Promising to change the United Conservative Party’s tone, although not necessarily its right-wing agenda, Rebecca Schulz stepped forward in Calgary yesterday as the latest candidate to replace Jason Kenney as party leader and Alberta premier.
She wants to “move past the infighting chaos and elites,” she said on her campaign website, a clear shot at Mr. Kenney and many of his key supporters. “Enough with the Old Boys Club and infighting,” she says in her campaign video.
But at an event the day before, she’d promised “compassion and common sense in addition to conservative values” while pulling back the veil a little with the narrative that the UCP’s problem is not the policy decisions the Kenney Government has made but “how they are communicated with the public.”
Mostly under the radar during her term as minister of children’s services in Mr. Kenney’s cabinet, the first-term MLA for Calgary-Shaw nevertheless comes highly recommended – by Brad Wall, former Saskatchewan premier and the man Mr. Kenney once referred to as “the real leader of Western Canada.”
That was back when NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley was still premier of Alberta, and the implication was that Mr. Kenney would soon occupy that particular leadership role. Well, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
The thirtysomething Ms. Schulz, who turned up in Alberta in 2016 for a senior marketing job at the University of Calgary, was elected with a convincing victory in her riding in the 2019 general election – better than 65 per cent of the votes cast.
But had she not worked as a media relations officer in Mr. Wall’s office from 2009 and 2012 and earned his recommendation, despite a good public relations resume, chances are her candidacy would have been shrugged off as insignificant by the UCP establishmentarians supporting former finance minister Travis Toews for the job and the Wildrose rebels who favour their former party leader Brian Jean.
Given the once-much-lauded Mr. Wall’s support, however, not to mention that of former federal Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose, that’s harder for the usual suspects to do – especially since Mr. Toews himself is a relative newcomer to politics.
It probably also doesn’t hurt in UCP circles that Ms. Schulz’s husband is the communications vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
As Alison Redford, Alberta’s first female premier, proved in the fall of 2011, third place is not necessarily the worst place whence to launch a campaign.
While Mr. Toews is said to be backed by at least 23 sitting MLAs, Ms. Schulz was flanked by three at her Calgary newser: Health Minister and Calgary-Varsity MLA Jason Copping, who plans not to seek re-election but is one of Mr. Kenney’s more capable ministers, Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Frey, regularly trotted out by the UCP to oppose federal restrictions on firearms, and Calgary-Klein MLA Jeremy Nixon. Mr. Nixon is the brother of UCP House Leader and Environment Minister Jason Nixon, and it is interesting to speculate on what the influential Nixon clan senses about the way the wind is blowing.
Also yesterday, the UCP published its rules for the leadership contest – which will come with a steep $175,000 entry fee presumably not only intended to keep frivolous candidates out of the race but some good ones too.
Indeed, it’s too bad for Mr. Toews’s supporters, basically the old Kenney crowd, that Mr. Jean is independently wealthy and can likely afford whatever financial barriers the party tries to throw in his way.
The former Wildrose party leader, who was defeated by Mr. Kenney for the UCP leadership in 2017, won a by-election in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche in March promising to challenge and replace the premier. He will officially launch his campaign in Edmonton today, so we’ll see then who stands up with him.
Don’t be surprised if the steep candidates’ tariff – in the form of a $150,000 entrance fee and a refundable $25,000 compliance deposit – results in a few drop-outs.
Parties aren’t supposed to use candidate fees for general fund-raising, but it’s hard to imagine that some of this windfall won’t find its way into UCP campaign coffers – especially after the plan to collect steep membership fees paid by bagmen for Mr. Kenney’s doomed leadership review vote in April fell apart when the premier’s campaign got into trouble.
So this now leaves the UCP leadership race with eight declared candidates:
In addition to Ms. Schulz, Mr. Toews and Mr. Jean, four others have registered with Elections Alberta: Danielle Smith, also a former Wildrose Party leader; Bill Rock, mayor of the Village of Amisk; Independent MLA Todd Loewen, kicked out of the UCP caucus by Mr. Kenney; and former deputy UCP leader and cabinet minister Leela Aheer, fired from her cabinet role by the premier.
Rajan Sawhney, who announced her candidacy on Monday, is not yet listed on the Elections Alberta site, but it’s safe to say her candidacy is official too, since she resigned her position as transportation minister to seek the job.
The government announced yesterday that Ms. Sawhney’s duties will be taken over by Infrastructure Minister Prasad Panda, and those of Ms. Schulz by Community and Social Services Minister Jason Luan.
Meanwhile, there are additional rumoured candidates, most prominent among them Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who seems to spend as much time in Oklahoma as Alberta.
