One deadline down, two to go.

Last Saturday, July 8, was the deadline for anyone interested to join the Wildrose to vote on the tentative merger deal with the Progressive Conservative party.

The next deadline is this Wednesday, July 12, to join the PCs.

PC Leader Jason Kenney is sending out last-minute appeals urging people to join so they can cast a ballot in time for the final deadline, July 22.

“In the two years since the NDP have been in power, they’ve hiked taxes, hurt our economy, thrown thousands of Albertans out of work, and driven investors away with job-killing policies,” he said in an email Monday that included a clock ticking down to the PC membership deadline midnight Wednesday. “Now, we have the opportunity to deny the NDP a second term. But only if we decide to unite and create our new United Conservative Party.”

There is a breathless quality to the spiel, as though if you act now Kenney will throw in a set of steak knives.

The Wildrose says it has about 40,000 members signed up while the PCs are at 42,000 and counting.

Those who have memberships in both parties are eligible to vote twice. “Vote early and vote often,” Kenney likes to joke.

Both Kenney and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean are, among other things, tapping into a sincere feeling of frustration among rural voters who feel forgotten by the NDP government.

I saw it myself while out on the road the past 10 days.

“We have a hard time getting the government to listen to us, to listen to our needs,” complained Rimbey Mayor Rick Pankiw who plans on voting twice for unification.

Pankiw and other rural politicians feel the NDP government provincially and the Liberal government federally aren’t spending enough on rural infrastructure projects.

It’s a complaint that drives both levels of government a little batty because they’ve been going into massive debt to borrow money to spend on infrastructure projects.

After reading some of their complaints in my columns the past week, federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi felt compelled to send me an email with a listing of $5 billion worth of projects approved since 2015 in Alberta alone (roughly one third paid for by Ottawa): “This is more funding approved within the last year-and-a-half by our government compared to what the previous federal government did in its last five years for Alberta communities.”

Part of the problem is that the provincial and federal governments simply can’t counterbalance the recession created by the collapse in the price of oil. No matter how much they spend, it’s never enough.

And not helping their case, of course, are the partisan comments of Kenney and Jean, who blame the NDP for pretty much everything.

On the unite-the-right campaign trail, Kenney likes to point out that the PC government of Ralph Klein two decades ago managed “to balance the budget, much of that time (when) the oil prices were only $15 or $20 a barrel.”

What Kenney fails to mention is back then the big money maker for the Alberta government wasn’t oil but natural gas.

Here, for example, is an excerpt from the 2003 provincial budget: “Since over 70 per cent of resource revenue comes from natural gas and by-products, natural gas price trends are the key determinant of resource revenue.”

That year, natural gas would be worth $5.5 billion to the provincial treasury compared to $1.2 billion from crude oil and bitumen.

In 2005, Klein’s last full year as premier, the province collected $14.3 billion in resource revenue.

This year, the province expects to collect $3.7 billion.

Klein managed to balance the budget year after year — and eliminate the provincial debt — because the prices of resources were going through the roof.

Today, the prices of oil and gas are in the sub-basement. 

This week, Kenney offered to cover the cost of sending Premier Rachel Notley on “a remedial Economics 101 course” because she doesn’t seem to understand the danger of chronic provincial deficits.

Indeed, the lack of a clear plan from Notley to one day balance the budget is frustrating.

But if Kenney wants to send politicians back to school, he should think of taking a course himself on Alberta’s economic history and how Klein really managed to balance the books.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney spent slightly more than $1.5 million on his campaign to win the post, and raised nearly as much dough, according to financial statements filed with Elections Alberta.

The money raised by the former Calgary Conservative MP dwarfed his competitors in the four-man race, according to documents published online Tuesday. Vermilion-Lloydminster MLA Richard Starke was a distant second, raising and spending $192,603 during the campaign period.

Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson raised $44,000 and spent about $1,500 more than that, according to his disclosure. Former St. Albert MLA Stephen Khan, who stepped out of the race midway, raised nearly $25,000, but spent close to $55,000 on the campaign.

Former premier Jim Prentice amassed $2.66 million in contributions, and spent about $2.64 million, to win the 2014 Tory leadership race.

It took a more modest sum of $194,475 for Brian Jean to claim the Wildrose leadership in 2015. Premier Rachel Notley’s 2014 campaign to become NDP leader cost $117,841.

Political parties in Alberta have been required to register their leadership contests with Elections Alberta since 2013. The Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act says all party leadership contestants must file financial statements disclosing revenue, expenses and liabilities within four months of the date of the leadership vote.

In March, Kenney handily won the PC leadership vote in Calgary with 75 per cent of ballots in his favour. He campaigned on a promise to unite right-wing parties to defeat Notley’s NDP government. The NDP ended 44 years of PC rule in the 2015 provincial election.

PC members will vote Thursday, Friday and Saturday on whether to form a new United Conservative Party with the Wildrose Party. Wildrosers vote on a similar proposal Saturday. 

According to his financial statements, Kenney raised $1.3 million in cash donations $250.01 or larger during his leadership campaign, and another $177,402 in smaller cash contributions. The rest came from “transfers” and “other income,” the details of which are not included in the initial filing.

Kenney spent nearly $663,000 on salaries during the campaign, about $291,000 on “other” expenses, $164,000 on rallies and events, and nearly $129,000 on travel.

jfrench@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jantafrench 

Hello UCP, goodbye NDP.

At least that’s the plan.

This weekend, members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives will decide if they want to merge their parties into one new entity, the United Conservative Party (UCP).

The sole purpose of the new party: defeat Alberta’s NDP government next election.

Approximately 50,000 PCs and 40,000 Wildrosers are eligible to cast a ballot on the tentative merger deal worked out by a joint planning group in May. (Keep in mind some people are members of both parties). PCs are voting in an electronic referendum July 20-22; Wildrosers are holding a general meeting in Red Deer July 22 but members can also vote online or by phone rather than in person.

The results of both votes will be known early Saturday evening.

“We don’t need to remind you about what’s at stake in this choice,” said PC leader Jason Kenney recently as he, um, reminded supporters what’s at stake in this choice. “In the two years since the NDP have been in power, they’ve hiked taxes, hurt our economy, thrown thousands of Albertans out of work, and driven investors away with job-killing policies. Now, we have the opportunity to deny the NDP a second term. But only if we decide to unite and create our new United Conservative Party.”

Potential outcomes

The choice is pretty straightforward: vote for or against unification.

The possible outcomes, however, aren’t all straightforward.

That’s because one of the oddities of the vote is that the two parties have different thresholds for approval. The PC rules require that only a simple majority need give the thumbs up. The constitution of the grassroots-driven Wildrose requires 75 per cent of its members to give the green light.

Outcome 1: A clear win for unity. A super majority of both parties agree to amalgamate. In that case, four different joint committees begin the work of amalgamation including planning a leadership race for the new party that will culminate in a vote Oct. 28. (This is the most likely outcome).

Outcome 2: A clear loss for unity. A majority of both parties reject the merger. In that case, a civil war will erupt between the two as they both claim to be the true voice of conservatism and the only party that can defeat the NDP next election. (An unlikely outcome given the amount of work being put into unification – and the amount of conservative anger at the NDP).

Outcome 3: A complicated result. A strong majority of PC members, let’s say 80 per cent, and a strong majority of Wildrosers, say 74 per cent, vote in favour of unification. In that case a clear majority of both parties want a merger but the Wildrose fails to meet its constitutionally mandated 75 per cent threshold for approval. This is the dilemma that keeps supporters of unification awake at night.

Officials in both parties are looking at a Plan B, just in case. Kenney has said he would “remain open to other forms of co-operation,” such as non-compete agreements in some ridings. After all, at the end of the day, it’s all about defeating the NDP in the next election.

Civil wars are always the bloodiest – and the most interesting.

Wildrose MLA Jason Nixon has said an almost-yes vote by Wildrose members “would be a time for both parties to have a serious talk.”

(This is an unlikely outcome but one worth keeping in mind).

There is so much at stake here for both Kenney and Wildrose leader Brian Jean that they have been campaigning non-stop the past two months to get to a “yes” vote this weekend.

