It seemed like a strangely bold move yesterday for Jason Kenney to announce he’ll be jetting off to Washington, D.C., to testify to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources the day before his United Conservative Party announces whether its members have voted to let him stay on as leader.
You’d almost think Alberta’s premier knew how the vote count was going to go!
Well, there’s no shortage of rumours suggesting that might just be the case, while former Wildrose Party leader and recently elected UCP MLA Brian Jean’s campaign to unseat Mr. Kenney insists that if the vote is an honest one, they have enough support to unseat the premier and force a new leadership contest.
Meanwhile, as the clock ticks and the vote counters count, an apparently worry-free Mr. Kenney will take Energy Minister Sonya Savage and Environment Minister Jason Nixon with him to Washington to pay respectful obeisance to the committee chaired by the premier’s new best friend forever, Democrat-in-name-only Joe Manchin.
“We must work closely with our U.S. partners to establish a united front on energy security and that means increasing Alberta’s energy exports to the United States and the world,” the premier gloated yesterday in a triumphalist news release.
Like Mr. Kenney, the Senator for West Virginia is widely perceived as being too close to the fossil fuel industry for anyone’s comfort except their own. Also like Mr. Kenney, Mr. Manchin sees eye to eye with the Senate’s Republicans on abortion rights, casting the crucial swing vote yesterday that allowed the Senate GOP to defeat the Women’s Health Protection Act by 51 votes to 49.
During Mr. Manchin’s mid-April tarsands tour of Alberta, Mr. Kenney gushed that the senator is “probably the most influential member of the Legislative Branch of the United States.”
And it is true that thanks to the fact votes in the U.S. Senate spilt 50-50 in the November 2020 election, the former West Virginia governor found himself holding the key swing vote in the upper chamber of the U.S. Congress, allowing him to use his temporary power to stymie most of the good things Joe Biden promised to do, and probably ruin the Democrat’s chances of a second term as president as well.
Now it looks as if Mr. Manchin is repaying Mr. Kenney’s adulation with access to his bully pulpit in Washington.
Well, it’s nice to have somewhere Canadian Conservatives can go to see some friendly foreign faces now that their increasingly numerous Q-adjacent supporters have made them delete quality destinations like Davos from their travel itineraries.
The inevitable video of Mr. Kenney testifying before the lofty senators the day before the leadership review vote is announced will make a nice backdrop for his gracious speech acknowledging his victory the next day – or, I suppose, in the event his opponents within the UCP manage to topple him, whatever he has to say about that.
Naturally, a video of Mr. Kenney’s testimony will be broadcast on his social media channels for those of us who are gluttons for cruel and unusual punishment.
Outpouring of anger forces government to drop changes to insulin pump access
An outpouring of fury over the Kenney Government’s plan to end its insulin pump subsidy program for diabetics has forced Health Minister Jason Copping to move the scheme to the back burner for the time being.
The government announced on May 2 it would drop the program Aug. 1, trying to pass the move off as an improvement that would help the approximately 4,000 Albertans affected to get access to more advanced insulin pumps, never mind the high premiums and co-pays they’d be stuck with paying.
No one was fooled. When 3,300 outraged Albertans emailed Mr. Copping and the premier, as well as NDP Health Critic David Shepherd, within 48 hours, the government backed off, promising yesterday there will be town hall meetings and more talk before it decides what to do next.
About 420 working-age Canadians with diabetes die each year because they don’t have adequate access to their medications, a 2018 report by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions estimated.
Mr. Kenney goes to Washington, again! Well, its good to know his local troubles haven’t grounded our jet setting premier.
I suppose, if he senses the results are not going his way, he can forgo the return trip and just stay there. Perhaps he can get a job as an aide to a Senator or something like that.
There does seem to be bravery, a sense of defiance or denial about going ahead with this trip. However, I suppose with the voting over, there is nothing to be gained by hanging around waiting for the results, unless one feels they can still shape the outcome somehow. Even if that is the case, it is perhaps best not to be too near the scene of the crime, particularly for plausible deniability.