Yesterday’s unlikely addition to that list was Conservative-turned-Liberal Raj Sherman, who served disastrously as Alberta Liberal leader from September 2011 to January 2015.
In the highly improbable event Dr. Sherman won, he would have the opportunity to be the first Alberta politician to destroy two political parties!
The winner, of course, gets the right to take on Ms. Notley and the NDP in the next provincial election. Ms. Notley will not be a pushover.
It must be a bit of a confusing time for everyone as the UCP leadership aspirants voice various vague but hopeful platitudes. Ms. Schulz with a marketing background and some heavy weight backers is a bit smoother and more credible than than some, but is it really just about communicating strip mining in the foothills or the flawed education curriculum better? I don’t think so.
Perhaps she is a way for some of the of the UCP establishment to hedge their bets, in case Mr. Toews doesn’t take off. Also, she is a bit more credible outsider/ insider than the Finance Minister.
It probably doesn’t hurt as well to have Mr. Wall’s support, who even though not an Albertan is probably much better regarded by Alberta’s Conservatives than their current leadership.
However, you also have to wonder what that surprisingly high leadership race fee will do to the growing list of hopefuls. I suspect at least a few will back away and that is probably what is intended. If the pro Kenney establishment wants to keep control, they can’t split their votes too much, that could end up inadvertently helping someone like Jean.
So I suppose it is now a position that only the well off, or those wilh well off backers, need apply for.
To be fair, when’s the last time someone who wasn’t worth minimum high 6 figures became the leader of any political party with real chances to be elected?
There never seems to be a shortage of these pretend conservatives and Reformers in Alberta, and there never seems to be a shortage of fools who would gladly elect them. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, should be able to spot these pretend conservatives and Reformers a mile away, and not fall for their lies. We don’t have conservatives that were the calibre of Peter Lougheed anymore. Instead, we have Ralph Klein clones, who support their rich corporate friends, do very pricey shenanigans, gut public services, so they can privatize it, and make things cost more. Where is the sense in that?
Regarding the screenshot of Rebecca Schultz from her campaign video, this is the one and only time that you could say Rebecca Schultz is outstanding in her field.
Having $175000 to through around is the very definition of not being an elite.
Interesting that Ms. Schulz come from a PR background? Can we name any other recent successful politicians who came from a similar background? The day-to-day business of politics involves spin doctoring and media relations. Politicians spend much of their time arranging that one perfect photo-op. They are both the medium and the message. Will we see more PR professionals stepping out of the back rooms and into the limelight?
If nothing else, it would be nice to see more non-lawyers get into politics.
As much as the UCP will cheer that they have two – TWO – women running as leadership candidates, it’s important to remember that Alberta CONs have an extraordinarily irrational fear of anything with a uterus.
Schultz has decided to take what I call the ‘Rosa (Rona) Ambrose’ approach to leadership politics. That approach is, first, declaring you’re not that conservative before nodding to all the interests and agendas that conservatives are supposed to nod to. Second, wait for a better offer. In Ambrose’s case, she was only an interim CPC leader, until she got a better deal c/o Chrystia Freeland and PMJT. Ambrose joined the Canadian trade delegation in Washington, D.C., and will never look back.
Schultz’s leadership approach sounds a lot like a kamikaze again Ginger Kenney. Brian Jean wants to play himself as one of those kinder & gentler CONs — you know RINOs or CINOs. It plays well among the urban voters and keeps the rural rubes guessing. (It didn’t play well for Erin O’Toole because the ‘mah guns!’ got worried about losing the most precious things in their lives, their firepower. (Pew! Pew!) And who knows? Schultz may be Pro-Choice as well. But if she has kids, maybe she’s Pro-Life?
Right now, the really big issue is will Calgary go underwater again — literally. I supposed the Bible-thumpers in the area will call the next great flood as punishment for the sanctioning Pride Month, like they do every single calamity that befalls everyone and everyone everywhere. The pious’ work is never done, of course.
Just: In Ms. Schulz’s case, I think it is unlikely that she is playing Kamikaze games against Mr. Jean for the benefit of Mr. Toews. This has the hallmarks of a serious leadership run – if a rather long shot. But, who knows? Anything’s possible with that Byzantine crowd. DJC
$150,000 per candidate isn’t that rather a lot of money for all these people heads stuffed with straw, to issue platitudes? And even as a fund raiser, at a bit less than a million perhaps, so peanuts. The United Cashless Party more likely?
The word “amisk” is Cree for beaver, and a village named Amisk exists. I learned something.
Abs: It’s near the Neutral Valley and the Neutral Hills, too. DJC
I really got a chuckle out of this gem: “compassion and common sense in addition to conservative values”
First of all, this is an admission that conservative values do not include compassion and common sense. Feel free to think about that for a moment.