They have occasionally campaigned together but most often have treated their unity work as competing leadership campaigns because the minute a unity deal is approved they’ll move into a race for leadership of the new party.

(left to right) Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean and Alberta PC leader Jason Kenney announce that they have reached a deal to merge the parties and create the United Conservative Party, during a press conference in Edmonton Thursday May 18, 2017.

And it promises to be a nasty race. Conservatives are headed to a civil war of sorts no matter the outcome of the unification question this weekend. A “no” vote will mean a war between the PCs and Wildrose. A “yes” vote will mean a war between Jean and Kenney for leadership of the new party (along with other expected candidates who include a Calgary lawyer, moderate PC member Doug Schweitzer, and the never-moderate Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt).

Civil wars are always the bloodiest – and the most interesting.

This whole unification journey has been interesting in its own right starting with Kenney’s leadership coup where he seized control of the PC party. His was a campaign of anger aimed at both moderate PC members as well as the NDP government.

And that anger has not dissipated.

Besides blaming the government for pretty much all of Alberta’s ills, Kenney has called the NDP an “accidental government” and demanded, “We want our Alberta back” as if the province belongs to conservatives.

Both Kenney and Jean have promised to repeal pretty much every piece of legislation passed by the NDP, starting with the carbon tax, but have put forward little detailed policy of their own.

A party built on anger

Unification is not about a vision for the future; it is about correcting what irritated conservatives see as the mistake of the last provincial election.

If unity goes ahead this weekend, this will be the party that anger built.

The anger began percolating the moment the NDP won the election in 2015 to defeat the 44-year reign of the PCs.

Derek Fildebrandt said he’s assembled a campaign team and has money in the bank for a leadership run.

Conservatives simply could not accept the election results and blamed the NDP win on vote splitting between Wildrose and PC candidates. This weekend’s vote is designed to unify the two parties to avoid vote splitting in the next election.

But there are different ways to look at what is actually happening this weekend.

Here are a few interpretations:

Interpretation 1 — Jason Kenney’s:

Kenney says unification is simply a reconstitution of the two parts of the PC party that split a decade ago to form the Wildrose and a more “progressive” conservative party under a succession of Red Tories including Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford and Jim Prentice.

Kenney’s argument would hold more water if some supporters of his campaign hadn’t bullied out progressives including MLA Sandra Jansen who joined the NDP last fall after dropping out of the PC leadership race. He has also made a point of saying the new United Conservative Party won’t be calling itself “progressive,” a term he says has been co-opted by Premier Rachel Notley.

He has also shown himself to be a social conservative over the years on issues including same-sex marriage and more recently Gay Straight Alliances in schools. It’s difficult to see where progressives fit into unification.

Interpretation 2 — Brian Jean’s:

Jean says unification is simply like-minded conservatives coming together. However, he takes pains to insist the new party will be operating under the legal framework of the Wildrose, a party that values grassroots leadership above all else.

PC officials have disputed Jean’s interpretation and say the new party is not an offshoot of the Wildrose. But Jean’s argument is an important component to convince Wildrose members that their movement will live on in the UCP.

Interpretation 3 — “Progressive” conservatives:

They see unification as the deathblow to the Progressive Conservative movement and they blame Kenney for killing the party to clear the way for a Kenney dominated far-right entity.

You could actually argue the old PC party is already dead, assassinated by Kenney’s successful PC leadership campaign where he flooded the party with like-minded hard-line conservatives and squeezed aside the progressives.

PC MLA Richard Starke, who considers himself a progressive, is still in the party, for now. But he is afraid unification will result in an extremist bloc unable to form the pragmatic big-tent party that kept the PCs in power for almost 44 years.

“I continue to have many concerns that I had prior to the deal being released,” said Starke just two weeks ago.

In this interpretation, the unification vote will be a slam-dunk thanks to a majority of far-right members in each party (some of whom actually hold membership cards in both parties).

Interpretation 4 – Long-time Wildrosers:

For them the unity vote is not a meeting of two kindred spirits gazing into each other’s eyes as they at long last consummate their relationship.

These are two parties that have spent much of the past decade openly despising each other. They are coming together because they hate the NDP more than they detest each other.

To paraphrase an adage: my enemy’s enemy is my new political dance partner.

An editorial cartoon by Malcolm Mayes from June 2016, showing Jason Kenney may be closer to overtaking Brian Jean than it appears.

Wildrose leader Jean began lacing up his dance shoes reluctantly earlier this year after spending months dismissing any talk of unification.

As leader of the official Opposition with more MLAs, more money and more organization than the PCs, Jean initially saw no reason to jump in bed with a party as tired and rundown as the PCs.

“We’re going to grow this party,” said Jean at the party’s annual general meeting last October.

However, pressure from his own party members forced Jean to reconsider his position. Even though he may have embraced unity, he is certainly not holding Kenney close.

Uncomfortable truce

The joint Kenney/Jean news conference May 18 to announce the tentative unity deal had all the warmth of a shotgun wedding.

Their uncomfortable truce will dissolve the moment the unification deal passes, or fails. Either way there will be a war Sunday morning.

It will be a war with all kinds of political combatants.

There are members of both parties so appalled by the prospect of a merger that they are already making contingency plans.

Moderate PCs such as former party president Katherine O’Neill have organized a new movement called “Alberta Together” to rally “progressives” – likely under the banner of the Alberta Party — to give middle-of-the-road voters an alternative to the too-far-right UCP and the too-far-left NDP.

Progressive Conservative party president Katherine O’Neill speaks about a $5,000 fine levied against PC leadership candidate Jason Kenney during a news conference at PC Party headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta on Monday, November 21, 2016.

Purist Wildrose members such as Edmonton lawyer Marilyn Burns who feel the merger is unnecessary and a betrayal of Wildrose values are threatening to form their own right-wing party.

Alberta’s NDP, meanwhile, has been trying to play it cool, pretending the merger either doesn’t matter or that it will result in a new party so far to the right of the political spectrum it will not appeal to the majority of Albertans.

Premier Rachel Notley likes to have it both ways – saying she doesn’t have time to watch every twitch and turn of the unification movement even as she attacks the yet-to-be-formed UCP as a throwback to Alberta’s old Social Credit party.

No matter what happens this weekend, the result of the unification vote will be monumental for Alberta politics.

Odds are, we will be saying hello to the UCP.

But we won’t know until next election if it means saying goodbye to the NDP.

Related

• Graham Thomson: PC and Wildrose parties eye Plan B should merger vote fall narrowly short
• Graham Thomson: Alberta's unite-the-right movement takes giant, but tentative, step
• Graham Thomson: NDP hopes to cash in on the unite-the-right deal
• Graham Thomson: A civil war is on the horizon for Alberta's conservatives

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

I’m a Wildrose and PC member who considers the proposed United Conservative Party of Alberta so nice, I’ll vote for it twice. Yes, unification will trigger some old-school “Lake of Fire” Rosies to bolt, while most of the “P”s (proponents of progressive taxes and profligate public spending) on the PC side “P”d off months ago. 

But for every one on the fringes who pulls the chute, I reckon there’ll be a dozen severely normal conservative Albertans to replace them. As Jason Kenney said regarding the merger of the federal PCs and official opposition into the Conservative Party of Canada, “When we made that coalition, there were people at the very margins who didn’t feel comfortable in it, that’s fine, but at the end of the day we won three elections and in the last election we won over 60 per cent of the vote in Alberta.”

Mark McCourt

No apartheid

Re: Tuesday’s Letters: Kudos to Gord Downie, July 18

While the treatment of Canadian Indigenous people was in many ways reprehensible, it was nothing like apartheid. There was never any attempt by the government to separate or seal off natives from the rest of Canadian society and the residential school system was, though misguided and harmful, an attempt to assimilate them, not segregate them.

Mr. MacKillop’s use of inflammatory terms like “apartheid” and “genocide” simply amounts to guilt-mongering against non-indigenous Canadians and does nothing to promote truth nor reconciliation with the native community.

Herb Schultz

Unspeakable tragedy

Re: Mother jailed for storing bodies of six babies, Journal, July 15, NP4

Truth is often more incredible than fiction. It’s hard to believe the horrific story of the Winnipeg woman who appears to have murdered six of her babies. In addition to the six, and to two living children, she had had 11 therapeutic abortions, a total of 19 pregnancies, of which 17 were unwanted.

