations may get a “short term” benefit by gaining access to politicians close to the fossil fuel lobbyists they use but that the enduring impact is to simply reinforce the status of polluting industries. “It would make a big difference if all of these institutions cut all ties with fossil fuel lobbyists, even if they lose some access to insider decisions,” he said. “It would be taking one more step to removing the social license from an industry that’s making the planet uninhabitable.”
Nearly all states require lobbyists to register and submit periodic disclosure reports, and lobbyists tend not to advocate for both sides of the same piece of legislation. Beyond that, the laws around lobbying are scant. There is no bar to lobbyists working for clients with seemingly diametrically opposing aims, and there are few guardrails to ensure sensitive information isn’t shared with the other side.
This has led to lobbyists with client lists that are jarring in their juxtapositions. Hinman Straub, a New York-based advisory firm, lobbies on behalf of Koch Industries, known for its history of climate denial and muscular efforts to block action to cut emissions, as well as Bard College, one of the most liberal institutions in the US.
Seth McKeel, a former Republican state legislator in Florida, is lobbyist to both Apple, which has vowed to completely decarbonize its supply chain by 2030, and Kinder Morgan, which has more than 140 oil and gas terminals.
Syracuse University’s lobbyist, the Brown & Weinraub outfit, also has 14 fossil fuel clients, including Koch Industries companies, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a situation that Alex Scrivner, a Syracuse PhD student and campus climate advocate, described as “disheartening”. The Koch Industries network itself shares lobbyists with a broad range of institutions, from the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre to Google.
The practice of political lobbying has grown significantly since the 1970s, with the fossil fuel industry among the most prolific users of paid operatives to help shape favourable government policies. A study released in May found that not only is the industry more likely to lobby than others, its lobbying expenditures have jumped when faced with potential climate-linked threats to its business model.
This morass of fossil fuel lobbying now touches all flavours of political persuasion. Lobbying contracts can involve a range of different tasks that do not necessarily directly clash with the stated aims of another client, and some environmental groups feel that having fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists can open up pathways to Republican lawmakers who might otherwise not be amenable to them.
Denis Dison, director of communications for the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund, said the environmental group “as a rule” doesn’t use people who also work with the fossil fuel industry. But he added that “at times we retain vendors that specialize in engagement that can help build support for climate and equity progress across both sides of the aisle”.
Browning said his advice would be to avoid “cynical calculations”. He said: “We got into this mess on climate by groups seeking short-term wins but empowering the fossil fuel industry and giving them credibility.” State capitols can act as a sort of “alternate reality” where existential issues like the climate crisis are overshadowed by the desire to cultivate alliances and bolster influence, he added.
“People just assume there is no alternative to the status quo, but it’s time to take a side. It’s all about who is in the room when decisions are made, and the only way to force change is to get these fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists out of the room.”
Lobbyists, like lawyers, aren’t required to hold the same worldview as their clients, according to Sarah Bryner, director of research at OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks lobbying. “But you could see it would be problematic to represent clients with radically opposed views to other clients,” she said.
“The money thing matters, too. These environmental groups, and even cities, can’t pay lobbyists as much as huge multinational fossil fuel companies can, so there is an imbalance there. Loyalties would be split.”
You shouldn’t be funding the person who is poisoning youFormer Culver City, California, mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells
Meghan Sahli-Wells saw the pressure exerted by fossil fuel lobbying first-hand while she was mayor of Culver City, California, where she spearheaded a move to ban oil drilling near homes and schools. Culver City, part of Los Angeles county, overlaps with the Inglewood oilfield, and the close proximity of oilwells to residences has been blamed for worsening health problems, such as asthma, as well as fueling the climate crisis.
“It takes so much community effort and political lift to pass policies and then these lobbying firms come in and try to undo them overnight,” said Sahli-Wells, who ended her second mayoral term in 2020. Oil and gas interests, which spent $34m across California lobbying lawmakers and state agencies last year, mobilised against the ban, arguing it would be economically harmful and cause gasoline prices to spike.
“There was just a huge push from the fossil fuel industry,” Sahli-Wells said. “It’s not a good look to be funding lobbyists for fossil fuels, especially with public money.
“I hope that many people just don’t know they share lobbyists with fossil fuel companies and that this database will bring transparency and allow leaders to better vet these companies,” she added. “You shouldn’t be funding the person who is poisoning you.”
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