Some honourable … oh, never mind. The United Conservative Party Caucus in happier times – for them, anyway – in July 2019, celebrating their vote to allow schools to inform parents when their children joined gay-straight alliance groups, part of the Summer of Repeal, such as it was (Photo: Twitter/Ric McIver).

Do you remember that time Jason Kenney promised a Summer of Repeal

A recent shot of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney during the lead-up to the Summer of Resignation, which will commence soon, one hopes (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

Back in 2017, the night he won the leadership of the United Conservative Party, Mr. Kenney famously vowed: “We’re going to shut down the air conditioners in the Legislature to focus people’s attention, and reduce our carbon footprint, and we are going to work hard to repeal each element of the disastrous NDP legislative and regulatory record.”

Who can deny that those were the days of unbridled Conservative ambition, even if that NDP record is starting to look pretty good nowadays?

A summer of repeal was not exactly the way things played out after the UCP won the provincial election in April 2019, although over time the party’s MLAs did manage to repeal quite a bit of NDP legislation, but give them props for ambition.

After that, in 2021, came the Best Summer Ever, in which Mr. Kenney was supposed to slay the COVID-19 dragon that had showed up in time for the edgy summer of 2020 and Albertans would get to live happily ever after in the best little semi-autonomous jurisdiction on earth. 

That didn’t work out exactly as promised either, although the results were certainly more dramatic as Mr. Kenney eventually managed to infuriate almost everyone, from hard-nosed science believers to hard-line anti-vaxxers. 

Mr. Kenney announcing the Best Summer Ever (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

Who knew? It turns out politics isn’t like journalism, where it’s often thought that if you’re pissing everyone off, you must be doing something right. 

Now it’s 2022, the days are getting longer and warmer, and we’re looking forward to the summer of … what exactly? Resignation? 

The Summer of Resignation. That sounds about right. 

For one thing, Mr. Kenney has promised to resign and the entire province waits quietly, hoping and praying he’ll keep his promise. 

As for the rest of his MLAs, they seem to be resigned to the idea that about the best they can do is hang onto power by their fingernails, individually or collectively.

The Queen, God save ’er, for more than 70 years, surely deserves a better Jubilee gift from Alberta than a tacky new title for a bunch of politicians who don’t quite make the Privy Council cut! (Photo: Joel Rouse, U.K. Ministry of Defence).

Ambition? Well, they’d still like to privatize heath care, but they’re trying to sneak that past us as a way to make public health care better – a proposition that can apparently fool some of the people around here some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time.

Most of their big plans, though, are going to have to fly under the radar for a spell. 

As a measure of legislative ambition, let’s chart the first piece of legislation in each legislative session of the UCP’s tenure to see its shrinking expectations in action.

Bill 1, 2019: An Act to Repeal the Carbon Tax – boy, that’ll show those Dippers and Libs!

Bill 1, 2020: The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act – making protest illegal to stop those railway blockaders in their tracks! 

Bill 1, 2022: The Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Recognition ActUmmmm … Anyone notice a trend? 

Who would have thought in 2019 that by 2022, Jason Kenney would be bragging to Senators – the ones in Washington D.C., not the Bytown hockey team – that “Alberta was the first place in North America to implement carbon pricing!”

A corgi, not dissimilar to the ones owned by the Queen, I suppose (Photo: Pierre Despereaux, Creative Commons).

Or that the very next day his own party’s members would try to fire him … with fistfights soon threatening to break out in caucus between Kenney loyalists and would-be anti-Kenney coupsters!

Who would have thought in 2021 that by 2022 the UCP would be afraid to use its vaunted Critical Infrastructure Defence Act to stop a border blockade by armed lunatics at Coutts because, basically, it turned out they were the UCP base? Not to mention, in some cases, members of the UCP Caucus.

In retrospect, it probably should have been obvious that gunned up white guys in big trucks weren’t who the UCP had in mind when they passed the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act

And who would have thought that by 2022 – which has surely been a royal annus horribilis for the Kenney Government – that the UCP would be promoting a bill to defy Canadian Parliamentary tradition by allowing former provincial cabinet ministers to go through life calling themselves “the Honourable” Mr. or Ms. So-and-So?

I mean, seriously?

To date, most Alberta media that have bothered to cover this nominal frippery have treated it as a joke.

I’m not so sure it’s all that funny, though. 

It seems like a worthwhile yardstick, however, of the UCP’s shriveling ambitions. 

The Old Progressive Conservatives could be justly accused of being a political party with no purpose except to stay in power. 

