REFORM THE FUTURE FOR TORIES: KENNEY
Markets not answer to all problems
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney believes the future of conservatism lies in parties like Canada’s Tories moving away from promoting laissez-faire capitalism and instead embracing the growing “reform conservatism” movement in the U.S., which sees a role for government in addressing the challenges of people who have failed to get ahead even as the economy grows.
Kenney said he is following closely the American discussion about reform conservatism, a movement that questions the notion that a growing economy benefits everyone and which dismisses the idea that the market is always right.
“It’s a conservatism focused on social mobility and not just simply laissezfaire liberalism or even neo-liberalism, but one that understands that the state can sometimes use market mechanisms to help lift up people who have barriers to upward social mobility,” said Kenney, in an interview with the National Post on Monday.
“That whole bundle of ideas appeals to me greatly,” said Kenney. “I think it’s a great source of ideas for the federal Conservatives.”
Before winning the leadership of the United Conservative Party, Kenney had planned to bring some of these new ideas to Alberta, but he said there was a more urgent need to bring investment back to the province after the economic downturn. For that reason, Kenney made a business tax-cut the flagship policy of the UCP election campaign, which he hopes will entice capital back to Alberta.
In the event that the Alberta economy starts firing on all cylinders again, Kenney intends to revisit some of these ideas.
“I find all of that very interesting and we’re trying to express it in some ways, like our big focus on apprenticeship learning and skilled trades training, our effort to emulate the German valorization of trades and apprenticeships as being equivalent to professions and academic learning,” said Kenney.
It’s a movement that has been gaining steam in American conservative circles, especially since Donald Trump’s election as president, and it has been slowly creeping across the border. In the summer, about two dozen Canadian conservative big-thinkers crowded into a Toronto pub to hear economist Oren Cass, a former policy wonk for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, tell them to put the focus on production and jobs, rather than consumption and corporate profits.
These ideas have been championed by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and a myriad of thinkers on the right in the United States. More recently, it has been a flagship of U.S. Senator Marco Rubio who has styled it as “common good capitalism,” which tries to ensure large corporations are benefiting workers rather than just focusing solely on accumulating profits.
Although Kenney would support a rethink of the federal Conservative Party’s ideas, he has solidly backed leader Andrew Scheer amid questions about his leadership.
With Scheer facing constant questions during the campaign about his views on same-sex marriage and abortion, even some conservatives have made the argument that it’s no longer possible for someone with social conservative views to run successfully as leader. Kenney cautioned against assuming everyone who is devoutly religious has socially conservative views.
“I think we should tread carefully before excluding people of faith from the public square and from public life,” said Kenney. “I think that Canadians pride themselves on the pluralistic nature of our democracy and it’s not pluralism if it excludes people of faith.”
A recent poll from the Angus Reid Institute found 63 per cent of Canadians say they are neutral about the idea of a candidate being a person of faith but that 22 per cent say it repels them, with 14 per cent saying it attracts them to that candidate.
The poll also found that Canadians are extremely skeptical of promises from people of faith that they won’t let their personal views interfere with how they govern the country.
“It’s not a coincidence that the first fundamental freedoms enumerated in the Charter of Rights are the freedoms of conscience and religion,” said Kenney.
Kenney was in Ottawa on Monday and Tuesday with what he was calling “Team Alberta” — eight cabinet ministers and a posse of officials who will make the rounds with their federal counterparts, industry leaders and Opposition politicians. He was also hosting political and industry insiders at Ottawa’s private Rideau Club Monday night. He will meet the prime minister Tuesday afternoon.
The Alberta premier said he was demanding a “fair deal” for Alberta and his provincial government has taken out frontpage advertisements in Ottawa newspapers to help drive the point home. Specifically, Kenney wants Justin Trudeau to commit to a fixed completion date for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, which will move more Albertan oil to the Pacific coast.
Kenney also wants changes to the federal Fiscal Stabilization Program, which helps cushion provinces against short-term economic volatility, but has been capped at such a low maximum that it has been of little help to a large economy like Alberta’s. The request, which was echoed by all the other provinces and territories last week, has elicited an optimistic response from Ottawa. On Monday morning, Finance Minister Bill Morneau confirmed he was open to talking about changes to the program.
Also on the list of “several dozen” requests that Kenney is bringing to Ottawa is a request to rewrite Bill C-69, which modified environmental assessments for large energy projects, and a complete scrapping of the government’s tanker ban law, which effectively bans Canadian oil exports from B.C.’S north coast.
Although Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley has already accused Kenney of running a “leadership campaign” for the federal Conservatives,” Kenney says he only hopes to influence the party by example.
“I think that’s laughable,” said Kenney, who went on to list all the stops on his lengthy adventure in merging Alberta’s Conservative parties and then becoming premier in the spring election.
“And all of that just to go back to where I started?” said Kenney. “I guess I should be flattered that they think I’m some kind of Svengali-like genius, but that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”