UCP candidates talk unity while they open fire
Callaway, Kenney pile onto Jean over shortfall in caucus budget
The United Conservative Party leadership race is far from an all-in brawl but, as we creep ever closer to the vote, so too comes more of the kind of talk that ends in a barstool being thrown.
When the UCP leadership committee released race rules late Friday, four candidates had entered the ring: Jeff Callaway (former Wildrose president), Brian Jean (former Wildrose leader), Jason Kenney (former Alberta Progressive Conservative leader) and Doug Schweitzer (a Calgary lawyer).
It will cost each one of them $75,000 for the chance to pursue the crown, with the vote taking place over three days from Oct. 26 through a preferential, non-weighted ballot by phone or online.
KEEPING IT ABOVE BOARD
None of the candidates has stooped to ad hominem attacks; even when pushed by reporters recently, Callaway admitted he thinks Jean is “a good guy.”
Kenney thinks the race has been “positive and respectful so far,” but takes issue with Jean proposing detailed policy.
He and Jean simply disagree on some of the fundamentals, Kenney shrugs, and now is as good a time as any to discuss those differences.
Jean doesn’t seem quite so sure about the race being the epitome of respectful, but says he’ll leave innuendo and mud-slinging to others.
“It truly only serves the NDP. That’s what they want us to do. They want to have conservatives fighting each other and I’m not going to do that,” he says.
Both he and Kenney agree public fighting has no value for a young party just beginning to get its legs.
Schweitzer’s on the same page, and says, quite frankly, Albertans are done with divisive U.S. and Ottawa-style politics.
“I didn’t spend all this time and effort over the past two years to unite conservatives and unite Albertans to only divide them in this race,” Jean says.
CHINKS IN THE UNITED ARMOUR
The problem is, the UCP has cracks. And they’re growing.
Those splits were inevitable — it’s a party trying to mend a broken relationship after years of sometimes bitter and personal political feuds.
Yet the leadership race began before the unity vote even took place. Naturally, many MLAs picked sides, aligning themselves with Jean or Kenney.
Before the ink was dry on the agreement to merge the parties, Jean declared he’d seek the top job.
On the day of the vote, while Wildrosers were still casting ballots, Strathmore-Brooks MLA Derek Fildebrandt — who has since resigned from the UCP caucus over a string of spending scandals and a court case — vowed never to support Jean for leader.
Just after the Airbnb scandal around Fildebrandt broke, the MLA told his local newspaper, the Brooks Bulletin, that he was warned by the Jean campaign they would reveal he rented out his taxpayersubsidized Edmonton apartment if he criticized his former leader.
“Blackmail doesn’t work on me, but there are consequences to it if you don’t give in to it,” he was quoted as telling the paper.
Jean’s camp says nothing of the kind ever happened.
Then came news the UCP caucus taxpayer-funded budget was facing a potential deficit, thanks largely to $322,000 in red ink brought by the Wildrose side.
Some MLAs leapt to Jean’s defence, while others cried foul, saying they’d been demanding explanations about caucus funding for months.
During his most recent campaign policy announcement, Callaway took a clear shot at Jean over caucus finances, saying he was proud of his own fiduciary record as party president.
“We were always running surpluses. We never had debt in the party. We never got into the kind of budgetary questions that the leadership of Brian Jean led this party into,” Callaway told media.
Twisting the knife, he added he would be “concerned about electing someone who can’t even run a $2-million budget.”
Kenney has also jumped on Jean over the caucus finances, telling the Journal they were a result of the former Wildrose leader’s decisions and he must be held accountable.
All four candidates are currently travelling the province, keen to connect with UCP members and win support for their cause.