How can this happen in Canadian society? It may not be politically correct in a nation that wants to increase its population for political reasons, but Canada needs much more aggressive policies in promoting birth control.

P.J. Cotterill

Christian school fight

Re: Alberta board plans to drop Christian school; Controversy over teaching of Bible verses unresolved, NP4, July 14.

It appears that in Alberta, an elected school board has abrogated its responsibility to administer a school in its jurisdiction. The Battle River School Division board members have no choice but to resign immediately. The Board failed to administer the duties of the office, adhere to the rules and regulations and ignored its citizens and electors. They failed to insure dignity and respect for all children and their parents.

The term of the elected officials is almost over. Schools are not in session as it is summer holiday time. This does not let the trustees off the hook to let this abominable situation with Cornerstone Christian Academy to continue through a 365-day transition period under a new administration. If the board is unable, unwilling, incapable or unqualified to comply with the law, then there is no other choice but for the Minister of Education to step in and quash the dysfunctional Board. The religion in the classroom must be stopped before school begins in September. No child should be forced to be endure religious indoctrination in any public school. There is simply no need for a transition period.

Rork Hilford

Calgary

Letters welcome

We invite you to write letters to the editor. A maximum of 150 words is preferred. Letters must carry a first and last name, or two initials and a last name, and include an address and daytime telephone number. All letters are subject to editing. We don’t publish letters addressed to others or sent to other publications. Email: letters@edmontonjournal.com

Albertans will know Saturday night whether the province’s political landscape will soon change forever.

Paid-up members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties are heading to the polls — online, or phoning in — to have their say about whether the two shall come together and form a new political force called the United Conservative Party.

For members of Wildrose, news will filter down just after voting closes at 4 p.m. For Progressive Conservatives, who have been voting since Thursday, it will be a little after 6 p.m. for results to be known.

The ballot has been more than one year in the making.

Last July, then-MP Jason Kenney left Ottawa to bust into Alberta politics, clutching in his fist a five-point path toward unity and declaring he was running for Tory leadership.

In December, Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said he’d be pleased to waltz with Kenney in the unity dance.

Fast-forward to March when Kenney won the PC throne under a mandate to unite and the gears to create an agreement started grinding in earnest.

Since then, those supportive of unity have been traipsing through the province to drum up membership sales for both parties.

They spit verbal fire at NDP policies, espousing Alberta’s guaranteed ruination if conservatives don’t come together before the next election. 

When asked, Wildrosers like Jean and outspoken MLA Derek Fildebrandt voice their confidence that their party will be victorious at the next election without anybody’s help, thank you very much.

But there’s an unmistakable quaking underneath — they’ll never forgive themselves if they don’t do all they can to avoid a second NDP term, they say, and that includes pinching their noses and holding hands with the party it spurned in 2007.   

After all, the Wildrose was created from a splinter of disgruntled Tories who didn’t like the arrogance and big-spending of the governing party. 

Kenney says he knew it would take time to heal wounds wrought from the bitter personal feuds between Tories and Wildrosers in some parts of the province.

“It has been a struggle between the head and the heart for people in both parties, but ultimately I think the head has won out,” Kenney said.

“Even though there might be some residual resentments from things that have been said or done in the last decade, they know that this has to happen.”

Swinging the numbers

Kenney and Jean are both convinced some in the NDP who want to avoid a united conservative force bought Wildrose memberships to vote against unity.

They are strange bedfellows indeed with the hardcore Wildrosers who believe the merger is their beloved grassroots party giving up all it holds dear and bending to The Establishment.

Those Wildrose members just want the PCs to choke to dust in the next election, saying they’re clutching to the merger as their only hope of staying alive.

Jean and Kenney don’t see an organized “no” movement by the left, and nor do Wildrose president Jeff Callaway and PC executive director Janice Harrington.

“There’s not enough of a groundswell if that’s the case,” Harrington says.

She also points out a fundamental flaw in that theory — many PC membership buys came with donations. With a laugh, she adds, “I don’t think the NDP would be doing that.” 

“My gut is telling me that the vast majority of people (who bought) … memberships are supporters of the PCs, or conservatives in general.”

The big fight here won’t be on the PC side, where voting began July 20, because according to its constitution only half of its 42,000 members have to vote “yes” to start the machinations of unity. 

But the Wildrose Party needs 75 per cent of members to vote yes — quite the task when there are 40,000 people involved, a chunk of whom have been grumbling about the agreement since the beginning.

Jean and Kenney both finger that number as the biggest challenge ahead of Saturday’s vote, rather than the 50 per cent the PCs need. 

“This is a challenge, but it’s worth it,” Jean says.

“Alberta is worth it. I’ll be campaigning for unity right up until the end.”

egraney@postmedia.com

twitter.com/EmmaLGraney

After declaring a resounding, 95 per cent “yes” to unity Saturday, Alberta’s Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties are well and truly on the path to creating a single conservative political force.

But there is a vast expanse of legislative, political and financial territory to navigate before the United Conservative Party morphs from a nine-page agreement-in-principle to a live and kicking entity ready to take on the NDP in the 2019 election.

The first meeting

A joint caucus meeting of Wildrose and PC MLAs will take place in Edmonton on Monday, where they are expected to elect an interim leader to take charge of the party.

In the running on Saturday were Nathan Cooper, Wildrose MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, Prasad Panda, Wildrose MLA for Calgary-Foothills, and Richard Gotfried, Progressive Conservative MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek. 

Appointing the executive

An association with the UCP name has already been incorporated under the Alberta Societies Act. The interim leader and executive will take control of all three parties — the Wildrose, Progressive Conservatives and United Conservatives.

As per the agreement, it’s up to PC Leader Jason Kenney and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean to select six people each who will comprise the interim joint board. 

Jean has already appointed his folks, which resulted in some pushback from Wildrosers saying he has skin in the game. Kenney hasn’t said a peep about who he’ll appoint.

Also on the board will be the interim UCP leader and two MLAs of his or her choosing (one from each party) as non-voting members. 

Registration

The UCP association will get the party registered with Elections Alberta as soon as possible. 

There are a few ways for a party to be registered in Alberta, but the UCP will likely get three sitting MLAs to declare their intention to start the new party. They’ll need to submit a registration form including the party’s name, abbreviation, name of a leader, banking information and chief financial officer.

Elections Alberta will ensure all the ducks are in a row, then approve the party’s creation — a process that will likely take less than a month.

The new party will have to inform the Speaker of the legislature of its intention as well.

Looking for a leader

Once the party is registered, a leadership race can officially begin and the accounting period kicks in.

Jean has already announced his intention to run, as has Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer. Kenney is widely expected to throw his hat into the ring, too. 

Also a possibility for a leadership run is Derek Fildebrandt, Wildrose MLA for Strathmore-Brooks, who is heading up the pro-unity group United Liberty.

He said Saturday he would not support Jean in a leadership bid, but will take a look at the rules before deciding whether he’ll jump into the race. 

The cash question

The Wildrose and PC parties cannot legally transfer any assets to the UCP, which means the new party will — financially — start from scratch.

That’s not a big deal for the Tories, who have no money. The significant Wildrose war chest will likely be depleted on ads in support of the conservative cause, but can’t advertise any party.

egraney@postmedia.com

twitter.com/EmmaLGraney

MLAs for the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives are now members of the same party — but it’s not clear yet whether they are more like a Band of Brothers (with a couple of sisters) or a Team of Rivals.

They will be meeting Monday afternoon for a joint caucus meeting to figure out how to move forward together, even as a leadership race is about to tear them apart.

A vast majority of both parties (95 per cent each) may have voted Saturday to join forces under the new United Conservative Party banner, but they have yet to choose a leader.

Cue the infighting.

The new party, still in its birthing pangs, is about to undergo what promises to be a long, bruising leadership race culminating in a vote Oct. 28.

The main contenders are Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and PC Leader Jason Kenney. Even though the Wildrose has 22 MLAs and the PCs eight, the support for either candidate will not break according to party lines.

Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt, for example, said on Saturday night that no matter who runs, “I won’t be supporting Brian Jean.”

