Tuesday, June 07, 2022

Bell: Aheer runs for UCP leader, insiders insist they're for change

Rick Bell - CALGARY SUN

She’s in and the political temperature goes up a few more degrees.



© Provided by Calgary Sun
MLA Leela Aheer speaks with media at McDougall Centre in Calgary before a UCP caucus meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2022. The UCP were meeting following Premier Jason Kenney's announcement Wednesday night that he will be resigning as leader.

It will get warmer in the days ahead as more join the fray.

Leela Aheer, the MLA from Chestermere, is expected to announce Tuesday she’s entering the race to replace Premier Jason Kenney as UCP leader and leader of the province.

She knows all about Travis Toews, Kenney’s budget boss, announcing last week he is in the race.

She knows all about the 23 UCP members of the legislature, including several from the premier’s inner circle, backing Toews.

She knows all about the show of strength this past weekend in Calgary where Toews was surrounded with plenty of UCP politicians and other somebodies in the party and they were most enthused.

Aheer isn’t bowled over.

The outspoken MLA, no stranger to being in Kenney’s bad books, says she very much respects Toews as a human being.

But …

“Nothing has changed,” says Aheer, of Toews and his considerable team.

“If there was an agent of change then where were those views when things needed to be changed?”

“When there was an opportunity to fix, to change and alter and take away pain and fear from our people, where was that voice?”

“Where was the standing up for the people when fingers were being wagged at particular groups and organizations?”

“If they’re an agent of change, where was it? Where was it until now? I sure didn’t see it.”

“How can you be an agent of change when you weren’t willing to try and make change when you had the opportunity?”

“There were many, many opportunities to gracefully and with compelling argument make change whilst we were in the previous situation and that did not happen.”

For Aheer, a former cabinet minister punted by Kenney because she took on the big guy, change requires empathy.

“Empathy has not been there. Had we led with that we might be in a very different discussion today.”

Aheer adds she spoke up because things weren’t fixed internally and “you know that corruption is happening.”

Then why is the group who didn’t utter a peep before the May 18 leadership vote now casting themselves as agents of change?

“I think because that’s the only way the people of Alberta could accept somebody in leadership, particularly coming from the premier’s team. But I think the average Albertan will see it is too little too late for that.”

Toews plainly does not agree. In Calgary his pitch was not meant to set the world on fire and it didn’t.

He cast himself as the stable and responsible candidate who was a straight shooter and didn’t like political drama.


© Ed Kaiser/Postmedia
UCP leader hopeful Travis Toews during a news conference in Edmonton.

Toews did mention leading with humility and listening and did point out how some Albertans were wrongly characterized and needed to be heard and needed to have a voice.

He took questions from newshounds.

He said he and the premier were very different people and he was not a career politician .

He didn’t elaborate much further.

He was asked by one newshound, not yours truly, about whether having so many of the premier’s inner circle on board was a help or a hindrance, baggage he had to carry.

He didn’t really take that one head-on.

But Toews does believe in a code of conduct for government politicians and he pledges that code would be enforced.

He also talked a lot about unity among conservatives.

Just for the record, your scribbler was treated very well, unlike in those days where the survival of the premier was at stake.

More than a few in the Toews crowd even acknowledged much of the criticism of the premier was on the mark.

Some may have believed it for some time but didn’t have the guts to come forward.

Maybe, for others, when push came to shove they could finally see the writing on the wall.

There was no advantage in defending an attitude in government clearly turning off most Albertans.

The folks at the Toews love-in insisted their guy would be different. He would be change. Just you wait and see.

We will wait and see. It is a long campaign.

Meanwhile, Aheer says her voice will be heard.

She makes a statement all leadership hopefuls ignore at their peril.

When it was ignored by the PCs in 2015 their one-party rule going back to 1971 ended.

“We’re here because there is a need to change the status quo. Arrogance will never win. Albertans will never, ever be able to be ruled by arrogance.”

rbell@postmedia.com


Former minister Leela Aheer joins UCP leadership race


UCP MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore and former culture, multiculturalism and status of women minister Leela Aheer has joined the race to become UCP leader and replace Premier Jason Kenney.



Chestermere-Rocky View MLA Leela Aheer speaks with media at McDougall Centre in Calgary before a UCP caucus meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2022. The UCP were meeting following Premier Jason Kenney's announcement Wednesday night that he will be resigning as leader.
 Gavin Young/Postmedia

Ashley Joannou - Edmonton Journal

Aheer made the announcement Tuesday morning on Real Talk with Ryan Jespersen. She said she wants to give back to the province.

“The entire leadership race for me is about regaining Albertans’ trust. We owe that to people. We owe them the opportunity to be able to get in front of them and explain to them who we are, and to be able to be truthful about the mistakes that have been made, because there’s been plenty. I think that happens with any party,” she said.

Aheer was first elected under the Wildrose Party banner in 2015. After winning a second term in 2019, this time with the newly-created United Conservative Party, she was named Alberta’s minister of culture, multiculturalism, and status of women.

Aheer was shuffled out of her cabinet post in 2021 not long after openly criticizing Kenney for a dinner he held on a patio linked to a government office space in Edmonton known as the Sky Palace which violated COVID-19 restrictions.


When asked Tuesday about the government’s strained relationship with health care workers Aheer said Alberta needs to increase spaces in universities, attract international professionals and that Alberta’s doctors and nurses are owed a “huge apology.”

“I think I’ve spent the last two years talking to doctors and nurses and frontline workers across the province just explaining my deep gratitude because of the way that we proceeded and how they felt as a result of the direction that we have gone,” she said.

“There’s not enough apology in the world. There’s not enough that we can say in order for those incredible people that understand how grateful we are.”

Aheer joins a leadership race that already includes former UCP finance minister Travis Toews, independent MLA for Central Peace-Notley Todd Loewen, former Wildrose Party leaders Danielle Smith and Brian Jean, and Amisk Mayor Bill Rock.

The party has yet to release details of how the leadership race will run or when election day will be.

More to come
ajoannou@postmedia.com
twitter.com/ashleyjoannou

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