The UCP can’t even guarantee a sinecure to its leader’s most loyal retainers beyond wasting the Legislature’s time passing a bill that will allow them to fade into obscurity calling each other the honourable this or that!

Alas, they won’t be real Privy Counsellors, like retired federal cabinet ministers – like Mr. Kenney for that matter – and they’ll always know it. Talk about a second-rate honorific! 

And surely even a dyed-in-the-wool republican would agree that Queen Elizabeth II – who became the sovereign on Feb. 6, 1952, and has by most measures of monarchial accomplishment had a pretty successful reign – deserves a better thank-you-and-so-long than a tacky honorific for a few dozen surviving Alberta cabinet ministers and 7,000 inexpensive (not platinum) Platinum Jubilee medals for their pals.

Talk about diminished expectations!

At the very least the UCP could also name its legislation allowing dogs on patios (if they promise not to walk through the kitchen on the way to the off-leash area) after one of Her Majesty’s many corgis, cocker spaniels and “dorgis.”

That would be a true royal tribute worthy of Alberta, and proof to boot the UCP still has some novel legislative ambitions!

And there are plenty of options, among them: Monty, Emma, Linnet, Willow, Holly, Bisto, Oxo, Flash, Cider, Berry, Vulcan, Candy, Spick and Span. 

Personally, I favour Bisto’s Bill. But take your pick.

Join the Conversation

19 Comments

  1. The UCP are a complete and utter joke, and it goes to show that you can’t trust these pretend conservatives and Reformers. Did the UCP really repeal Alberta’s carbon tax? No they haven’t. My understanding is that the UCP not only didn’t repeal the carbon tax we have, but they increased it by a far greater amount than the federal government did with their own carbon tax. There used to be a document signed by Jason Nixon, if I recall correctly, which showed this. That document can’t be seen anymore. Someone got a screenshot of it. The UCP are following in the footsteps of their hero, the Liberal turned Reformer, Ralph Klein, because they want to privatize as much as they can, including our healthcare. The UCP, just like Ralph Klein, did so many pricey shenanigans, that they have to claim they have no money to fund essential services, and they must make cuts, so they have an excuse to get more privatization. Where is the sense in that?

  2. I remember when Rebel News did a special report from the Legislature at the start of the first day of “Summer of Repeal”. There was Ezra Levant breathing in the fresh outside air and announcing that the “powerful scent of freedom was in the air — Can you smell it?” Of course, at that time, Rebel News was the UCP’s firm ally and the arrival of Jason Kenney and the UCP heralded the hastened destruction of PMJT’s political career. It was the beginning of the end of everything filthy and liberal in Canada.

    What a difference three years makes.

    Now, Rebel News targets Kenney (and Doug Ford) daily and Levant declared Kenney, his once, long time friend, to be an enemy of everything he stands for. Levant tendency for hyperbole is legendary, but there was no sparing the venom for Kenney, which was poured on by the bucket.

    It’s hard to say what went wrong for Kenney and the UCP. I mean they said they intended to break everything and they went out and did it, smashing, trashing, and crushing everything that had anything that resembled the infrastructure of a civilized society. Kenney and his cabinet intended to be only competent at their demolition of anything and everything that formed that social compact between a government and its citizens. Alberta’s peaceable kingdom would be torn down to its foundations, leaving only that which resembled whatever they had in Mississippi. Wasn’t Kenney and the UCP elected to be a wrecking crew? Maybe not.

    Once voters got a glimpse of the carnage to come, buyer’s remorse quickly set in. Worse, Alberta voted in a tribe of grifters, who intended to pillage and strip the province clean of anything of value. Alberta is famous for denouncing carpetbaggers, but happens when they’re let in to run riot? Alberta overlooked the fact that Kenney didn’t seem to have a residence in Alberta. (if he ever did) But once he set up his comfortable residence in the infamous ‘Sky Palace’, it began to seem as though Kenney was living the life of Emperor Nero. Delighting in being whisked around in a motorcade, with a substantial entourage, Kenney favoured a presidential style of governance, where ministers were little more than obedient extensions of his greatness. Yes, Kenney favoured the life of the Imperial Grand Poobah, the Sun King, a Grand Czar, and unchallenged ruler of all he surveyed. If one runs afoul of Kenney or betrays their oath of loyalty to him, they are cast out, to wander for eternity in the wilderness of Sinai. So Moses declared, so it was done.

    It was said that when Icarus flew too close to the sun, he fell with joy having realized his achievement. In Kenney’s case, his vanity drove him to the extraordinary excesses of hubris, but it was his deep fear of failure caused him to lose the UCP and inspire the rebellion against his leadership.

