Jeans pushes Wildrose 2.0 vision
Jean says his preferred policy planks have been vetted by members of his former party
One of the big questions surrounding the new United Conservative Party is, what does it stand for?
After all, it’s a party that has yet to have a founding convention.
Well, if former Wildrose leader Brian Jean has his way, the UCP will pretty much be Wildrose 2.0.
On Wednesday, Jean held his third news conference in as many days to announce a policy platform, this one on “Protecting Freedom and Democracy.”
Among its planks: enact legislation to allow MLAs to be recalled, ban the use of union dues for partisan activities and hold a referendum to force constitutional discussion with Ottawa on equalization.
On Tuesday, Jean’s policy platform theme was “Securing our economic future.”
To do that Jean would scrap the carbon tax, reduce business taxes and cut $2.6 billion in government spending.
On Monday, while kicking off his leadership campaign, he spent much of his time attacking the NDP government. “They’ve broken promises, misled Albertans. They are secretive and dishonest.”
Say hello to the new UCP leader, much like the old Wildrose leader.
Not that Jean is UCP leader yet. He still has to win the leadership race.
To help him win, he’s issuing policy platforms to garner attention and set himself apart from the other candidates.
But how do you do that in a party that, at least in theory, is dedicated to grassroots democracy where the members set the direction, not the leader?
As Jean is fond of saying, “I am a servant of the people of my party.”
How can Jean or any other leader put forth policy unilaterally?
Jean says he’s not acting unilaterally, his policies have already been vetted — by the Wildrose.
“This is policy that has been adopted by my previous members,” said Jean. “The Wildrose party adopted this policy. There’s a few little tweaks on it, but for the most part, this is a policy that has been grassroots brought about and gone through a process. In fact, as you are aware, we brought forward the issue of recall twice in the legislature by way of private member’s bills and both times it was voted down by the NDP government.”
Jean says he will always listen to the wishes of his members. But is he presupposing the wishes of the new party’s members?
The UCP is supposed to be an entity that melds together the values of both Wildrose and Progressive Conservative. And anyone else who joins. Other than some vague principles espoused in a joint agreement released May 18, the party is a blank slate.
It is not supposed to be simply a Wildrose 2.0.
The PCs, for example, weren’t keen on recall legislation or on governance by referendums, perhaps because both are political gimmicks.
And also because the PCs probably remembered that an Alberta government did once enact recall legislation — in 1936, under the new Social Credit government of premier William Aberhart.
The Socred government scrambled to kill the legislation in 1937 when voters in Aberhart’s riding of Okotoks-High River targeted him for recall.
But then again, maybe there aren’t many progressives left in the new party. Arguably, those who would have fought against populist gimmicks leaped from the party before the UCP unity vote took the PC brand over a cliff. And now they wander homeless through the wilderness that is 2017 Alberta politics.
But what’s a leadership candidate to do when he wants to garner some attention and set himself apart from the others?
He issues policies. They’re all doing it.
Doug Schweitzer, a Calgary lawyer who is the only other declared candidate in the race so far, has been making policy announcements for weeks, including one that would “reset public sector wages” and one that would offer the “largest tax relief in Alberta’s history.”
MLA Derek Fildebrandt, who has yet to decide if he will run for the leadership, has been issuing policies that, among other things, call for a return to the flat tax for personal income.
Soon-to-be-ex-PC Leader Jason Kenney is expected to announce his candidacy this weekend.
Expect policy announcements to follow.