With Brian Jean as the United Conservative Party’s candidate in the still unscheduled by-election in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, there will be no one running who supports Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.
In addition to Mr. Jean, who makes no bones about the fact he intends to try to replace Mr. Kenney as UCP leader, voters in the riding will get to choose from a field of candidates who all say, one way or another, that the premier must go.
With a storyline like that, who wouldn’t want to be a fully-vaccinated fly on the wall at Mr. Kenney’s upcoming three-household holiday dinner, not to mention the next meeting of the Kenney Cabinet?
There seems to be no question the former Wildrose Party leader and Mr. Kenney’s principal rival to lead the UCP back in 2017 had decisively won the nomination vote after the count showed him sweeping aside economist Joshua Gogo, the candidate favoured by Premier Kenney’s supporters, by 529 votes to 250.
By early this morning, though, there was still no announcement of the vote results from the UCP. Maybe there never will be.
Since there’s no way Mr. Kenney can be happy about the selection of a would-be rival for a job he intends to keep, and because the premier has a history of aggressive campaign practices that have impacted Mr. Jean directly, the successful candidate may have felt he had no choice but to make the outcome of the vote public as quickly as possible.
With the word out there he had scored a decisive 68-per-cent victory it is now pretty hard for anyone to cook up a narrative to justify overturning the vote. That said, Mr. Kenney could still refuse to sign his nomination papers.
Whatever the reason, Mr. Jean immediately announced his victory on Facebook. “The members of Fort McMurray–Lac La Biche have given me a mandate to push for renewal of the UCP and I expect that soon my constituents will give me a mandate get Alberta back on track,” he said.
“We got a very good result in Fort McMurray–LLB and now I will travel the province trying to get the UCP enthusiasm in every part of the province up to the same level as Fort McMurray,” his statement continued. “I will also travel my riding campaigning against the NDP who don’t have the right solutions for Alberta.”
At the moment, it would seem, Albertans might not agree with him on that point. A recent Leger poll suggested that while Mr. Jean may have a marginal lead over Mr. Kenney in the number of Albertans who are likely to support either of them in an election, a small majority of Albertans say they would not vote for the UCP under any circumstances.
The scion of a well-known Fort McMurray business family who represented the region as Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2014, Mr. Jean seems to have enjoyed a clear advantage with local Conservatives in the northern Alberta oil sands servicing centre.
Given Mr. Kenney’s low personal approval rate – shown by other polls to be barely above 20 per cent – it probably didn’t hurt that Mr. Jean has been openly campaigning to replace the premier, and to give him the bum’s rush if need be. He had said that if he didn’t win the nomination fight on his home turf, he’d run as an Independent.
The fact he resigned his seat in March 2018 after losing the 2017 leadership race doesn’t seem to have bothered UCP members in the riding either. Mr. Jean has said that he quit after the premier didn’t talk to him for four months. Mr. Kenney says that isn’t true, and that he offered him a senior, front-bench role in the caucus.
Nor was there apparently much damage when Mr. Jean stirred up controversy with a social media post that accused Mr. Kenney’s supporters of “pushing a Nigerian economist who lives in Fort McMurray,” a reference to Dr. Gogo. Mr. Jean apologized and said the post was written by a staffer.
If Mr. Jean can now manage to get elected whenever the by-election is called, he’ll obviously be in a place to do much more damage to Premier Kenney from inside the caucus.
Minutes after 7 p.m., NDP candidate Ariana Mancini congratulated Mr. Jean, but with an important qualifier. “Mr. Jean has made it clear, even this evening, that he is running because of his rivalry with Jason Kenney,” she said in a statement emailed to media. “I am running for the people of Fort McMurray and Lac La Biche.
“UCP MLAs haven’t delivered for our region,” she added. “I am focused on job creation, improving public health care, protecting public education, protecting our community from flood and fire, and ensuring we have reliable EMS.”
Deteriorating ambulance service in and around Fort Mac has been a hot issue in the region for months.
In addition to Ms. Mancini, a Grade 4 teacher at Ecole Dickinsfield in the Fort McMurray Public School Division, Wildrose Independence Party Leader Paul Hinman has indicated he plans to run in the by-election.