The ever-irascible Fildebrandt seemed so keen to start a fight with Jean that he couldn’t even let the Wildrose leader celebrate the unification vote unmolested.

Perhaps sensing he had gone too far, Fildebrandt later tried to be a bit more diplomatic. Well, as diplomatic as Fildebrandt can be. “We’ll have plenty of time to beat the crap out of each other in the coming weeks and months,” he said as he headed out to celebrate the unity vote.

Fildebrandt might yet decide to run for the leadership himself.

Oh, this promises to be a nasty — a.k.a. interesting — leadership race.

That’s because so much is at stake.

If the public opinion polls are correct — and hold true over the next two years — the new United Conservative Party will defeat the NDP government next election. That means the leader of the UCP will become premier.

So, in the minds of Jean, Fildebrandt, Kenney (and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer, who intends to run as well), the UCP leadership competition is actually a race to be the next premier of Alberta.

Jean is so keen to start campaigning that on Saturday night, while party members celebrated in Red Deer, he announced he would resign as leader of the Wildrose as soon as the UCP papers are filed with Elections Alberta.

On Sunday, Jean issued a news release saying he’ll be making “an important announcement” Monday afternoon in Airdrie.

Jean and his supporters are feeling confident, pointing to public opinion polls that indicate he is the most popular politician in Alberta.

But in some ways Kenney hasn’t begun to fight. Over the past year he was focused on winning the PC leadership race and then put his energy behind helping push the unification vote over the finish line.

Now, he’ll focus his attention on winning the UCP leadership, confident in his track record so far.

Even if Jean is more popular than Kenney with the public, the fight for leader of the UCP is an internal battle that the vast majority of Albertans will watch from the sidelines.

Look at how few people took part in Saturday’s unity vote.

Just 57 per cent of eligible Wildrosers, and 55 per cent of PCs, cast a ballot — about 25,000 Wildrose members and 27,000 PC members.

You can’t simply add those up and conclude a total of 52,000 took part. People were allowed to hold memberships in both parties and could cast a ballot in both. Some of those, possibly thousands, were the same people voting twice.

Considering that there are more than 2.5 million eligible voters in Alberta, it’s amazing how few managed to dramatically reshape Alberta’s political landscape on Saturday.

The same will probably hold true for the leadership vote.

Given what’s at stake, it promises to be a nasty and brutish campaign and not particularly short.

The one bit of unity, before disunity sets in, will come Monday afternoon when MLAs at the joint Wildrose/PC caucus meeting will choose an interim leader.

Actually, it’s not clear yet that all of the MLAs want to be members of the new party. PC MLA Richard Starke has said he fears the UCP will be less centrist big tent and more right-wing pup tent.

He might yet decide to set up his own independent tent.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

And then there was one …

In what was the worst kept secret of Alberta politics, Brian Jean announced Monday afternoon he was stepping down as Wildrose leader to officially kick off his campaign for leader of the new United Conservative Party.

“We will repeal, undo and replace much of the damage the NDP has done,” Jean said in an advance copy of his prepared speech that mentioned the NDP eight times and the UCP just once.

Jean is the first (former) party leader in the race.

And then there was one less …

In what was the second worst kept secret in Alberta politics, Progressive Conservative MLA Richard Starke announced Monday morning he would not be joining the new UCP caucus.

“I’ve got serious doubts the new party will have policies and leadership in keeping with my values and principles,” said Starke, who had run for the PC leadership earlier this year on a platform that rejected unification with the Wildrose.

That unification went ahead on the weekend after an overwhelmingly majority of those casting ballots in both parties supported the formation of the new conservative party.

The vote has shaken up Alberta politics. And the stories just kept coming.

MLAs from both parties held a joint caucus meeting Monday afternoon to choose Wildrose house leader Nathan Cooper as interim party leader.

The fact that Cooper would be chosen might not have been one of those badly kept secrets, but it was hardly a surprise. He has proven himself to be intelligent, decent, competent and bozo-eruption free.

Not to mention diplomatic.

When asked for his opinion on Starke rejecting the UCP, Cooper said nice things: “I have nothing but respect for Dr. Starke. He’s a wonderful parliamentarian, a great MLA. I think it’s unfortunate that he’s chosen not to come.”

Cooper is holding out hope that once Starke sees how the party evolves, he will come back.

At this point, we don’t know what the party will stand for. We’ll get a sense of that during the leadership race and a much better idea after the party holds a founding convention in early 2018.

But Starke is afraid that based on his experience leading up to unification, the party will be too extreme for moderate Albertans like himself.

“In the past couple of months — and I guess I shouldn’t put too much credence in this — I’ve been called a communist, a socialist, a liberal and, most recently, a cancer,” he said.

“So on the one hand, you are told your voice is welcomed and needed, and then the supporters of the party, some of the most vocal ones on social media, are using labels like that. It’s kind of a mixed message.”

Starke’s complaint sounds similar to that of MLA Sandra Jansen, who said she was bullied out of the PC leadership race last fall by aggressive supporters of Jason Kenney. He went on to become leader. She went on to become a New Democrat.

Starke’s decision is not just a figurative thorn in the side of the nascent UCP, it poses a very real and practical problem for the party’s interim leadership.

Starke wants to stay on as a Progressive Conservative MLA. He can do that because the party is still a party even though its members have voted to join the UCP.

The PCs and Wildrose are still registered with Election Alberta, but those registrations are now controlled by the UCP as a way to prevent anyone from running under either banner next election. Electorally speaking, the PCs and Wildrose will be hollow shells.

But right now, Starke is still a PC MLA. The last one in captivity.

The UCP leadership is no doubt afraid that as such, Starke will become a rallying point for nostalgic “progressive” conservatives looking for a way to fight against the new conservative party.

There’s now speculation PC leader Kenney will kick Starke out of the defunct-in-all-but-name PC caucus.

Kenney declined to comment Monday.

Kenney is reportedly busy planning to launch his own leadership campaign for the UCP this weekend.

And then there was one more …

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

It was the political equivalent of a photo bomb.

On Monday, when Alberta’s brand new United Conservative Party held its first media scrum to introduce interim leader Nathan Cooper, there lurking in the background was Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark.

Clark had come to pick over the scraps left by Saturday’s unification vote between the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives.

The unity vote may have created a new political party, but it has also generated an exodus of sorts from both old parties.

There are hard-right Wildrosers, upset with the idea of climbing into bed with the hated PCs, who now contemplate starting their own party. Those are not the people who interest a moderate like Clark.

He has his sights set on the “progressive” conservatives, those Red Tories upset with the idea of climbing into bed with the hated Wildrose.

Clark turned up at the scrum because he knew he’d find journalists and microphones there — and his message would fit neatly into the news narrative of the day.

That narrative included the UCP introducing Cooper — the Wildrose’s former house leader — as a steady hand at the tiller as the party embarks on what could be a turbulent leadership race between former Wildrose leader Brian Jean and the soon-to-be-former PC leader Jason Kenney.

“I really look forward to the future of not only this caucus, but our party,” said Cooper, striking an upbeat message as he was flanked by members of his caucus.

But the narrative also included a downbeat. Missing from the caucus was PC MLA Richard Starke, who announced Monday he wanted no part of the UCP.

“I’ve got serious doubts the new party will have policies and leadership in keeping with my values and principles,” said Starke who makes a point of calling himself a “progressive” conservative. He ran against Kenney for leadership of the PC party earlier this year on a platform against unification.

Starke is just the kind of disgruntled former Tory  Clark is looking for.

“So many people from the former PCs have joined the Alberta Party,” said Clark as he took shots at the UCP. “They just don’t see a home for themselves in a party that’s to the far right, but also a party that seems united in opposition to something. They’re every negative.”

Clark, who is his party’s only MLA, has been taking his recruiting drive on the road, popping up at any political event that will have him.

Monday night, just a few hours after politely crashing the UCP scrum, Clark turned up at a pub rally for Alberta’s newest political movement, Alberta Together.

About 100 people — many of them former Progressive Conservatives, all of them disheartened by the formation of the UCP — listened to speeches from former PC president Katherine O’Neill and former PC cabinet minister Stephen Mandel.