So, Kenney ever the great distractor, draws our attention towards Washington. So, it might be a good idea to keep at least one eye on any mischief his minions are up to as the votes are being counted, while the boss is away.
Of course, this is also very true to form for Kenney. When the going gets tough, he often gets out of town. It is one thing he has been reasonably consistent in over his time as UCP leader.
The head honcho of the UCP is either in denial, or in a panic mode, concerning his political fate, which is why he once again is jet setting off to America, at the taxpayer’s expense. He can’t seem to face the truth like a grown adult is supposed to do. Furthermore, given the very sketchy past of the head honcho of the UCP, and the UCP party itself, because of all the controversies encompassing how they did get into power, as fine after fine were issued to those under the UCP tent for disobeying provincial election laws, and the head honcho of the UCP is still facing an investigation by the R.C.M.P into his very own leadership position, this leadership review could be rigged. It wouldn’t be surprising if that’s the case. In any case, there will have to be a provincial election in Alberta, by early 2024, at the latest, and the UCP will likely be shown the door, because they are such a bad government. The head honcho of the UCP can sit back and relax on an oversized pension from being a career politician. However, the damage the UCP inflicted on Alberta will take a very long time to repair.
You can guarantee that Kenney already knows the outcome of the vote and with his smug attitude the answer is not what most of us would like. But of course there is no way any card carrying Conservative or whatever they are these days would question their leader. It will no doubt be left to the voters to kick out this Premier, as the UCP has no guts to do it themselves. Cheating seems to be a way of life for this jackass.
I applaud those needing insulin and the sneaky trick the UCP tried to use to get people to foot the bill themselves. It is really in keeping with everything else this Government does, with sneaky extra costs buried in the middle of what might look like a good idea.
Everyone was watching Brian Jean with the anticipation that he was going to stir a lot of things up for Kenney, but it seems lately Todd Loewen is more of a thorn in Kenney’s side than Brian Jean. The deliberate use of personal phones and erasing emails to avoid FOIP is one that should be coming to the fore soon.
Boy, I’m not sure how to interpret this move. Is Kenney supremely confident? Is he running scared (trying to look brave)? Is this the only time slot Manchin had open for his new sycophant? My guess would be #3 is most likely.
Jason Kennney possesses neither substance nor shame. What a guy. I suppose if I had the choice between spending a day sitting anxiously wondering how well I hid my trail or jetting off to Washington on the taxpayer’s dime to pretend to be important, I’d be tempted to choose the latter, too. If I was a different person with much less self-respect and goodwill to society, anyway.
The reason insulin is so expensive, particularly in the US, is a shortage of manufacturing. By keeping the supply artificially low, pharmaceutical companies keep the price artificially high. A large, wealthy organization with a mandate to promote the public good (like, say, a government) could easily construct more manufacturing capacity, thereby bringing the price down. Unfortunately, a few shiesters who have been allowed to assemble massive propaganda empires have managed to convince a ton of otherwise reasonable adults that government is bad and stupid and wasteful, so they reflexively oppose measures that would make society demonstrably better.
The back burner is a good place for the plan to defund/delist the insulin pumps. The flames from the gaslighting are lower there. Don’t you know that all this was simply due to an entire province not understanding what the health minister said? I mean really, people, all of you misunderstood words. Words: understand them, people.
Now I’m back to watching pointless videos of people in a room doing something, or as the UCP calls it, “vote-counting”. If the premier jets off to see his American friends the day before the next provincial election, can we say that it is more of the same?
Now we’re cooking with gas.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/kenney-rejects-early-election-1.6453203
It does look likely that the fix is in, 68% is about right.
