Kenney cruises to byelection win
UCP leader will face off with Notley in legislature in run-up to 2019 vote
Jason Kenney continued his steamroller run through Alberta politics Thursday, easily winning the Calgary-Lougheed byelection and setting his sights on Premier Rachel Notley. The United Conservative Party leader was the heavy favourite in the race — triggered by the resignation of UCP MLA Dave Rodney to make way for Kenney — and unofficial results showed the former federal cabinet minister with 71.5 per cent of the vote and a nearly 6,000-vote lead over the NDP’s Phillip van der Merwe.
A family doctor, van der Merwe finished a faraway second with 16.5 per cent of the vote, while Liberal Leader David Khan was in third with 9.3 per cent of the tally.
The byelection marks the fourth major win for Kenney in the past nine months, following his victory in the Progressive Conservative leadership in March, successful referendums on uniting the PC and Wildrose parties this summer, and his triumph in the UCP leadership race in October.
Kenney had repeatedly said the byelection would be a chance to send a message to Notley’s NDP government, which he has lashed for economic and fiscal mismanagement — taking particular aim at the government’s carbon levy and growing debt levels.
“Tonight, friends, I received my marching orders — to fight every day to hold this government to account,” Kenney told a raucous crowd crammed into his Woodbine campaign headquarters.
With the win, Kenney can now go toe-to-toe with Notley in the legislature over the next year in the runup to the 2019 provincial election.
The New Democrats were trampled by the United Conservative Party in the suburban byways of Calgary-Lougheed on Thursday.
Government candidate Phillip van der Merwe polled a dismal 16.8 per cent of the byelection vote. Liberal leader David Khan had 9.3 per cent.
UCP leader Jason Kenney scored 71.5 per cent, beyond even the UCP’s wildest hopes.
Premier Rachel Notley airily waves this off, saving you can’t expect any other result when a major party leader is running on his home turf.
That may soothe tender egos, but there’s only bad news here for the NDP.
This is the third Calgary byelection the New Democrats have lost since their 2015 victory in the province at large. They were thumped in both Calgary-Greenway and Calgary-Foothills. Now they’re humiliated in Lougheed.
Results showed the NDP is vulnerable on both its progressive and conservative flanks. The Liberals nibble away at the New Democrats’ natural centre-left base, while the UCP corrals virtually all the conservative resentment with NDP economics.
Kenney often says that to predict UCP support, simply add together the votes for the former Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties.
Well, he was wrong. Kenney scored eight per cent higher than the PCs and Wildrose did in 2015, when they got a combined total of 63 per cent in Lougheed riding.
There has to be a bow here to Kenney’s enormous political skills. Thursday marked his fourth victory in the five-step plan for conservative victory he first rolled out in July 2016.
First, Kenney had to win the PC leadership, then propel the PCs and Wildrose toward merger, then win the UCP leadership. then get himself elected to the legislature.
At the start, few people believed he could do any of it, partly because no Canadian politician had ever tried anything like it.
Today, not many doubt he’ll win the fifth and final prize — a provincial election in 2019.
The NDP has spent a lot of time painting the UCP as socially backward and even dangerous to LGBTQ kids. UCP member MLA Jason Nixon didn’t help this week, when it came out that his company fired a single mother of three who had been sexually harassed in the workplace.
These are extremely important matters. Kenney could reassure a lot of people by taking a more moderate, less combative stance, when the NDP pins him down.
But the staggering rejection in Lougheed shows the NDP will not win an election on these social issues alone. The economy is the overpowering problem that rules them all. In much of the province, Kenney owns that debate.
It follows that if the NDP wants to protect its social agenda, it has to win the election. And to do that, it must sharply change economic policy.
Calgary is still staggering. Despite some recovery, there’s little revival in crucial areas.
The first months of 2018 could very well bring another flood of business closures. The downtown vacancy rate of 30 per cent is the worst of any significant international city, says the Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber released a report Thursday that called for governments to stop “layering” new taxes and charges on business. These include everything from the carbon levy to minimum wage, as well as city taxes and fees.
According to the Chamber, all new and increased levies will raise costs for a typical restaurant from $17,641 this year to $60,710 in 2018. Larger companies in transport and delivery sectors will see costs rise nearly $300,000.
The city and province often “layer” these costs with no reference to each other. The Chamber pleads with them to stop, and well they should. Raising business costs sharply in a recession is both economically destructive and politically suicidal.
As if to make the point, Cenovus announced Thursday it will lay off between 500 and 700 employees.
The economic problem is deepest in Calgary, but the New Democrats face the same general anxiety nearly everywhere.
If they learn nothing from Calgary-Lougheed, they might as well start writing the 2019 concession speech.