First fire, now flood costs Jean his home
Former leader of Wildrose in Alberta
Tin Calgary
here’s far too much misery in Alberta these days, but for pure bad luck and brutal coincidence few stories can match Brian Jean’s.
Jean is the former Wildrose leader who lost the United Conservative Party leadership to now- Premier Jason Kenney in 2017.
On Monday, the biggest flood to hit Fort Mcmurray in his lifetime destroyed the house he’s building.
The same day, the province’s ethics commissioner found government MLAS blameless for firing an official who was investigating alleged leadership campaign violations partly aimed at Jean.
The former Opposition leader took that in while dealing with the latest in his appalling string of personal hardships.
Vaguely labelling politics “disgusting,” he told me on the phone, “but I’m not talking about it right now, I just can’t ...
“The house is pretty much wrecked,” he said, “there’s several feet of water, almost everything ruined.”
That house was to replace his previous residence, which burned to a groundlevel cinder in the 2016 Fort Mcmurray wildfire.
“This is not a natural flood, this is something else, something I’ve never seen in my lifetime,” said Jean.
He sounded much the way people came to describe the fire, as a living thing with a malicious mind of its own.
Jean’s son, Justin, who was living in a part of the house under construction, had to be rescued from the flooding with his children.
Jean himself is staying in his late mother’s downtown house, which was also flooding Tuesday. He worried it might be lost, too.
His wife, Kim, and young child had gone to safety in Edmonton.
“It’s a lot,” Jean said sadly, “it’s really a lot to take.”
He isn’t for a moment equating himself with all those who have lost their jobs, their money and even their loved ones in the COVID-19 pandemic.
But he has absorbed so much, this guy.
His son Michael died in 2015 at age 24. The young man’s long hospitalization prompted Jean’s passion for health-care reform.
Michael died only days before Jean won the Wildrose Party leadership.
Jean said his son wanted him to go on. He was the saddest, most stricken leader I’ve ever seen deliver a victory speech.
Still haunted by family loss and fire, Jean lost the UCP leadership to Kenney on Oct. 29, 2017.
His mother, Frances Jean, for many years a prominent local leader and businesswoman, died at age 85 on Nov. 23, 2018.
His sister, Evelyn Clewes, age 59, died of cancer on June 13, 2019.
Enough, you’d say. This man has endured his share.
But the fates that rule coincidence can be cruel indeed.
Ethics Commissioner Marguerite Trussler ruled Monday that the Kenney government’s firing of former election commissioner Lorne Gibson was not improper.
She found there was no wrongdoing or government benefit in dumping an official who was investigating operatives in the Kenney leadership campaign.
Kenney’s current issues manager, Matt Wolf, might have been involved in “questionable political shenanigans,” Trussler said, but there’s no indication Kenney knew.
Trussler found fault with only one MLA, Peter Singh, who had properly not voted on the bill that enabled the dismissal but failed to officially recuse himself.
She levied no penalty but suggested he could apologize to the legislature.
All this has a great deal to do with Jean, because if the leadership campaign was improperly influenced, he was both the target and the victim.
Gibson had fined 15
This is not a natural flood, this is something else.
people a total of more than $ 200,000 for violations involving that race.
After the ruling came out, the NDP did something I’ve never seen before — ripped the ethics commissioner.
Usually, Opposition politicians just grumble a bit and swallow government-friendly rulings. It’s been going on for years.
But NDP member Heather Sweet said Trussler was simply wrong to characterize UCP behaviour as “political activity.”
“Albertans don’t need a law degree to know what the premier did was wrong and we urge them to continue speaking out about the abuse of democracy that was Bill 22,” she said.
In 2016, Jean roamed Fort Mcmurray during and after the conflagration, helping where he could. Then- premier Rachel Notley allowed him to stay inside the zone that excluded civilians.
In a fine show of crisis co- operation, they even appeared together at briefings.
Kenney visited Fort McMurray on Monday. He and Jean did not speak.