Okay on to the main point, if we add compassion and common sense… doesn’t that dilute or eliminate just about all current conservative positions, both federally and provincially? Once we have compassion and common sense, how do we justify blaming the poor and homeless for their choices, instead of helping them? How do we justify pretending systemic racism isn’t a thing? How do we justify making it legal to use police violence to oppress indigenous folks via Critical Infrastructure Defense Act, which had may as well be named “F Around and Find out You Fing *insert racial slur here*”? How do we justify educational curriculums that haven’t been implemented, yet are already a national laughingstock? How do we justify tax cuts for the rich and fewer services for everyone else? How do we justify dehumanizing LBGTQ+ folks? How do we justify pretending climate change isn’t a thing? How do we justify getting embroiled in pointless stupid culture wars instead of working on legislation to solve problems and help people? How do we justify making it impossible to sue the for-profit companies that made a ton of money allowing thousands of our seniors to die in their hellhole LTC centers? How do we justify “opting out of inflation” via bitcoin? How do we justify firing the manager of the bank of Canada? Yes those last two are just Skippy barking at the moon, but Skippy is the front runner, therefore, I think it is reasonable to say that his policy proposals are mainstream at this time. Hell, compassion and common sense would even keep Conservatives from going back to the “everything is Justin Trudeau’s fault, hate him and love me!!!!” well, and I honestly don’t know where they’d drink from if that was taken from them.
Question for the room – which mainstream Conservative policies would remain after “adding compassion and common sense?” Balancing the budget? Neither Harper nor Mulroney ever balanced a budget, it’s fair to ask whether this is a Conservative policy or not. Emphasis on using Police violence to enforce the rights of property owners, but the Liberals are equally enthusiastic here, so unfair to call that a Conservative policy. …I got nothing.
I’m sure Stephen Harper, Dr. Jack Mintz (not a real doctor) and other Alberta conservative political controllers are happy to have this distraction while they groom the winner to be their puppet.
Cool: Holders of PhDs may not be medical doctors, but they are real doctors nevertheless. DJC
It’s true! Doctor actually mean “scholar” or maybe “teacher” before it meant “medical practitioner.” I did not believe this either so:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87168/can-phds-legitimately-claim-to-be-doctors
Indeed, that is absolutely true.
Signed,
Dr. Lars (Ph.D.)
In the UK, not even all medical doctors are called “Doctor” or “Dr”. Surgeons are often addressed as Mr or Mrs, Miss or Ms, by tradition: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/international-doctors/life-and-work-in-the-uk/toolkit-for-doctors-new-to-the-uk/doctors-titles-explained.
After hearing so much about how Jason Kenney carefully selected each candidate for the UCP in advance of the 2019 election, are we now supposed to un-believe it? These people that Kenney recruited, some from other provinces , are suddenly *totally not* Kenney’s handmaids? The doublespeak/gaslighting continues.
Frustrating thought for the room – as near as I can tell, it is still legal to run kamikaze candidates. To the best of my knowledge, not one single action has been taken to improve Albertan elections since Kenney’s alleged-but-not-provable-thanks-to-RCMP-inaction shenanigans.
Speaking of the perennial get out of jail free card that every white Conservative seems to be born with… remember the criminals who illegally besieged parliament and blockaded critical infrastructure while literally trying to overthrow a democratically elected Prime Minister with loony tunes conspiracy theories? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-freedom-george-tyson-billings-guilty-plea-1.6488450
Six. Months. Probation. This guy has spent his entire time in custody fund-raising for his legal defense and, in his own words, ‘being treated like a celebrity in jail’ and has shown no remorse at all. Direct quote from him:
“I got caught up in the moment, sure, who wouldn’t? We’re all freedom fighters, everybody got caught up in the moment,” he said.
“I accept responsibility for the mischief charge. … I don’t regret anything.”
When’s the last time you accepted responsibility without regretting anything?
He was charged, along with upstanding citizen Pat King, of two counts each of intimidation and obstructing police, and one count each of mischief, counselling to commit mischief, counselling to obstruct police, counselling intimidation, disobeying a court order and counselling to disobey a court order. The Crown dropped all other charges in return for him pleading guilty to one of them.
Six. Months. Probation.
“We are happy with the result and the co-operation from the Crown prosecutor,” said Paley. [a supporter of the accused]
“The one guilty plea of counselling to commit mischief I think is reasonable in this case. Whether George is guilty or not is not up for us to decide.”
I am beyond disgusted with our entire law enforcement and legal system, which is clearly still succeeding at its intention of delivering one standard of justice for some people, and another standard for others.