“I want to give you a message of hope,” said O’Neill. “People across this province are banding together because they’re tired of the divisiveness, they’re tired of how polarized our political environment is.”

With the next provincial election likely in the spring of 2019, they don’t have a lot of time to organize. That’s why Alberta Together likes the idea of working with the Alberta Party to give voters an alternative to a too-left NDP government and a too-right UCP Opposition — and allow Alberta Party candidates to scoot up the middle.

They like Clark, but quietly suggest they might have to gently nudge him aside to make room for a more dynamic and better-known leader.

They say they have a couple of prospects in mind, but refuse to name anybody.

There’s a sense of déjà vu to this. A year ago, when Kenney launched his leadership campaign to take control of the PC party, progressives in the party said they’d stop him in his tracks.

They failed miserably.

It’s not at all clear how they’d be more successful this time.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

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 referenda, 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.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

The as-yet sole declared candidate for the leadership of the United Conservative Party released an economic policy announcement on Tuesday.

It was heartening to see — and that’s not a comment on the merit of the first few planks of Brian Jean’s campaign platform, including a proposed cut in small business tax and a new child tax benefit.

Usually, a candidate’s campaign promises don’t elicit much excitement. But in this case, the whiff of anything close to policy discussion from anyone associated with the UCP is encouraging. Now that the race to win the top job of the party has started in earnest, it’s imperative to see much more of the same.

Albertans who are considering joining this amalgamation of the now-defunct Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties deserve to know what the party stands for. On a higher level, those thinking of backing the UCP as the next election looms in two years’ time need to know exactly what they might get in return if it wins.

So far, there isn’t much to go on other than the party’s burning antagonism towards the NDP government and the oft-repeated commitments to reverse its policies.

Condemning the government is expected in politics, but so is developing and disseminating your own policies. Currently, based on comments from the party’s major players, Albertans may have an idea of what the party opposes but know precious little about what it proposes.

Even Jean’s otherwise earnest campaign announcement included a requisite promise to repeal the provincial carbon tax and yet more NDP-bashing, as if detailing his own ideas weren’t enough.

For his part, Jason Kenney, who will almost certainly run against Jean, can no longer leave people wondering where he stands on the issues of the day. That’s exactly what he did after he won the PC leadership in March. Beyond uniting the right and repealing various NDP programs, in more than four months he failed to share any ideas of his own or put his policies to the test in a byelection. Kenney’s vision for the province remains mostly a mystery.

While there will likely be a policy convention, now, with an absence of details on where the party stands, Albertans are making their own assumptions about the UCP, rightly or wrongly. Even some members of the two parties that joined to form the UCP — moderate PCs and far-right Wildrosers — are left guessing. They either don’t know what to expect of the new entity or have already concluded they won’t be welcome.

Keeping people in the dark is no way to run a party or a province.

Local editorials are the consensus opinion of the Journal’s editorial board, comprising Mark Iype, Dave Breakenridge, Sarah O’Donnell, Bill Mah and David Evans.

Snap quiz.

Which Alberta politician uttered this comment on Monday: “They treat every one of you who does not agree with them with increasing disdain and arrogance.”

It’s the kind of complaint you hear from just about every politician about the other guys.

In this case it was Brian Jean, the former Wildrose leader in the kickoff to his leadership campaign for the United Conservative Party.

In a speech that lacked not for over-the-top comments, Jean blamed the NDP for the loss of 50,000 jobs in Alberta. No mention of the oil-price-drop recession that has pummelled the province.

“They’ve allowed the Trudeau Liberals to write us off the map, block our pipelines and threaten to shut down our oilsands,” said Jean in a statement that managed to misrepresent events over the past few months, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accidentally overlooking Alberta in his Canada Day speech.

But Jean is not alone in ramping up the rhetoric, particularly in the wake of the unity vote last weekend where members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives supported forming a new conservative party.

There is so much at stake for Jean, who is in a race for his political future against Jason Kenney, the soon to be former PC leader who is expected to launch his campaign Saturday.

And there is so much at stake for the NDP government that will be in a race for its political survival against the UCP in the 2019 provincial election.

That’s why the NDP caucus was taking repeated shots this week at MLA Nathan Cooper the moment he was named interim leader of the UCP.

On Monday, the caucus issued a news release pointing to Cooper’s pre-political job in 2009 with a Christian activist group, Canada Family Action, that was loudly anti-gay. “As UCP leader, Cooper must explain why he promoted these extreme views or resign,” demanded the NDP.

Resign? That’s more than a little over the top.

On Tuesday, Cooper responded by telling journalists his views on the gay and lesbian community have evolved and he even gave credit to the NDP.

“I have spoken about some of the things I’ve learned from other members of the NDP caucus and the LGTBQ caucus,” he said. “I have just a better understanding of the community generally.”

The NDP responded with another poke at Cooper, pointing to his work in 2009 as a “public advocate for defunding abortion services in Canada.”

Cooper refused to respond to that attack.

He should have said something, even if only to explain that while he may personally disagree with abortions, he as a politician will not try to have them defunded. Besides, he’s only interim leader for three months.

By keeping silent he’s allowing the NDP to tacitly accuse the nascent party of having a hidden agenda against abortions.

But not all political rhetoric this week was overheated.

Comments from Kenney, for example, were more subtle.

His Twitter page is headlined with an icon that declares, “95 per cent of PC members vote yes to unity.”

That’s a misrepresentation at best.

The fact is that almost half of PC members didn’t bother to vote. The turnout was 55 per cent, which seems low considering how Kenney has been talking about unity for the past year and then actively pushing it for two months. And members had three days to vote by simply going online for a couple of minutes.

You have to wonder if the 45 per cent of no-shows simply abandoned the party.

Kenney’s icon should read: “95 per cent of PC members who cast a ballot voted for unity, but turnout was 55 per cent, which means when you consider all registered members, including those who did not vote, just 52 per cent of all registered members voted for unity — still a majority but not impressive sounding, which is why I’m going with 95 per cent.”

But that wouldn’t make for a snappy slogan.

Nuanced political facts placed in context rarely do.

It is the simplistic catchphrases that are more memorable and quotable, whether it’s “he must resign!” or “they block our pipelines” or just “95 per cent.”

They’re superficial but they’re effective.

Expect to see many more of them from all parties between now and the 2019 election.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

The race for United Conservative Party leadership officially has a third candidate.

Former Progressive Conservative leader Jason Kenney announced his leadership bid Saturday morning in Edmonton, to around 500 supporters at the Italian Cultural Centre.

After entering the packed room to cheers and strains of Paul Brandt’s “Alberta Bound,” Kenney declared himself the right person to lead the newly established UCP to victory in the next provincial election.

In a 35-minute speech dominated by slams against Ottawa and the Trudeau government, Kenney pointed to his track record as federal immigration minister, and his time in the Harper administration, to support his claim for the UCP throne.

“We need a leader with consistent, conservative convictions, who can withstand endless attacks without flinching, who has the political skills to unite our party while reaching out to broaden our tent,” he said.

Alberta needs a leader who can stand up to Trudeau’s policies that are hurting Alberta, Kenney said, who can speak French to explain pipeline reasoning to Quebec.

“I’m sorry, Justin, but I’m not distracted by the socks and the selfies,” he said.

But it wasn’t all about the federal Liberals.

Kenney also blasted the provincial NDP government for acting “like a doormat for Ottawa,” accusing it of executing a carbon tax backroom deal with Trudeau, ruining the economy, and “mortgaging Alberta’s future” by borrowing $2,000 every minute.

“A province that not long ago was debt-free is now plunging into a sea of red ink, borrowing nearly a billion dollars a month,” he said. 

Kenney charged that Alberta’s identity of accomplishment through hard work is “under assault,” with a mistrust of free enterprise creeping into government.

He also accused the NDP of trying to change Alberta through the education system, undermining parental authority and attacking school choice.

Slamming the provincial curriculum review as a secret plan to bring political agendas into Alberta classrooms, Kenney said the outline of the new social studies curriculum is “riddled with politically correct themes like oppression and colonialism and climate change.”

“Not that those things shouldn’t be taught, but they shouldn’t be exclusively taught as virtually the only subjects,” he said.

