RESIGN CALL AN ELECTION WE WANT A GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS
Braid: For the UCP, Kenney’s future is hotter topic than federal election
On Monday the chief political topic in Kenney’s government wasn’t the federal vote, but rampant rumours that Kenney is about to quit
Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Sep 20, 2021 •
On Monday the chief political topic in Kenney’s government wasn’t the federal vote, but rampant rumours that Kenney is about to quit
Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Sep 20, 2021 •
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney during a news conference regarding the surging COVID cases in the province in Calgary on Wednesday, September 15, 2021.
PHOTO BY AL CHAREST / POSTMEDIA
Today Premier Jason Kenney will be blamed for contributing to the federal Liberals’ relatively strong showing in Canada’s election.
Even worse for him, many in his own government and party are hoping for his resignation and think they might get it.
Kenney has become so toxic that Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole wouldn’t even utter his name, for fear that the Liberals and NDP would use the quote in a last-minute attack ad.
Alberta was the lost province during the federal election campaign. The premier who built a party on hostility to Liberal Ottawa hardly said a word.
He went on vacation and returned just as COVID-19 started its surge to unprecedented levels, taking more lives and threatening the whole health system in the province.
All this explains why, on Monday, the chief political topic in Kenney’s government wasn’t the federal vote but rampant rumours that Kenney is about to quit.
People were talking about who might serve as temporary premier, elected by the UCP caucus, until a leadership convention is held.
One of the key names, along with Finance Minister Travis Toews, is Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver, who was interim leader of the old PC party after the defeat in 2015.
The president of McIver’s Calgary-Hays riding association, Al Browne, recently sent an email to many UCP riding activists with a resolution calling for a leadership review before March 1, 2022.
If 22 ridings pass the identical motion, the party must heed the call for a review.
Browne says he’s not part of any rebellion. He’s just co-ordinating a drive to find a compromise among UCP riding people who want a review immediately, some who would rather wait until the annual convention in November, and others who say it should happen in 2022.
Browne, a longtime friend of the Kenney family, says he’s pained by the premier’s difficulties.
But the party is in a full-blown uproar over Kenney’s massive failure on the pandemic. Only the federal campaign has kept a lid on this pressure cooker.
The hostility toward Kenney is more intense than any faced by Alison Redford before she quit as PC premier in 2014.
And the failure behind Kenney’s fall — losing control of a pandemic that is now killing people daily for the fourth time — is much more visceral than Redford’s problems.
She was followed as premier by Dave Hancock, who was elevated by a caucus vote. It’s the same scenario some in the UCP envisage today.
A UCP caucus meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. Depending on the outcome, prominent candidates may run for the party’s presidency in order to argue for leadership change at the November annual convention.
One article of faith in the UCP is that Kenney has a hammerlock on the current party executive — the body that has to approve a leadership review — and so far says one won’t be held until fall of 2022.
A crack appeared in that monolith when Joel Mullan, the policy vice-president, recently emailed the party to call for an early review.
Mullan confirms that he will run to be party president.
“What I would really like to see is a resignation with a solid end date,” says Mullan, who plans to make a detailed announcement Tuesday.
The presence of pro-review candidates at the convention would turn the vote into a referendum on Kenney himself.
The compromise solution for Kenney might be to accept a leadership review before March 1 next year, thus agreeing to the resolution now before many of the province’s constituency associations.
“I hope this would appeal to reasonable people,” says one senior UCP insider.
And yet, it may not. Many others think Kenney has to resign soon because the political carnage of the failure on COVID-19 is just too destructive for the government.
There’s talk that several MLAs, and even some ministers, could resign cabinet or quit caucus if they don’t like what they hear at Wednesday’s meeting.
We’ve heard that before and the exodus never quite gets started.
But it’s hard to see how Kenney stays on for much longer, with the public bitterly angry and so many of his own people finally united — around the desire to see him out.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.
Today Premier Jason Kenney will be blamed for contributing to the federal Liberals’ relatively strong showing in Canada’s election.
Even worse for him, many in his own government and party are hoping for his resignation and think they might get it.
Kenney has become so toxic that Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole wouldn’t even utter his name, for fear that the Liberals and NDP would use the quote in a last-minute attack ad.
Alberta was the lost province during the federal election campaign. The premier who built a party on hostility to Liberal Ottawa hardly said a word.
He went on vacation and returned just as COVID-19 started its surge to unprecedented levels, taking more lives and threatening the whole health system in the province.
All this explains why, on Monday, the chief political topic in Kenney’s government wasn’t the federal vote but rampant rumours that Kenney is about to quit.
People were talking about who might serve as temporary premier, elected by the UCP caucus, until a leadership convention is held.
One of the key names, along with Finance Minister Travis Toews, is Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver, who was interim leader of the old PC party after the defeat in 2015.
The president of McIver’s Calgary-Hays riding association, Al Browne, recently sent an email to many UCP riding activists with a resolution calling for a leadership review before March 1, 2022.
If 22 ridings pass the identical motion, the party must heed the call for a review.
Browne says he’s not part of any rebellion. He’s just co-ordinating a drive to find a compromise among UCP riding people who want a review immediately, some who would rather wait until the annual convention in November, and others who say it should happen in 2022.
Browne, a longtime friend of the Kenney family, says he’s pained by the premier’s difficulties.
But the party is in a full-blown uproar over Kenney’s massive failure on the pandemic. Only the federal campaign has kept a lid on this pressure cooker.
The hostility toward Kenney is more intense than any faced by Alison Redford before she quit as PC premier in 2014.
And the failure behind Kenney’s fall — losing control of a pandemic that is now killing people daily for the fourth time — is much more visceral than Redford’s problems.
She was followed as premier by Dave Hancock, who was elevated by a caucus vote. It’s the same scenario some in the UCP envisage today.
A UCP caucus meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. Depending on the outcome, prominent candidates may run for the party’s presidency in order to argue for leadership change at the November annual convention.
One article of faith in the UCP is that Kenney has a hammerlock on the current party executive — the body that has to approve a leadership review — and so far says one won’t be held until fall of 2022.
A crack appeared in that monolith when Joel Mullan, the policy vice-president, recently emailed the party to call for an early review.
Mullan confirms that he will run to be party president.
“What I would really like to see is a resignation with a solid end date,” says Mullan, who plans to make a detailed announcement Tuesday.
The presence of pro-review candidates at the convention would turn the vote into a referendum on Kenney himself.
The compromise solution for Kenney might be to accept a leadership review before March 1 next year, thus agreeing to the resolution now before many of the province’s constituency associations.
“I hope this would appeal to reasonable people,” says one senior UCP insider.
And yet, it may not. Many others think Kenney has to resign soon because the political carnage of the failure on COVID-19 is just too destructive for the government.
There’s talk that several MLAs, and even some ministers, could resign cabinet or quit caucus if they don’t like what they hear at Wednesday’s meeting.
We’ve heard that before and the exodus never quite gets started.
But it’s hard to see how Kenney stays on for much longer, with the public bitterly angry and so many of his own people finally united — around the desire to see him out.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.
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