PC leadership race a runaway garbage fire
As Alberta’s PC leadership race enters home stretch, it has all the charms of a garbage fire
I initially described Alberta’s Progressive Conservative leadership race as a runaway train.
Then I called it a runaway clown car. I was wrong on both counts. It is a runaway Dumpster fire. And everyone involved seems determined to throw more trash into this political conflagration. It is a messy inferno being fed by legalistic complaints, duelling news releases, confusing tweets and a mini-mutiny inside the PC board of directors.
It’s like Game of Thrones but with absolutely no magic — and being played inside a burning garbage receptacle.
At the centre of it all is an onagain-off-again movement to get candidate Jason Kenney kicked out of the race.
The person behind that movement, PC member Jeff Rath, filed a complaint against Kenney last week, saying Kenney should be ejected because he wants to destroy the PC party to open the way for a new conservative party. His complaint was rejected Sunday by the party’s 12-member leadership election committee, including party president Katherine O’Neill.
But some anti-Kenney members of the party’s 50-member board of directors disagreed with that ruling and demanded an emergency meeting to consider Rath’s complaint.
On Wednesday, that meeting was scheduled by party vicepresident Darcy Schumann for Feb. 24 in Red Deer, before O’Neill scuttled it Thursday morning.
However, on Thursday afternoon, Rath filed another lengthy written complaint with the party against Kenney.
Here’s a snippet: “Given Mr. Kenney’s stated intention to lead a ‘new’ party, it is open to the board to conclude that this conduct has been wilful and intentional, with the end result being the complete eradication of the PCAA (Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta) as a viable ‘brand’ and revered institution in Alberta.”
Rath said he has enough support within the PC executive to force an emergency meeting of the board to hear his complaint — and get Kenney kicked out.
However, O’Neill insisted Thursday evening there will be no emergency meeting because the election committee has already dealt with the matter.
If your head is spinning, blame the fumes from this political rubbish fire.
Because even Kenney is feeding the flames. In a series of tweets this week, Kenney confused the issue even further, as if that was possible.
He said he might not dissolve the PC party after all: “I have never said it involves dissolution, and do not conceive of it that way. It would be a new beginning, a reconstitution.” What? That comment flies in the face of Kenney’s own stated goals.
When he announced his leadership intentions last July, his written timeline clearly included “winding up” the Wildrose and PC parties in the autumn of 2017 to open the way for a new united party.
However, Kenney is now saying he might keep the legal entities alive. Again, what? It turns out he doesn’t mean keeping the PC party or Wildrose alive as going concerns.
Here’s how he phrased it in an interview Thursday: “There’s no absolute imperative that they would deregister before the next election as long as they don’t run candidates.”
In other words, they would not be functioning entities for the next election.
If he kept them alive, it would only be for long enough to exhaust their financial assets.
Make no mistake, Kenney is pushing ahead with his plan to form a new conservative party to replace the PCs and Wildrose.
Why are some PC members trying to derail Kenney now as opposed to trying to do it last year before the race began in October?
Simply put, they didn’t think he would be so successful. They underestimated his ability to organize, sign up members, raise money and recruit delegates for the leadership convention on March 18.
Some of his organizers have been jerks, but Kenney hasn’t.
At this rate, he will become PC leader next month.
Then he’ll begin the process of winding up the PC party. That will be easier said than done.
The anti-Kenney forces will likely keep trying to trip him up every step of the way.
This fire is not being extinguished any time soon.