    In his wake, Kenney leaves a society torn asunder and glad to be rid of him. Or as Andrew Coyne put it, it’s been a while since he as witnessed such an epic fall of a political career.

    1. I feel like there’s a Friends joke to be had with that picture. “No one told them life was gonna be this way” *clapclapclapclap*

  3. So now the ministers accused of distracted driving, sexual harassment, contempt of court and the one who has a hearing with the Law Society coming up soon will be able to call themselves honorable forever. Do I have that right? Lest we forget, the ones who vacationed and the ones who ate and drank on the Sky Palace patio when there were COVID restrictions on this, will also be able to call themselves that too? Yes we are all equal, but some of us are supposedly more equal, as our own little Napoleon Premier might fittingly claim. To paraphrase another great British leader, this is not his finest hour.

    Yes, they may have initially turned off the clunky air conditioners in the old Legislature building. They seemed to quckly come to prefer the perhaps more comfortable nearby extensively renovated Sky Palace anyways.

    Our Premier also seemed to initially love to drive around in a big blue truck, but it turned out did not to know how to put gas in it. As for that carbon tax, it was long abolished, but yet somehow still around and strangely also conveniently trotted out for the governments PR benefit whenever desired.

    Yes, this government had its many symbols, like pseudo populist ones often do, but they quickly became so muddled and contradictory. Like a war room that was ineffective, which often became a source of ridicule, and an inquiry into Anti-Albertan activities which found – well nothing much, after such great delay.

    It was a regime that promised much, but really delivered little. Its best moment actually probably was that summer of repeal, which was so early to be its jump the shark moment.

    Now MLAs will be looking at each other nervously wondering who wants to or can try clean up this spectacular mess. I suspect much of the cabinet, which was far more loyal to the dear leader than the party or anyone else, realizes they may be gone if new leadership takes over. They may try, but it would be difficult for any of them to try portray themselves as that new or different. So this year it will be a summer of hanging on, trying to appear to be doing something and waiting to be replaced. A far cry from their initial ambitions and lofty claims.

  4. Maybe if I squint really hard and hold my breath I might be willing to refer to them as the ‘former honourable Mr. or Ms So-and-So’.
    They would be “former”. They may have been ‘honourable” (definately lower case) at some point in the distant forgotten past. They certainly have been a bunch of “So-and-So”s.

  5. Thanks for the reminder of the Summer of Repeal, David. It reminds me of a couple of Conservative mantras that can fairly be recycled by the NDP. The first, of course is calling next summer the Summer of Repeal, as the NDP calls off a lot of the UCP’s bad ideas – starting with the curriculum.

    The other mantra was how the Conservatives used to claim that, although low oil prices were beyond the control of the NDP, their policies made the problem worse. Look how perfectly that line converts to the UCP’s handling of Covid.

    I also appreciated the reminder of the Carbon Tax Repeal Act. My favorite memory of that bit of legislation was how Jason Kenney had to cancel the press conference he had so looked forward to, announcing the legislation was introduced, because the province was brutally smoky that day, as a result of the climate change induced forest fires that were burning. Even Jason realized that bragging about undoing climate change action with an orange sky as a background was bad optics.

  6. I think the UCP people are busy scrubbing their official website of porn links diguised as opposition information.

  7. Other than a blank cheque, what EXACTLY is the left’s plan for fixing our WAY TOO EXPENSIVE health care? Is health care NAILING IT in your precious lefty provinces? No. Health care SUCKS in every province NO MATTER WHO HOLDS “POWER”. We need to open our Canadian minds a little and TRY STUFF OTHER THAN MORE AND MORE AND MORE MONEY.

    1. Too bad you didn’t tune in yesterday, there was a pretty good post that contained some solutions by jerrymacgp:

      https://albertapolitics.ca/2022/05/in-speech-rachel-notley-vows-to-put-health-care-on-ballot-in-2023-reinstate-harm-reduction-programs-end-ucp-privatization-plans/

      I used to spend a lot of time and energy ranting angrily about problems. I was lucky enough to meet someone who was able to challenge me to focus less on describing problems and assigning blame and more on creating solutions. FWIW, I am a much less angry person as a result, and it has improved my quality of life a great deal.

    2. Chances are that whoever you think of as “the left” is probably more like “the center.” An actual leftist would be advocating for things like a Communist revolution or dissolving the Canadian government and replacing it with a bunch of communities based on consent, cooperation and mutual aid. There is no coherent political left in Canada. Here are some “centre-left” policies that a reasonable social democrat* might propose:

      1)Strike down laws that allow corporations and individuals to own IP. This will drastically reduce the cost of medications by making it legal for anyone to manufacture them.

