Interesting times for Jason Kenney: Premier’s loyalists fail to defang rebel constituency associations

Perhaps taking away the grassroots option for a supposedly grass roots party was just a little too much for the great unwashed and unconnected members of the UCP Party.

Maybe, just maybe, they got oh so tired of being taken advantage of and allowing themselves to be misled by the Premiers political fixit men.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if all some of those pro-Kenney partisans, who received paid memberships and a laundry list of motions to support, decided to just toss their support and vote for an early leadership review?

Judging by the weirdly surprised look on Kenney’s face in the graphic, he’s the most surprised person of all.

The next step will be a snap election, called very soon, with the purpose of threatening the entire UCP to get behind the leader, or else he burns it all down.

Gotta stop Notley and her commie horde. That was the counter in the backrooms and the hallways in response to those who want to get rid of Kenney tout suite. Don’t play into her grubby hands and the Globalists. We’ll be in lockdowns forever if you do that — get behind Kenney, or GTFO.

Or, to avoid an election, Kenney makes a deal to resign and leave, provided they make it worth his interest. To avoid and election, what would the UCP agree to? Allison Redford is famously believed to have received $2.5 million when she departed. And back in the day, Brian Mulroney received a cool $3.5 million from the PCs to take a walk. Surely it must be worth that much to get rid of Kenney? Maybe more?

We’ll see how desperate they really are to heave Premier Crying & Screaming Midget overboard.

Win some, lose some, Kenney still has Magister Ludicrous cards up his sleeve. His failure to game his own party’s constitution does stand out, though. Beginning of the end? One can only hope.

I’m intrigued at discovering here that UCPer George Clark had suggested that “the [Alberta] NDP government [2015-19]could be toppled with a snap of the fingers by a visit to the Queen in London,” UK, Canada’s Sovereign Head of State. The hypocrisy illustrated is not particularly surprising: it’s a CPC-cum-UCP tradition that goes all the way back to—well, back to the beginning of the CPC—and has persisted all the way to—well, right now, leaving no expectation of change in the foreseeable. But when was the last time the Monarch was petitioned by a political party to interfere in a purely partisan matter? To answer that we’d have to go back all the way to—uh—well, back to the CPC minority government of 2008…

…back to 2008 when prime minister Harper bullied the Queen’s Governor General, Her Excellency Michèle Jean, into granting a parliamentary prorogation in order to avoid a confidence vote that would have toppled his government. Not only was this an outrageous affront to respectful decorum normally accorded the Queen (this occasion being the first exception since, I suppose, Queen Anne—last Monarch of the Royal House of Stuart—who refused to grant assent to a bill duly passed by Parliament in 1708), Harper’s affront looked all the worse because a CPC bill had, of course, already been tabled AND three parties comprising altogether a majority in the Commons (Liberal Official Opposition plus the NDP and Bloc Québécois) had already sent the GG their written commitment to assume government in coalition when (as it should have been) the CPC lost parliamentary confidence. Instead of waiting for the confidence test to decide the matter, the GG appeared to have been sweated into granting the most unusual prorogation. Can you imagine sweating the Queen? Wasn’t so long ago you’d lose you head for much less. At the snap of the fingers…

The GG allowed the CPC minority to survive. An outraged Liberal (I can’t recall if he was an MP, Senator or unelected party official) then threatened to petition the Queen herself to protest what could only look like partisan favouritism which, naturally, is not constitutionally permitted the Sovereign or her representative governors. Thus, to stay in power, Harper either gamed or cheated the system (we can’t know for sure: the GG, like the Queen, never explains); he also offended Royal Protocol and, in the opinion of many, fomented a constitutional crisis. Nevertheless, Harper finally—after two minorities—subsequently won a majority in 2011. It was the CPC’s first and, hopefully, last. More lasting, unfortunately, is the question whether Harper’s skulduggery could be used as precedent by some future rotter.

Ultimately the Liberal’s petition threat was withdrawn: after all, it was too late because parliament had already been prorogued (as it always is, but usually at a session’s or term’s end, with no bills on the table, not to escape the democratic will of the people—that is, done properly); and the petition itself risked compounding the original affront by putting the Queen on the spot. That’s something one never does, of course including any of her governors who represent her person. The GG, naturally, did not disclose her reasoning, but the circumstances and outcome were enough to condemn Harper’s plainly improper prorogation request.

Thus it would appear that George Clark’s threat to petition the Queen was as empty and moot as his attempt to protect Kenney by moving the leadership review goalposts in his favour. The difference between his and Harper’s offence is that Clark’s was overtly partisan in nature, the petition intended to complain that a party he didn’t like was elected by voters, whereas Harper’s involved a number of likely offences of protocols and process, not least that of flirting with constitutional crisis for his own and his party’s sake, and at the expense or endangerment of the nation. In comparison, Clark ranks as twerp—essentially harmless.

I would never say that provincial lieutenant governors are subordinate to federal federal governors general—each province is itself sovereign and, like units in any federated state, relinquishes the minimum amount of its sovereignty in order the federation can function. Because Harper’s affront doesn’t otherwise ever happen at any level, it’s hard to say what is normal practice with respect any ordination between federal and provincial governors. But I can certainly imagine the Queen asking: “Who?…a provincial?…feck oaf!…send it away and bring me my tea and corgi biscuits.”

It’s also hard to know whether Harper merely gamed the system in this case, or trespassed beyond mere gaming into something more serious —as his party was proved to do with regard electoral regulations (convictions, fines and at least one prison sentence were eventually meted out to the party and members of his government). Certainly a constitutional crisis is serious—and, as we see in the USA these days, so is chauvinistic, partisan flouting of law solely to beggar a partisan rival—that is, to win at any cost. Unfortunately, it’s the habit of reactionaries, the way we live now, to self-righteously justify what is fair revenge for not winning enough votes democratically cast.

Kenney’s UCP, no surprise, is the scion of such meta-gaming: as a CPC MP, he learned from the worst who, now retired from public politics, awards this dubious crown to you-know-who.

Wait, is Premier Stumble and Bumble TM swirling down the drain plug? The great leader cannot count, and so much for high political skills. I think the knives are out.