I wonder who these phoney conservatives will be attacking tomorrow ? I can’t get the remarks out of my mind that were made by a former university professor from Germany. He told me that if a dictator doesn’t have another country to attack they attack their own people . That’s what Hitler started doing to his people and that’s what Sadam Hussein was doing to his people. Anyone who didn’t support them was in trouble and you couldn’t trust anyone to not turn you in. He also pointed out that Hitler turned the people against the Jews and Ralph Klein was turning the people against the doctors , nurses and teachers . Making them out to be the bad guys and that’s exactly what Jason Kenney has done. Tyler Shandro Claiming our doctors were highly over paid in an effort to get them to leave so he could close down their rural health care facialities and force the people into accepting privatization. Funny how our health car system was too expensive yet increasing the costs with privatization wasn’t a problem. It just proves how stupid these fools are. Kenney is finding that Albertans aren’t as dumb as he wants them to be. He forgets this isn’t our first rodeo Klein put us though it before and we aren’t going to let it happen again.
You are trying to give credit to electors who have demonstrated for decades that they belong in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks.
While “Mr Kenney Goes to Washington” makes for a nice sounding tribute to Jimmy Stewart’s own cinematic tome about an every man going to the halls of power to plead the case for honesty and decency in government. The Frank Capra directed masterpiece is a morality about the effects of power on those who wield it, and those who struggle in the face of the corruption that makes the powerful so comfortable. I can’t say Jason Kenney’s effort will ever be considered an homage to Stewart’s earnest portrayal of the protagonist ‘Jefferson Smith’.
Of course, Kenney intends to pump up his trip to Washington for all it’s worth, boasting about the endless numbers of allies that he has secured for Alberta’s campaign against PMJT’s endless war on freeDUMB. I’m not sure if Kenney will be rubbing elbows with Sen. Rand Paul (R) after he recently stonewalled an aid package for war torn Ukraine, an action that even got Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in a fury. No one can say if Kenney’s dog & pony show, among his favorite paleoconservatives, like the enigmatic Sen Lindsey Graham, will keep the aging senators from nodding off. Don’t get on the wrong side of Sen. Joe Manchin (surprisingly a D) because Kenney may only get audiences with the Capitol custodian from here on.
As for the UCP voters, will they be impressed that Kenney got a bunch of senators to listen to him? I find the UCP bunch is easily impressed, so if this is Kenney’s last gamble before he steals his leadership review vote, it may be worth it.
All is contrivance for Kenney. His entire career is long spells of failing-grade performance punctuated by short spells of successful conjuring. He puts the ‘con’ in ‘conservative’ so, like any accomplished flimflammer, he’s smart enough to be out of town just in case the jig is up.
But if the ballots are stacked just right, he’ll be back to turn a few more cards. And then it will be up to Albertans to decide if they want to keep on getting fleeced.
If, in spite of their best efforts, the review vote goes south and Kenney only gets 50% minus one–can we get Joe Manchin to keep him? And Nixon and Savage would make for a nice set, don’t you think?
I am a conniving, guileful, solipsistic ruler who is unlikely to consider a goal where my primacy’s in jeopardy. If I am this prince with control of the ballot’s I may strategize thus. I win UCP leadership with 57%. I am contrite. I am conciliatory. I am earnest. I step down and ask for a strong mandate from my party. A leadership race ensues. I approach my detractors and opponents and suggest that their future is very much tied to mine. I suggest that our mutual triumph is assured if we plan and execute a predetermined scripted leadership race. I suggest that we call an election soon after my affirmation presenting a united front to the electorate. Will my enemies fall into line when promised the limitless bounty of another term or the spectre of the NDP.
Why won’t this work?
Niccolo: Mr. Kenney may be Machiavellian enough to ponder something like that, but I don’t think he’s brave enough to try it. The premier strikes me as a sure-thing guy. We all know people like this. He’d rather cheat and fight like hell to hang onto what he’s got – possession being nine-tenths of the law – than do something clever but have to take a chance on a better win later. DJC