Kenney determined to keep social issues in background
UCP officials say 2,400 people have bought tickets.
The cut-off for voting registration came Wednesday night, although late walk-ins can still buy non-voting admission at the door. If they can get in the door.
The Sheraton Red Deer Hotel, formerly the Capri, expects to be jammed. A staffer told me Tuesday up to 2,000 people are expected at sessions. Overflow rooms are being set up for voting on resolutions.
Veteran politicos who haunted these crowded halls for decades wonder how they can possibly stuff in so many conservatives.
Former PC premier Alison Redford got 77 per cent party approval there. Her predecessor, Ed Stelmach, won 77.4 per cent.
It became a joke — a premier facing party revolt can find 77 per cent salvation at the Capri. Even Social Credit staged a late-life convention there, with a belly dancer.
But there’s seldom if ever been a gathering that promises to be as big, as odd, or as important as this UCP convention. It’s the rare meeting of a huge and popular party that hasn’t been voted into existence by its members.
Since the UCP was legally recognized in July 2017, no constitution has been adopted and no policy formally approved.
And yet, this half-formed outfit is consistently far ahead in the polls and almost universally expected to win the provincial election a year from now.
So far the UCP has been running on anti-NDP energy and Jason Kenney fumes.
The issues that helped him win the leadership — kill the carbon tax, cut spending, balance the books, make sure the NDP is “one and done” — have become working UCP doctrine.
But few UCP members are complaining about the long wait for a policy debate.
Many view any criticism of Kenney or the party as high treason, so holy is the grail of driving off the NDP. There was an upwelling of social media rage this week when I wrote about draft resolutions aimed at outlawing abortions and attacking gay-straight alliances in schools.
Some of the angriest UCP people, oddly enough, were former “red” PCs who a year ago would have attacked Wildrose for the very same proposals.
Conservative divisions over these issues helped split the movement and elect the NDP. Conservatives don’t want that to happen again, even if they have to forgo fighting each other for a while.
Kenney is determined to keep social issues in the background, despite the efforts of interest groups like the Wilberforce Project to place pro-life views at the centre of party doctrine.
Wilberforce emailed party members detailed instructions on how to vote on a host of resolutions touching on abortion and other tangential issues. At least one, on defunding abortion, made the final list to be debated.
But on Thursday, Kenney’s caucus walked out of yet another legislature debate and vote on the NDP bill to expand “bubble zones” around abortion clinics.
It’s a rare thing for an official Opposition party to shun debate on a government bill — but less dangerous, apparently, than turning UCP MLAs loose to speak their minds.
Meanwhile, the NDP is certainly being provocative. Premier Rachel Notley not only timed this bill to coincide with the convention, but this week revealed a plan to expand abortion clinics outside Edmonton and Calgary.
Kenney seems determined not to engage. He’s convinced — and polls suggest he’s right — that the great majority of Albertans care more about jobs, the economy and the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
This leader’s hand will stay firmly on the tiller, no matter what the members decide this weekend. Kenney says victorious resolutions won’t automatically become part of the UCP election platform. It will be written after much other input, some of it from outside the UCP itself.
That’s not very “grassrooty,” to paraphrase a Globe and Mail colleague.
But it’s what every Canadian leader who wants to win ends up doing. And this one really wants to win.