Back in September when Mr. Jean was rumoured to be seeking the leadership of the Alberta Party, the party acclaimed former Brooks mayor Barry Morishita, so maybe he’ll want to throw his hat in the ring too.
The riding has had no MLA since August, when former UCP MLA Laila Goodridge stepped down to run successfully for the Conservative Party of Canada in the Sept. 20 federal election.
A date has never been set for the by-election, but that step will have to be taken by Valentine’s Day and the vote will need to be held in March.
Okay, here’s my take on the crazy.
Jean claims he won the nomination because he can confirm that everyone at the meeting really did personally purchase a membership. He probably has some written record that can be audited.
Kenney, on the other hand, was having his mooks buy memberships for persons unknown, who may or may not have known that they were UCP members, and may or may not have known that they voted at the nomination meeting. Kenney even went so far as to make all these antics perfectly legal in advance of the nomination vote.
Jean does some math and says, “Wait one Ft. Mac Minute! This meeting was stacked by members who don’t even live in the riding and never bought their membership.” Now, before Jean can yell out “Stop the Steal” Kenney’s UCP flunkies are going to say, “Wait another Ft. Mac minute…we have more votes than you. The law now says blah, blah, blah…”
Then, Jean yells, “Stop the Steal” and the whole thing drops into mayhem. Kenney then decides that there can’t be an election until the matter is cleared up, which will take…six months. Exactly.
Having heard Mr Jean on several interviews over the years, I confess I was amazed to learn later that he was a lawyer. Tongue-tied and apparently extremely parochial, he struck me as not being top flight material or indeed even close to it. Still, if he can get under kenney’s skin and blow up the UCP by wandering around the provincial ridings causing ructions, more power to him. As for your grand poohbah himself, it’s typical of your self-appointed premier-for-life-by-hook-or-by-crook to back off Covid restrictions too early by far. In this case mum and dad must have invited him over for a spot of turkey on the 25th, so he changed the provincial rules to suit himself. Well, 183 ICU goners is close enough to 173 for him, much as his 70% vaccine coverage wasn’t reached before the declaration of the best summer ever. Reality is a different place for this hoax of a human being. I’m OK Jack, so screw you, is the kenney attitude. By comparison, Moe accomplishes the same level of uselessness by wandering around in a continual dense mind fog from which it is unlikely he will ever escape.
I feel it’s necessary to illuminate what it’s like getting Covid in terms your average citizen can understand, considering Omicron is just around the corner. We’ve had in Nova Scotia an outbreak caused by an ill-judged ceremony at a local university, and even the prez got it. Hundreds have tested positive since. Virtually everyone was double-vaxxed, so Public Health has been happy to say symptoms have been “mild”. An irate reader of a local online newspaper, the Halifax Examiner, was excoriated on its coverage by someone suffering “mild” symptoms, and the response shows the difference between what Public Health thinks is mild, versus a sufferer:
” ‘Being one of the confirmed positive cases in Antigonish along with 5 other friends, our symptoms are most definitely not mild. It is offensive this article and the school are downplaying this serious illness. I have never been this sick in my entire life, it’s awful and certainly not mild. I think you should correct the article.’
This shows how the disease is assessed by health professionals versus how it is experienced by the people who are home sick with it. The health professionals say, “well, they’re not on a ventilator, so they have mild symptoms.” The people home sick say, “I feel fucking awful!” ”
And in Alberta your total gorf of a premier and the half-million or so nutcase Covid deniers walk around uttering right wing talking points and dissing doctors. Well, Omicron might shut them up. I sure as hell don’t want it.
Oh brother, there’s no shortage of incompetent lawyers who never speak at trial. It is not safe to assume competence or sue diligence with any of these folks.
“I am focused on job creation, improving public health care, protecting public education, protecting our community from flood and fire, and ensuring we have reliable EMS.”
Maybe Ms. Mancini has a chance–Brian Jean’s only focus is on Jason Kenney’s job, which is Jason Kenney’s only focus too.
They are both very similar…with one exception.
Brian Jean has integrity.
I would not vote for either. Kenney because of his personal attributes, his Cabinet, and his policies.