      2)Build several state-owned medicine factories so that Canada will be making its own drugs, thereby lowering costs.

      3)Change how we fund post-secondary education – instead of requiring doctors and nurses to assume a ton of debt to pay for their training, we could have no charge for their training, but require them to work for several years in Canada, for instance. This could greatly expand the pool of qualified health care personnel, which would lower costs.

      4)Promote and fund prevention and mitigation measures ranging from ParticipAction to safe injection sites to sex education to food pyramids founded in science instead of industry lobbying.

      5)Create a one-time “COVID profiteer tax” and assess it to any individual or organization that saw its net worth double during the lockdown. Take half of their profits, no tax breaks or money laundering allowed, and put it into the health care system.

      6)Strike the laws that make it legal for the Rupert Murdochs of the world to use their “news” platforms to spread misinformation during a once-in-a-century crisis.

      7)Apply the concept of “sin taxes” that we already apply to tobacco and alcohol to things like sugary soft drinks and potato chips, funnel all proceeds to health care.

      8)Require companies to pay 100% of the cleanup costs of all pollution they create, and require the pollution to actually be cleaned up.

      Anyways, none of these are magic wand solutions, and reasonable adults will disagree with some or all of them. FWIW, once you move beyond being angry that problems exist and start trying to create solutions, you enter a richer and more rewarding world. JMO anyway.

      *Oh yeah, a “social democrat” is someone like Joe Biden or Tommy Douglas – they want to work within capitalism using democracy to advocate for specific socialistic policies, such as health care or a public fire department.

      1. Although I’m happy to hear that you’ve found a solution to your anger, your solutions aren’t unique and coming up with solutions isn’t the problem. Alternatives have existed “ever since”, but they must fight against whatever social credit { ;)} can be bought by capitalists, and that’s a mighty steep hill to climb. Also, in Alberta the political power is mostly wielded by the minority who live in the rural areas of the province that have deliberately been cultivated by successive governments to hold the contradictory views of “keep your government hands off my farm subsidies” and “government handouts to other minorities is destroying MY province”. They have no understanding of politics and are quite willing to serve their purpose as long as the money keeps flowing!

        Also, I would vehemently disagree with Joe Biden being a social democrat. He advocates conservative policies and behaves more like a conservative than he does as a liberal of any stripe. Justin Trudeau is much like Biden – perceived as a liberal but actually behaves like a conservative.

    3. Blank cheque sounds good, although I’m sure you firmly believe that rich Americanos are lining up to stuff their blank cheques into Alberta’s health care system for some reason…

  8. RE:Who would have thought in 2021 that by 2022 the UCP would be afraid to use its vaunted Critical Infrastructure Defense Act…

    To be fair, I think everyone knew in real time that the Critical Infrastructure Defense Act was exclusively for use in case Indigenous folks got uppity. That legistlation was never going to be used against white people, unless they had the unmitigated gall to be environmentalists.

  9. I can see the UCP’s election campaign already. No more screeching, “The carbon tax!!” Instead of a Sharpie signature on a Coroplast “Public Health Guarantee”, we’ll get a “UCP Cat in the Hat, Patio Pooch, Snakes on a Plane Promise”. Want to reduce long lines at the airport? Surely a guaranteed snake on every flight will do it it. The UCP have an answer for everything!

    How very timely it would be to focus on animals in the Year of the Monkeypox, which is not airborne (just spread by droplets in close proximity) since the WHO said so, and only has a case fatality rate of two to three percent (not the previous 10 percent) since the WHO said so, and anyways it’s very mild, don’t you know? The WHO said so.

    Every circus needs a clown. The show is about to begin, ladies and gentlemen.

  10. So Toews is an accountant and is going to be our hero and become leader of the UCP, he hopes. Yet just like all the rest of these Reform Party fools isn’t smart enough to suggest that they should be following in our hero Peter Lougheed’s footsteps and collecting proper royalties and taxes and running the province properly like Lougheed did and Alaska and Norway are. How stupid does he think we are? As the former MLAs I knew would state “Just one more Reformer to be defeated by the people who is too stupid to understand why Albertans are in this “Horrific Mess” as Peter Lougheed called it”.

  11. Unlike Lougheed who treated all Albertans with dignity and respect these fools are only interested in helping their rich friends steal our oil and taxes to help them buy votes. It’s a well known fact , in the world of finance, that cutting taxes does not create jobs , it only creates richer CEO and that’s all they care about.

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