Kenny sounds confident, rivals hopeful as PC leadership convention begins

CALGARY Jason Kenney entered the Progressive Conservative leadership convention Friday serenely confident of a victory that will fundamentally shake Alberta politics.

But his rivals believe they still have a chance to pull off an upset win that would shatter conventional wisdom and lead to its own uncertainty moving forward.

In a carefully staged event, Kenney — the former Conservative MP running on a platform of unifying the PCs with the Wildrose by forming a new party — drove up to the Telus Convention Centre in the blue “unity truck” he used to tour the province on his campaign.

With a crowd of about 75 supporters gathered behind him, Kenney told reporters he believes he has majority support among the expected 1,400 delegates who will vote for the new leader Saturday.

“Albertans want to unite. They want some hope, they want us to fix a broken political system and I believe the Progressive Conservatives are going to decide in favour of unity,” he said.

But Vermilion-Lloydminster MLA Richard Starke, who appears to be Kenney’s strongest opponent in the race, told reporters he has gained momentum among the many Tories who don’t want to give up on the PC brand and legacy.

“We’ve had surprises in political contests before and we’ve seen that in fact very recently, just over the past year there have been results very much opposite of what the experts or the polls or the pundits have said,” said Starke.

Both Starke and Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson, who is also running for leader, have called for the PC party to be renewed and rebuilt, rather than folded into a new party.

A Kenney win would throw in doubt the future of a party that governed Alberta for more than four decades before losing to the NDP in the 2015 provincial election. The former MP has said that if he wins, he will immediately request a meeting with Wildrose Leader Brian Jean to discuss unity.

Jean flipped the script Friday by inviting whoever wins on the weekend to meet with him in Edmonton on Monday.

The Wildrose leader is a wild card on the unite-the-right front. Jean has said he backs conservative unity but has also said it must be accomplished with Wildrose as the legal framework, a point he reiterated in his statement Friday.

“While not everyone agrees, there is a common voice that we must not tear down, but build up all that we as Wildrose achieved as a party and for our province,” said Jean.

“The idea of a united conservative movement must be more than the quickest path to power, but must serve the best interests of current and future generations.”

Nelson told reporters he has been surprised by the sheer appetite to unite conservatives that he had encountered on the campaign trail but he maintains it will be difficult to accomplish.

“If Mr. Kenney wins this weekend he will have a mandate to start negotiations ... everything I feel about this is it is going to be one heck of a complicated process,” he said.

“I’m running to win but if that happens I will be as helpful as I can to the process and hope that traditional PCs like myself have a strong voice in whatever goes forward.”

Kenney reiterated Friday that if he wins, he will continue to serve as PC leader even if his unity plans are rejected by members of each party.

His leadership bid has won the backing of four members of the 10-member PC caucus.