UCP LEADER VERY LIKELY TO BE OUR NEXT PREMIER
The joke on social media is that the new United Conservative Party could run a Labrador retriever as its leader and win the next Alberta provincial election.
Judging from the recent Mainstreet Research/Postmedia poll that ran earlier this week, it appears there may be some truth behind that jest.
The poll surveyed 2,100 Albertans July 27-28, just days after the historic July 22 unity vote between the official Opposition Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservative party, whose members both voted 95 per cent in favour of uniting and ending the decade of division for Alberta conservatives.
The poll determined that any of the four current leadership hopefuls — former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, former Alberta PC leader and federal Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney, MLA Derek Fildebrandt and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer — would cruise to a likely majority government were an election held today. In other words, Albertans are desperate to get rid of Rachel Notley’s anti-business NDP government that is causing capital to flee this province for friendlier, less costly market environments.
The poll gives Jean, who became leader of a fractured Wildrose Party in 2015 just two months before the May 5 provincial election that swept the NDP to power, a slight edge over Kenney — with 59 per cent of the vote compared to Kenney’s 56 per cent — which is within the margin of error.
“Basically, any candidate we would throw in the mix is get- ting a majority,” said Mainstreet president Quito Maggi.
In other words, winning the Oct. 28 leadership of the UCP is a big political prize.
Unless bozo eruptions happen daily, whoever wins this race is most likely going to be premier following the May 2019 election.
So, it’s no surprise others are considering joining the fight.
Jeff Callaway, who was the president of the Wildrose Party until the merger, has a draft Jeff Callaway for UCP leader page on Facebook. On July 28, the page was launched and by Friday only 250 people liked his page. By contrast, Jean’s page has 117,323 likes, Kenney’s has more than 96,490, Fildebrandt has 31,250 and Schweitzer has about 1,800.
Callaway has a lot of catching up to do. The senior investment adviser is well-connected because of his nine years of volunteering for the Wildrose, but he’s starting from way back in the race and has little name recognition outside of the Wildrose Party.
“I think there’s a space in the race for someone who has the kind of background, the skill set and the vision that I want to bring to the table,” the 40-yearold said.
“I don’t want to let all of my tricks out of the bag yet, but I’ve got some pretty bold, visionary ideas that are not much different from how (former PC premier) Ralph Klein helped stimulate the oilsands back in the ’90s,” said Callaway, who grew up on a dairy farm north of Cochrane.
“I’ve got some ideas that will really get us moving forward in a clean, green manner that’s going to put people to work from the field up to the office towers,” added Callaway, who ran in the 2015 provincial election in Calgary-Northwest, where he lost to then PC candidate Sandra Jansen, who is now sitting as an NDP MLA.
“People are pretty excited about my ideas to get us going on a natural gas-fuelled economy and that’s a vision we’re definitely not seeing from Brian. I think we have to be more bold than talking about municipal referendums on photo radar.”
Ouch! It’s no secret Callaway has not been a big fan of Jean’s leadership for some time now.
There was a rumour out there that Calgary lawyer Jonathan Denis, Alberta’s former justice minister under both Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford, was planning to run for leader.
“Nope, I’m supporting Jason Kenney,” said Denis, who was reached at his growing law firm.
“I think Jason is the best choice. I’ve known him since I was a teenager in Saskatchewan, and the whole issue of unity wouldn’t have happened without his leadership and it’s amazing what he’s accomplished in one year,” added Denis, referring to Kenney first winning the fight to lead the PC party with the stated aim of uniting the right — and then getting that done.
Denis said he wondered at first if the merger would actually unite the two camps. What he’s found is people who left the PC party to join the Wildrose have been reaching out to reconnect and get involved in the new party.
“I’ve been getting calls from people I knew from the Ralph Klein days, when I was just a newly-minted Albertan,” Denis said. “The nice thing about this race is that they’re all good choices, but I think Jason’s the best.”
Denis is right. So far, the UCP race has attracted top-notch individuals. No need for a Labrador retriever to be recruited or even a pit bull — though a time may come when the latter is needed.
I’ve got some ideas that will really get us moving forward in a clean, green manner that’s going to put people to work.