KENNEY BEST PICK FOR UPC
It’s been exhausting, but also inspiring, because of all of these wonderful characters I’ve met.
Unlike past leadership contests for the centre-right party in this province, Albertans will not suffer a hangover of regret the morning after Saturday night’s United Conservative Party leadership results are revealed.
While it’s not yet known who the new leader will be, what is known is regardless of who wins, the fledgling party will choose an eloquent, intelligent and thoughtful leader with impressive life and career accomplishments.
How can I be so sure? Because every one of the candidates — Brian Jean, Jason Kenney and Doug Schweitzer — embody those positive characteristics and many more.
Over the past week, I have shared laughs, some tears and meals with each of these men and they were invariably personable, likable, funny, eloquent and inspiring. All three men say the first thing they would do as premier is to “put out the ‘open for business’” sign and restore investor confidence in Alberta.
Kenney, however, in my view, stands out. He is, quite simply, a force of nature — compelling, sharp, humorous, principled and articulate like few others.
He doesn’t have a stop button. Kenney, 49, sets and then gets goals done. His electoral record belies the lies that he is a divisive figure who is not likable and would be in tough in 2019 against the NDP government.
On Wednesday it was revealed that 23 of Alberta’s 29 federal Conservative MPs support him for leader of the United Conservatives. Clearly, he’s liked by his colleagues and those who know him.
Kenney has won seven parliamentary elections in southeast Calgary starting in 1997, with about 70 per cent of the vote in most of those elections.
While working as the federal minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism from 2008 to 2013, Kenney was nicknamed the Minister of Curry in a Hurry — reflecting the sheer number of events he would attend at the invitation of various ethnic communities across the country.
He is recognized for being the architect behind doubling the vote of new Canadians for Stephen Harper’s Conservative party by building “relationships of trust and respect.” He was named by his parliamentary peers in 2011 for Maclean’s magazine as Canada’s hardest-working MP.
In the last 16 months, Kenney has managed to do what many predicted couldn’t be accomplished before the 2019 provincial election. Kenney quit his federal seat in July 2016 and then won the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.
After that battle, with scarcely a rest, Kenney — with the help of former Wildrose Party leader and former Conservative Party MP Brian Jean — led the way to a dual 95 per cent vote in July in favour of the PCs and Wildrose merging into the UCP.
Since then, Kenney has been running to lead the party he is widely credited with creating. According to polls, the United Conservative Party, regardless of who the leader is, would win a large majority government today.
“I’ve done 102,000 klicks on my pickup and close to 900 events in this last 16 months,” says Kenney, chuckling while biting into a sandwich at the Stetson Pub, just across the street from his leadership campaign office off of Macleod Trail S.E.
“It’s been a marathon — an endurance test,” admits Kenney. “It’s been exhausting, but also inspiring, because of all of these wonderful characters I’ve met. A lot of people who are barely hanging on in terms of their businesses and so on, they tell me every day that if they didn’t think that there was the hope of the NDP being replaced in 2019, they’d be leaving the province. So that’s what I mean about expectations.”
Jean, however, believes he is the only candidate who can win in every region of the province. The 54-year-old has lived the kind of life that would make for a great autobiography.
He grew up poor in a large blended family. After a lot of hard work in Fort McMurray, where his parents ran a newspaper, stores and other enterprises, Jean became a lawyer and retired for the first time at age 39.
“I didn’t need the money,” he said. “I went into politics for the right reasons.”
Jean is well liked, but his performance in the 2015 provincial election debate saw the Wildrose Party’s first-place poll numbers drop precipitously the next day.
Just 10 days prior to that debate, however, Jean’s youngest of three sons, Michael, 24, passed away from lymphoma after eight months of being misdiagnosed following major medical errors.
What happened to Michael was the main motivation behind Jean deciding to run for the leadership of the Wildrose, following leader Danielle Smith’s defection to the PC government led by Jim Prentice. By the time Michael was diagnosed with lymphoma, it was too late — a recollection that causes Jean to weep. Jean says he is certain he would perform much better in future debates and has the best work history and education to get it done.
Schweitzer, 38, says he wants to focus on the economy, “but that with millennial voters, if you don’t get the social issues right, they will not even listen to you about fiscal matters.”
That message has resonated with many UCP members. While the corporate lawyer with Dentons won’t name names, his comments are clearly directed toward Kenney, who voted against legalizing gay marriage more than 12 years ago in Parliament.
While long involved in politics behind the scenes, Schweitzer has essentially lost every political battle he has ever waged, first as executive director of the Tories in Manitoba and then as campaign manager for Premier Jim Prentice’s disastrous election in 2015.
Kenney praises both Jean and Schweitzer, but bristles when he’s “vilified” as someone who would “out” LGBTQ kids if they join gaystraight alliances in schools.
He says all nuance that he has expressed has been “cynically” overlooked by the NDP.
“We should trust teachers and principals to judge best how to deal with each individual circumstance, because this legislation deals with children as young as five. Of course there are circumstances when a parent should not be informed,” he says.
How will he feel if he doesn’t win?
“If I don’t win, I won’t be devastated. I’ve had a sort of Zen attitude. We’ve completed what we set out to achieve,” says Kenney.
“I observed last year that we were cruising towards a vote split and a potential second NDP term. Somebody had to step forward and nobody else was, and it occurred to me that I was pretty well suited to be a catalyst to get us united,” says Kenney.
“Now, I think I have the right kind of preparation for the huge task that is ahead as premier, but if the members think otherwise, I’ll happily retreat into private life for the interim period until the next election and enthusiastically support whoever wins.”
So Sunday morning, when the news sinks in as to who won this leadership contest, Albertans won’t need to reach for the aspirin. There won’t be a political headache no matter who wins.