He closed his speech — the first part in what he called “one big, long job interview” for leadership — with a plea for disillusioned Tories, Wildrosers, union-members and all Albertans to get behind him.

Kenney’s leadership bid comes as no surprise. 

The former MP won the Tory leadership in March under a mandate to unite the party with Wildrose, after leaving Ottawa and resigning his Calgary-Midnapore federal seat. 

Kenney didn’t take questions from the media in Edmonton, preferring instead to shake hands with supporters before heading to Calgary for a second event. 

Unity was given the thumbs up by both conservative parties last weekend, with 95 per cent approval from the members who voted.

Former Wildrose leader Brian Jean announced his bid for the UCP’s top job on Monday in Airdrie. 

Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer was first to enter the race, throwing his hat into the ring before the vote to merge parties even took place.

egraney@postmedia.com

twitter.com/EmmaLGraney

Call it the “Conservative Summer of Love.”

Well, that’s what the polling firm Mainstreet Research is calling it.

A Mainstreet-Postmedia opinion poll indicates the new United Conservative Party is by far the most popular party in Alberta.

It has the support of 57 per cent of decided voters, compared with 29 per cent for the NDP, according to a phone poll of 2,100 Albertans conducted July 27-28 (with a margin of error of two per cent, 19 times of 20). The Alberta Party is at nine per cent and the Liberals four.

“It appears to be the summer of love for the newly minted United Conservative Party in Alberta,” said Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research.

That’s got to give the NDP pause.

But here’s an interesting wrinkle.

When you look at all voters, not just those decided or leaning one way, the numbers tell a more subtle story.

There, the UCP has 43 per cent support, the NDP has 21, the Alberta Party seven per cent and the Liberals three. The total undecided vote is a whopping 27 per cent — that’s nearly double the number of undecided (15 per cent) in Mainstreet’s April poll.

It would seem committed conservatives support the new party, but a large segment of voters aren’t so sure.

That’s got to give the UCP pause.

“These numbers point to a majority (UCP) government in the next election, but Rachel Notley and the NDP have time on their side,” said Maggi.

And oddly enough, she might also have Jason Kenney and Brian Jean on her side if the UCP leadership race turns nasty.

“The caution for the United Conservative Party leadership hopefuls is that a spirited contest can lead to increased excitement and support, but it can also have a negative effect on candidates,” said Maggi.

We definitely have a race between former Wildrose leader Jean and former Progressive Conservative leader Kenney.

But we don’t know yet what kind of race it will be: nasty race, exciting race, horse race or a submarine race.

That’s because we don’t know if the contest will be a stimulating public gallop the next three months where the candidates will duke it out, or if it will dive below the surface where candidates ignore the public to focus on drumming up support from party members.

Jean appears to prefer more of a public contest. He spent several days last week trotting out a series of policy positions where the new UCP would look like a Wildrose 2.0. That’s no surprise given that Jean is playing to his Wildrose base, who want their principles to form the foundation of the new party.

Jean was also fast off the mark, announcing his campaign just two days after members of the Wildrose and PCs voted to form the new party.

(The first person in the race was Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer, who has also been shooting out policy platforms to garner attention to his lesser-known campaign.)

Kenney, on the other hand, waited a week to launch.

And he has yet to announce any policy.

Kenney has shown himself in the past to be more deliberate and methodical. This race might yet be of the tortoise and hare variety.

Not that Kenney is avoiding public events.

He kicked off his campaign Saturday morning with a rally in Edmonton to show he’s not Calgary-centric. In the afternoon, he held a rally in Calgary to show he knows where his home is.

His speech was a sabre-rattling attack on the Alberta NDP and the federal Liberals. In fact, he spent so much time focused on Justin Trudeau, you had to wonder if this was the speech Kenney would have given had he run for the federal Conservative leadership.

He even managed to attack both the NDP and Liberals in one sentence when he said Alberta’s carbon tax was part of a “backroom deal with Justin Trudeau.”

Kenney’s has spelled out what he is against. He has yet to spell out in detail what he is for.

That could come Tuesday when he takes questions from reporters at a news conference.

His answers might help undecided Albertans figure out if this truly is the summer of love for the United Conservative Party.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

Two things to take away from a recent public opinion poll by Mainstreet Research: the new United Conservative Party would defeat the Alberta NDP if an election were held today; and UCP leadership candidate Brian Jean is viewed by the general public more favourably than his rival Jason Kenney.

Not surprisingly, the findings are giving a boost to the morale of UCP supporters in general and to Jean in particular.

A skeptic, though, would point out two things: there is no election today, and the leadership race is not being decided by the general public but by members of the UCP.

The results of the poll are certainly interesting and I think they’re spot on — but using those results to predict the future is a bit like using a thermometer to predict the weather.

For one, the UCP has no leader and no policy. People are projecting their own political fantasies onto a blank slate, something they did when the Wildrose was in its infancy. In adulthood, the Wildrose was not nearly so appealing to a majority of Albertans — a fate the NDP government is desperately hoping afflicts the UCP.

For another, the next provincial election isn’t scheduled until the spring of 2019 and if a day is a long time in politics, 20 months (give or take) is an eternity.

Speaking of which, there are 12 weeks until the UCP leadership vote Oct. 28. This leadership race will feel like an eternity.

If nothing else, it gives Kenney plenty of time to win over existing members of the UCP and/or sign up new members.

This contest is not about who is most popular in the eyes of the public, but who can sell the most memberships and get out the vote.

And Kenney demonstrated this week that’s exactly how he intends to win.

On Monday, he announced a “Grassroots Guarantee” where he said he will not issue any formal policy positions. Instead, policy in the new party “must be developed democratically by its grassroots members, not imposed by the leader.”

Kenney said he will continue to answer policy questions with his own views, but says the final answer will come from members at the party’s founding convention next year.

The Grassroots Guarantee is a stunt, but there is guile in his gimmickry. It allows Kenney to have it both ways, where he can offer up his own views on policy, but disavow those views if they turn out to be unpopular.

He can appeal to former Wildrose members who want grassroots members to dictate policy and he can simultaneously appeal to former Progressive Conservatives who hold out hope the party can be moderate.

The immediate goal for Kenney is not the next election or even the founding convention, but winning the UCP leadership.

This isn’t about news conferences and garnering public attention. This is simply about getting more votes than the other candidates Oct. 28.

Kenney has proven himself adept at this kind of deliberate, methodical, behind-the-scenes race.

His opponents are not happy.

Jean, who is releasing policy reminiscent of the old Wildrose party, said: “Albertans deserve to know what the leadership candidates stand for,” and he accused Kenney of fostering “personality-based politics.”

Doug Schweitzer, whose policies are an echo of the old PC party, said Kenney’s grassroots guarantee “is simply a sad attempt to turn this leadership race into a campaign of rhetoric over substance.”

In other words, Kenney’s strategy has rattled his opponents.

Jean is staking out territory once claimed by the Wildrose while Schweitzer is planting his flag in old Progressive Conservative country.

They may have thought they were thus putting Kenney in a vise and squeezing from both sides.

But by issuing no policy, Kenney is signalling he’s not playing by their preconceived notions of what the race is about. He doesn’t need headlines or public attention. He is relying on an impressive campaign machine that hasn’t failed him yet. By doing so, he is threatening to out-manoeuvre them both.

In this race, Kenney is marching to his own drummer.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

Related

• Wildrose 2.0 gets OK for new name

Forgive me.

I am writing another column on the United Conservative Party. To be more specific, another column on the leadership race for the UCP.

But, hey, it’s August, the political dog days of summer. And, hey, the UCP leadership race is the most entertaining political game in town.

From time to time between now and leadership election day Oct. 28, I hope to sit down with the leadership candidates for a chat.

My first was on Friday with former Progressive Conservative leader Jason Kenney over coffee (I had tea) at the new Hyatt Place Hotel in downtown Edmonton.

Kenney was friendly but wary. In the past month, I’ve questioned some of his campaign statements and he, in turn, took a run at me last week in a 10-part tweet.

He insists on saying that 95 per cent of PC members voted for unity and I insist on pointing out only 55 per cent of registered PC members bothered to cast a vote.

