GRAHAM THOMSON
PC leader keen to push ahead on unity, but party members may have other ideas
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
We’ll find out Monday afternoon when Alberta’s new Progressive Conservative leader, Jason Kenney, meets with Wildrose Leader Brian Jean.
Fresh from his decisive victory at Saturday’s PC leadership convention, Kenney is eager to move ahead quickly with his plan for uniting the PCs and Wildrose into a new conservative party.
His enthusiasm was on display Sunday after meeting with the party’s board of directors.
“I just briefed the PC board on what I see as the next steps, one element of which would be nominating negotiators to sit on a negotiating committee with counterparts from the Wildrose party,” said Kenney, whose plan culminates in a founding convention for the new party in November, followed by a leadership race.
Whew.
It’d be a political whirlwind. A year from now Alberta could have a new conservative party with a new leader ready to do battle against the NDP government.
Or not.
A lot depends on what happens between Kenney and Jean at Monday’s meeting.
On paper, their get-together should be a back-slapping bromance over beers and chicken wings (only right wings, of course).
They are both former MPs in the old Harper government and both want to unite Alberta conservatives under one roof.
However, Kenney wants to do that by “winding up” both the PC and Wildrose parties to open the way to build a brand new party from scratch.
While Jean is happy to have the PCs dissolve themselves, he wants to keep the Wildrose framework, with a war chest estimated at $1 million or more, intact. It would be a case of the PCs joining the Wildrose, which would give itself a new name.
Kenney doesn’t like that idea and seems irritated by Jean issuing “preconditions” that could be a pretext for rejecting a merger. Jean, with support from his party members, could yet prove an insurmountable obstacle to the Kenney bulldozer.
With that scenario possibly in mind, Kenney offered a warning: “Voters in Alberta are going to punish any party that obstructs unity amongst free enterprisers. So if a unity agreement ends up being vetoed by either party, I think that sends a strong message to voters about which direction to go.”
But there’s still a chance the PCs, even under Kenney’s leadership, might not go for a merger. Keep in mind that Kenney won the leadership Saturday, not permission to merge the parties.
He still has to convince an estimated 39,000 rank-and-file members of Alberta’s most successful franchise that killing the political goose that laid majority-government eggs for 44 years is the best way forward.
There are still officials in the PC party hoping that the merger process will prove so complicated and lengthy that it will collapse under its own weight. In that case, Kenney would be leader of a still-breathing PC party for the next election.
And Kenney has thought of that scenario, too: “If, for some reason, either party decides not to endorse a unity agreement, then I will respect that democratic decision. I would also respect my mandate as leader. I would seek to make the Progressive Conservative party the platform for unity.”
I should point out I’ve been using the term “merger” for simplicity’s sake. According to Elections Alberta, two parties cannot legally merge. If they want to form a new party, they have to dissolve themselves and hand over all their financial assets to Elections Alberta — and then they’re free to form a new party. That’s one major reason why Jean doesn’t want to dissolve the Wildrose.
Kenney has always bristled at the rules that make his unity plan much harder to accomplish.
But surprise, surprise, those regulations might be in for a legal challenge. A group calling itself the Alberta Conservative Consolidation Committee will hold a news conference Monday afternoon to explain how a merger could be done legally.
Just ahead of the crucial meeting between irresistible Kenney and immovable Jean.