I doubt whether Brian Jean would have dissimilar policies to the current UCP cabal.
When has Brian Jean shown integrity ? Is the enemy of our enemy really our friend ?
Brett: “Jean said he is fully vaccinated, but opposes mandatory vaccine mandates….”
He also opposes the vaccine passports.
So definitely not any better.
Given that Jean considers himself to be premier in all but taking the oath, I can imagine his byelection being turned into a referendum on Kenney. Of course, Mancini steps up and says “Umm…hello? Heath care is a train wreck. Public education is a slow and unfolding nightmare. Check your egos at the door, Ginger Kenney. Imagine getting elected for saying out loud what everyone is thinking?
Should Mr. Jean upset the applecart and take over the premier’s office, he could provide gainful employment for the ousted Mr.Kenney. Brian gets him a job at the Jean family car wash to serve the constituents of Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche. As an added benefit Jason keeps his fancy Dodge Ram sparkling clean.
I wish I could take credit for saying this, but Jay Guevera stated, ” This is like watching a competition to see which flavour of shit we’ll be made to eat.”
I couldn’t agree more. At least Brian Jean ruined Kenney’s weekend. Yet, I fear that Albertans are so stupid they will be encouraged to vote UCP again if Jean inevitably wins the UCP leadership.
They will regret it if they do.
Perhaps one of the first and biggest causalities of this nomination race seems to be the image of Kenney as some sort of invincible politician. Like the Wizard of Oz, Kenney’s behind the curtain manoeuvres are being revealed here as not as impressive as we imagining. Many were expecting, likely aided greatly by dirty tricks, Kenney would somehow engineer Jean’s loss in this race. Well, that doesn’t seem to have happened. Also, if this nomination race is any proxy for support for Kenney, then then it is not looking good for the upcoming leadership review. The result wasn’t even close, Jean seems to have won convincingly. Of course, Jean had a number advantages that are only local and don’t necessarily translate to province wide support – he was well known and well connected to the community and has served both as MP and MLA in the past.
You also have to wonder if there is also a downside to Kenney’s long career in politics. Yes, it has allowed him to create a network of loyalists and place them in key positions, but familiarity also breeds contempt as the saying goes and Kenney may have also created a number of enemies within the Conservative parties over the years – some vocal, some not. For instance, I wonder about the choice of the former UCP MLA as a Federal Conservative Candidate, which is what created this nomination opening in the first place. Surely, someone Federally must have know this was likely creating a big potential problem for Kenney.
I suppose it is still possible Jean may not win the by election, but a loss for the UCP would in this would also reflect very badly on Kenney. In some ways, Jean’s reemergence is a problem of Kenney’s own creation. There may be a few viable leadership candidates within the UCP caucus, but of course, while Kenney still insists on hanging on, they can say or do little. So, the field is pretty much open for Jean right now to campaign without anyone else running.
At this point I would say Jean’s chances are also fairly good to become leader. The UCP probably needs a new leader that has some distance from Kenney, if it has any hope of regaining support. So, that pretty much rules out cabinet ministers and most of caucus, which at least in public has been fairly loyal to Kenney so far. Of course, if Jean does succeed and becomes Premier, he will quickly discover as Kenney has, that running in opposition is much easier than governing.
Mr. Jean has been my MP and my MLA. I met Mr. Jean when he was running for the nomination of CPC.
I don’t find Mr. Jean as having any redeeming features as a politician. He was entirely dismissive of tribunals as in his mind all decisions should be made by lawyers and judges. As an MLA he either ignored me or towed the party line.
It is really unfortunate that the UCP supporters are seemingly going to be asked to choose between Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumber.
Of course the people of Fort McMurray – Lac La Biche have a better candidate in Ariana Mancini, a candidate who will actually represent everyone and not just party supporters.
Ariana seems much more compassionate, educated and better looking too!
“Books mayor”
And it looks like there’s no announcement that Jean has the UCP’s nomination.
Hmmm…Kenney was always something of a drama queen.
It seems Albertans still learn nothing by supporting these pretend conservatives and Reformers, like Brian Jean, who only make things worse for people.