At one point, we did tread on this topic, but ended up on the same merry-go-round where he sees the glass as 95 per cent full and I wonder if it’s 45 per cent empty.

For me, the larger issue is one of honesty. Where does political hyperbole end and dishonesty begin?

Some of Kenney’s comments are political theatre. In the PC leadership race, he would attack the NDP government by referring to former premier Ralph Klein’s love of beer.

“They are even raising beer taxes. I guarantee you Ralph Klein wouldn’t have done that,” he would say to laughter from the audience.

In fact, Klein raised the tax on beer in 2002 and tried to call it a “user fee.”

Kenney will now admit he might be wrong on that. But he is adamant he wasn’t wrong when he said on the unity campaign trail a month ago that Klein managed “to balance the budget, much of that time (when) the oil prices were only $15 or $20 a barrel.”

He was implying the NDP is incompetent because it can’t balance its budget when oil is around $50 a barrel.

In response to that claim, I wrote a column saying for much of Klein’s tenure the big revenue maker was natural gas, not oil, and that Kenney seemed to be playing loose with historical facts.

During our coffee chat, Kenney said he had been referring to the time when Klein first balanced the budget in 1994 before the price of natural gas spiked.

That’s true, but it’s also true that in 1994 the royalties from depressed resource revenues still accounted for 20 per cent of Klein’s total revenues.

By comparison, depressed resource royalties this year will account for about eight per cent of Premier Rachel Notley’s total revenues.

What Kenney also doesn’t mention is that Klein managed to balance his books by drastically cutting spending on government services.

Is Kenney implying he’d do the same as premier?

“Obviously, there are some relevant lessons, but it’s a different time and we need a contemporary approach. So we can’t replicate what the policy solutions were in 1993, but there’s a lot to learn from there,” said Kenney in a quote that will no doubt have the NDP claiming he wants to slash and burn government services and jobs a la Klein.

Kenney has no firm plans for cutting or spending or anything else.

Much to the dismay of his leadership challengers (and the NDP), Kenney is not releasing any formal policy platform. He’ll offer his personal opinion on issues, but is leaving final policy decisions up to party members at their founding convention early next year.

That has his leadership challenger Brian Jean crying foul, saying Kenney is fostering “personality-based politics,” not policy-based politics.

Kenney’s response: “I’m not the guy who drives around with a huge picture of himself on buses.”

Kenney got that one wrong. Jean has a large picture of himself on a motor home, not a bus.

I’ll chalk that one up to leadership campaign hyperbole.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

Outspoken MLA Derek Fildebrandt took himself out of the running for the leadership of the United Conservative Party Tuesday but launched a broadside against another candidate, former Wildrose leader Brian Jean.

The Strathmore-Brooks MLA had been flirting with a run for the UCP’s top job but at a news conference in Calgary said he will instead push the fledgling party and the candidates running for the top job to adopt libertarian-tinged policies.

Fildebrandt, first elected under the Wildrose banner in 2015, said he won’t endorse anyone in the leadership race right now but reaffirmed his comments last month that under no circumstances would he support his former leader, Jean, in the contest.

“I’ve had two-and-a-half years to work with him and seen his leadership up close and I’ve got more than enough experience to make a very confident decision that he is not the best man to lead the party and lead Alberta,” he said.

“I’ve seen a leadership style that focused more on making the party about a single individual than a greater collective. I want a leader who is going to focus on building a party and building a team and not just promoting themselves and their own personal brand.”

While Fildebrandt endorsed Jean for the Wildrose leadership in 2015, the two have had a frosty relationship since taking office. Last year, Fildebrandt was suspended from the Wildrose caucus for what he said was an inadvertent endorsement of a homophobic social media post, although the suspension was quickly reversed.

The race for the leadership of the UCP, a vehicle to unite Alberta’s right created last month by the overwhelming vote of members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties, is widely viewed as a showdown between Jean and former PC Leader Jason Kenney, with Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer also in the race.

Fildebrandt said he decided not to seek the leadership despite being approached by many party members. He said he has spent the past two years lobbying for a merger of the two parties and now wants to build the new party into “a vehicle for ideas, not just power.”

Jean’s campaign declined to respond to Fildebrandt’s remarks.

Fildebrandt praised Kenney for recently announcing that, should he become leader, party members will determine what positions the UCP will take in the next provincial election. 

“I think Jason’s right to say that the policies should be up to the grassroots members to decide at a policy convention. But I do want candidates to be taking issues on policies in the meantime,” Fildebrandt said.

“I don’t want us to elect merely a personality and an individual leader. I want us electing someone who has been very clear where they stand on issues. Jason’s said where he stands on a number of issues but I’d like to see more.”

In an emailed statement, Kenney said he was sorry Fildebrandt won’t be running for the leadership.

“Derek is a principled young conservative with much to offer,” he stated. “I appreciate his work as an early champion of the unity cause. I look forward to his ongoing participation in the debate about the future of our province.”

Fildebrandt said regardless of who wins the leadership vote Oct. 28, he will support the new leader.

“Leadership races are always divisive,” he said. “They are internal family fights and we never come out without a couple of bumps and bruises but I think, at the end of the day, we’ll be able to heal those wounds, come together as a party and replace the NDP in 2019.”

With files from The Canadian Press

jwood@postmedia.com

There is a cat overpopulation crisis in the Edmonton area with 70,000 free-roaming cats.

Why hasn’t the media made this a story? Why are there no severe fines for owners of unaltered free-roaming cats?

Why hasn’t there been a task force set up with the city, the Animal Care and Control Centre, the Edmonton Humane Society, the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association, the Alberta Spay Neuter Task Force and leaders of communities that do not have their own pounds and add to the strain on the Edmonton Humane Society?  

Politics aside, deal with the issue proactively. The very real potential of euthanizing healthy cats exists in Edmonton now.

Linda Osland, Sturgeon County

Target the behaviour, not the product

It’s summer and discussions are renewed over public consumption of alcohol, and these talks will be more complicated next summer as legal cannabis joins the debate.

But for now, the debate requires a clear delineation between consumption of beverages or combustibles and acts of behaviour that are dangerous to public welfare. As humans, we have significant control over our behaviour, even when we consume substances that alter our thought patterns and our perception of the world around.

Sadly, some individuals behave in annoying and even dangerous ways in public places, regardless of their diet. When such breaches of the public peace and safety occur, the perpetrators should be stopped and punished severely. If alcohol or drugs are proven factors in this illegal activity, increase the severity of the punishment.

It is the noise, the profane language, and physical assault on property and persons that our society must not tolerate; our modern world should not have laws prohibiting the discreet consumption of substances in public places.

Robert Dale, Edmonton

Taxpayers can only be squeezed so much

Re. “Proposed tax changes unfair to small firms,” Letters, Aug. 5

I would refer you to an article by Jamie Golombek in the Aug. 5 National Post, in which he clearly points out that the proposed tax changes could lead to a 93-per-cent tax rate on private corporations.

For those political “leaders” who have never had to work for a living but have enjoyed the benefit of a lifetime trust fund and/or taxpayers to pay their bills, these changes would be meaningless to them.

To the average taxpayer/small business owner, working to get ahead and still paying the expenses for all the free-loaders and persons of entitlement, this smacks of communism running rampant in a supposedly democratic country.

As you continue to tax the working slaves, as you spend and give away our tax dollars, without any thought of tomorrow’s bills having to be paid, you will soon destroy the very source of income that keeps this country safe, secure and prosperous. Soon we peasants will be fed up with the nonsense and will revolt.  

Eugene Lieber, Edmonton

Albertans deserve to know where politicians stand

Re. “Hype and hyperbole litter UCP leadership campaign trail so far,” Graham Thomson, Aug. 5

Graham Thomson’s concerns about Jason Kenney’s lack of a policy platform are well-founded.

The definition of a leader is, one who leads. I suggest that all the candidates for leadership of the United Conservative Party owe it to Albertans to state their positions on major issues, such as climate change and the austerity vs. deficit debate.

John Wodak, Sherwood Park

Distressing response to 911 call

A few days ago my son and his girlfriend were jogging along Saskatchewan Drive when they heard a woman down in the river valley screaming for help and yelling “get your hands off me!”

When my son called out to her, some men responded saying everything was OK. My son immediately called 911, then waited for help to arrive. After waiting 45 minutes, the screaming finally stopped and no help had arrived.

Is it any wonder that sexual assaults are on the rise in Edmonton when no one will come to the aid of a woman getting attacked? It’s distressing to think all the police were too busy to respond to a woman being assaulted.

Mary Robbins, Edmonton

Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.

Unless it’s a political coincidence, that is. Then it can easily smell like a conspiracy.

Just look at the political coincidences last Thursday.

First, there was the suspicious timing of an anti-pipeline news conference held by the British Columbia government Thursday morning just as Premier Rachel Notley was about to hold her own pro-pipeline news conference in Alberta.

It sure seemed like the B.C. government was trying to pour cold water on Notley’s good-news event.

Then there was the announcement Thursday afternoon involving the leadership race for the United Conservative Party.

Jeff Callaway announced he is a candidate.

Who?

Callaway was president of the Wildrose Party before its members voted three weeks ago to join the Progressive Conservatives to form the United Conservative Party.

Callaway was all in favour of unification but he was never touted as a possible leadership candidate of the new party.

And then suddenly on Thursday he announced he’s in the race. At his campaign launch in Calgary — attended by 20 people, half of them media — he took some obligatory swipes at the Notley government but added some non-obligatory swipes at leadership candidate Brian Jean.

The timing of Callaway’s announcement has struck some officials in the Jean camp as suspicious. And I can’t blame them.

Here is someone with a history of publicly bashing Jean entering the leadership race just as someone else with a history of bashing Jean, MLA Derek Fildebrandt, had been forced to bow out of any involvement in the race.

It was like tag team wrestling — with Fildebrandt and Callaway in one corner and a perplexed Jean in the other. What had he done to deserve this?

Hmm.

Consider this.

Both Callaway and Fildebrandt are friends of leadership candidate Jason Kenney and not-so-much friends of Jean. 

In June, Callaway accused Jean of trying to game the UCP leadership rules for his own benefit. “We are more than just the Brian Jean party,” said Callaway.

In July, Fildebrandt said he would never support Jean.

And on Tuesday this week, when Fildebrandt announced he would not be entering the race, he took the opportunity to speak highly of Kenney and then bashed Jean as “not the best man to lead the party and lead Alberta.”

Kenney, in turn, called Fildebrandt a “principled voice.”

You got the impression Fildebrandt was getting ready to spend the leadership race on the sidelines throwing mud at Jean. Jean would be under attack but Kenney could float cleanly above the fray.

But through his own bad judgment, some might say hubris, Fildebrandt took himself out of the fight.

He has been forced to temporarily flee the province on vacation after getting embroiled in a self-generated scandal where he was renting out his taxpayer-funded Edmonton apartment on Airbnb. And pocketing about $2,500.

He did not apparently break any rules. But the outcry of a perceived ethical lapse was especially loud because of his background as a champion of taxpayer’s money, first with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and then as finance critic for the official Opposition.

In the 24 hours after the story broke Wednesday night, Fildebrandt went through the seven stages of a politician hoisted on his own petard — anger at the story; denial he did anything wrong; accusing others of a “smear” campaign; petulantly offering to pay the money back; self-righteously paying the money back; grumpily providing a quasi-apology; and quickly disappearing until things cool down.

He was suddenly out. Callaway was suddenly in. And the Jean campaign smelled a rat.

Or rather a pit bull.

Say hello to the new attack dog much like the old attack dog?

In an interview Friday, Callaway denied he was Kenney’s puppet or proxy.

Callaway said he had been thinking about entering the race for weeks because he wants to “get Alberta back on track.”

He said we’ll see how he plans to do that just as soon as he’s ready to release some policy platforms.

gthomson@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/graham_journal

It’s a long way from Virginia to Alberta. But the shock waves from the neo-Nazi rallies that overwhelmed Charlottesville this weekend echo here. It was telling how quickly the leadership candidates for the United Conservative Party responded to the murder and mayhem by the American “alt-right” hate-mongers.

Doug Schweitzer, the Calgary lawyer who’s trying to position himself as the moderate candidate in the leadership fight, was first to take to Twitter to denounce the Charlottesville riot — and to call out Rebel Media for its initial fawning coverage of the white supremacist marchers.

“Charlottesville is a reminder of the need to fight extremism and alt-right politics,” Schweitzer stated. “We can’t let this come to Alberta and Canada.” 

“The Rebel TV is defending Nazis,” Schweitzer continued. “This is just wrong … Enough is enough. We have to be better than this in Canada. Stand up to them for a change. We all need to lead by example.”

He was followed a few minutes later by fellow UCP leadership candidate and former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, who offered a one-tweet statement. 

“White supremacists have no place in our society. I echo my colleague Doug Schweitzer in condemning what is happening in Charlottesville.”

It took a good three hours longer for Jason Kenney to post his own fiery statement. 

“So sad to see vile, racist spectacle in Virginia,” Kenney stated. “Hatred has now turned to violence. Those responsible attack all that is best about America.” 

Kenney then spent the next two days tweeting out a dizzying array of pictures taken with Filipino, Punjabi, Chinese, Tsuu T’ina and Pakistani supporters. 

(Jeff Callaway, the fourth candidate in the UCP leadership race, didn’t tweet anything himself about Charlottesville, although he did retweet Arizona Sen. John McCain’s statement.) 

The UCP leadership contenders know that they and their party have a delicate problem. They’re not neo-Nazis. They certainly don’t want mainstream Albertans to think their party welcomes neo-Nazis. But the new party has been playing footsie with those on the far right since before it was born, courting precisely the sorts of extremists who post the vilest and most hateful of comments about Alberta’s female premier and female cabinet ministers.

It’s far subtler dog-whistle politics than U.S. President Donald Trump’s overt appeals to racism and fascism. It’s far more polite. You see it, for example, when UPC MLAs brand themselves “ordinary Albertans” and “normal Albertans” — quietly differentiating themselves from Albertans who might not have “ordinary” skin tones, or “ordinary” religious beliefs, or “normal” sexual identities. It’s code. But it’s not hard to break.

The problem with dog whistles, though, is that they summon dogs. Dogs who many turn out to be fierce and unpredictable. Charlottesville shows us exactly the forces of evil that Trump has already summoned and unleashed. Now that we see literal Nazis, with lit torches, shouting overtly Nazi slogans, marching through American streets, it’s small wonder conservatives here are watching the images from Virginia with dismay, wondering how they can distance themselves from the alt-right.

(Amazingly, even Ezra Levant, the incorrigible editor of far-right Rebel, has suddenly realized that Nazis gonna Nazi. He spent Monday turning semantic cartwheels in a frantic effort to divorce himself from the very people his own website has spent months lionizing. We have reached peak irony, surely, when Levant is denouncing Charlottesville’s white supremacists more forcefully than did the U.S. president.) 

But wringing our hands about Virginia isn’t enough. We already know, here, that these guys are lethal. Just ask the Edmonton Police Service, whose hate-crimes investigator Daniel Woodall was murdered by a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic Freeman-on-the-Land, two weeks before Trump announced his candidacy. 

Since Trump, things have only escalated, with groups like the III% militia arming themselves, with organizations like the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam Canada and the Soldiers of Odin staging public hate rallies across Alberta. Yes, they’ve all been emboldened by Trump’s validation.

It’s not enough for conservative leaders here to denounce the Charlottesville Nazis. It’s their responsibility to call out their own fringe supporters and to stop playing nudge-nudge-wink-wink games with Alberta’s alt-right. And whoever does become leader will need to join Premier Rachel Notley’s government in ensuring Alberta’s police forces, municipal and RCMP, have the resources they need to track and defuse far-right violence.

As Notley herself tweeted this weekend, “The arc of history may bend towards justice, but only if every generation joins the fight against racism and demagoguery.”

This is a fight that Albertans of goodwill, across party lines, must wage together. Let Charlottesville’s wake-up call be our own. Fan the flames of hate — and the world starts to burn.

Related

• Paula Simons: Travelling hate circus stages protest based on a lie
• Paula Simons: Daniel Woodall fought to protect us against hate. Hate killed him.

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