Last Summer, Jeremy Appel, one of Alberta’s best young journalists, approached me to ask if I would write a foreword to the book he was completing on Jason Kenney’s big adventure in Alberta, and just what went so wrong for the former federal Conservative cabinet minister then thought to be on track to become prime minister of Canada. It was a great honour, all the more so when I realized just how good a book it was. Kenneyism: Jason Kenney’s Pursuit of Power has now been published by Dundurn Press and is available at indie bookstores and online at the publisher’s website. A book launch will take place from 7 to 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at The Aviary, 9314 111 Ave NW, Edmonton. The event will feature a Q&A session with Jeremy hosted by veteran Alberta political commentator Graham Thomson. You can click here to book tickets. With Jeremy’s permission, for your reading pleasure, here’s my foreword to Kenneyism. I’m certain it won’t be the last word on the topic! DJC
Nobody misses Jason Kenney. If you think about it, that’s pretty weird. Kenney had all the makings of a political colossus.
He was the Conservative premier of Alberta, no insignificant position. Before that he was an influential federal cabinet minister who represented a Calgary riding for 20 years, starting when he was only 29. Through seven Canadian general elections, he never faced a challenger who could make him break into even a light sweat. He built a reputation as an unstoppable campaigner obsessed with political strategy and tactics – which, having no spouse or family, was all he ever thought about. So when he announced in 2017 he was leaving Ottawa for Alberta provincial politics, it was widely assumed it was a bold but calculated step toward the Prime Minister’s Office.
Even when criticism of his leadership through the COVID-19 pandemic grew heated from both left and right, no one quite believed the man could be toppled as leader of the ruling United Conservative Party, which he all but founded in 2017.
When he swept to power with a majority government on April 16, 2019, he was lauded as a saviour by the province’s many Conservatives, who had been shocked and appalled by the unexpected majority government won by Rachel Notley’s NDP in 2015. To be fair, in some ways Kenney was their saviour, although there’s little doubt that if he hadn’t managed to stitch together the entitled Progressive Conservatives and fractious Wildrosers who split Alberta’s conservative vote in 2015, providing an opening for a strong NDP campaign, someone else would have done so before long.
After that victory, Kenney was feted as a Conservative hero, welcome on a talk show or editorial board meeting anywhere in Canada. He had a powerful mandate and a plan to make dramatic, even radical, changes in Alberta. There was no one like him on the national scene. Federal Conservative leadership at the time was uninspiring. Disgruntled partisans thought of Kenney, echoing a phrase he once used to describe Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall’s role on the Prairies, as the real leader of Canada’s Conservatives.
Three years later, whipsawed by a bungled pandemic response that satisfied no one and battered by a deeply negative leadership review campaign, Kenney announced his resignation to take effect as soon as a new leader was chosen. He had managed to hang onto the support of only 51.4 per cent of the party’s members who voted. “The result is not what I hoped for or frankly what I expected,” he grimly admitted. It was May 18, 2022.
The new leader turned out to be former Wildrose Opposition leader Danielle Smith, and no sooner was she sworn in as premier on Oct. 11, 2022, than Kenney all but disappeared. Since then, there’s rarely been a sighting of the man. At times it almost seems as if he never existed.
Oh, sure, now and then there’s a news release saying he’s been appointed an advisor to a well-known law firm or named to a seat on the board of a big corporation, but it’s not as if the guy’s being pursued by swarms of paparazzi on Vespas. The only photo of him to surface in the summer of 2023 showed him wearing a scruffy grizzled beard after agreeing to take on a new role as the “voice of Calgary’s tech industry,” as the Calgary Herald put it. Some voice! He hasn’t been heard from on the topic since.
If journalists are beating down his door asking for retrospection about his years in power, either in Ottawa or Alberta, he doesn’t seem to have been responding. Maybe he’s writing a book. Who the hell knows? It’s as if he’s dropped off the edge of the flat earth he inhabited here in Wild Rose Country, and nobody really gives a hoot.
Which, if you ask me, is the weird part. You’d think journalists – at least the few who still have paycheques and modest expense accounts – would be beating down Kenney’s door trying to get interviews with him. At least trying to figure out what he does and where he does it, so they could waylay him and try to toss him a question about what went wrong and what he plans to do next.
The Kenney years were tough for all of us. That was the plan, actually, it’s just that the hard part was supposed to be austerity, job cuts, wage suppression, privatization, and the continued depredations of neoliberalism. Instead, it was COVID-19, vaccine conspiracy theories, border blockades, and honking trucks flying FUCK TRUDEAU flags. (At least Kenney was spared that fate – although a few latte liberals did drink their $7 designer coffees out of china FUCK KENNEY mugs made by a novelty company in the NDP heartland of Edmonton, Alberta’s capital city.) I imagine Kenney is tired after all that. Maybe the journalists are tired too. The rest of us sure are.
As for the people who once upon a time acted as if they wished they could touch the hem of Kenney’s gown and throw their cloaks under his feet, they don’t even want to talk about him. Unlike Donald Trump’s fans, or Stephen Harper’s, there seem to be no nostalgic Alberta Conservatives who look back on the Kenney years and miss the guy. Jason Who? Have you ever seen an Internet meme showing Kenney’s smug mug and asking, “Do You Miss Me Yet?” Not one!
Likewise, you’ll never hear progressive types muttering, “Jason Kenney, he seems almost enlightened now.” You know, like American liberals used to wonderingly recall George W. Bush as almost rational once Donald Trump was in the White House. Yet even with Danielle Smith and her take Back Alberta sidekicks now driving the UCP clown car, there’s precious little lukewarm nostalgia for Kenney on what passes for the left in Alberta.
Moreover, despite the loyalty of Kenney’s federal constituents in Calgary, who in those years would have voted for a yellow dog if you’d slapped some Tory blue on its election signs, folks weren’t really all that enthusiastic about the man himself. He may have mistaken the reason, but in retrospect his main appeal to federal voters was probably the conservative leaders he served, especially Preston Manning and Stephen Harper.
Despite being a shrewd political tactician and capable and loyal subordinate, a role he played well for Harper in particular, Kenney was not really someone the late Ralph Klein’s imaginary Albertans, Martha and Henry, or their tattooed and precariously employed offspring, would be likely to warm to. He was, as a respectable political analyst of my acquaintance privately puts it, a weirdo.
Kenney wouldn’t be the first weirdo in Canadian politics, of course. Notably, William Lyon Mackenzie King, perhaps the country’s most successful prime minister, was even weirder. Still, that strangely obsessive side of Kenney’s character didn’t make him into the kind of politician with whom voters imagined they could forge some kind of personal connection. He was not a guy, as was often said of Klein, Alberta’s premier from 1992 to 2006, with whom most of us would like to have a beer. In fact, Kenney seemed like a guy with whom it would be no fun at all to have a beer, any time, or even a shot of cheap Irish whiskey!
He had no spouse and no family of his own. There was no information about whom, other than his mother, he was close to. There was little relatable about the man for those of us who live more normal lives, in all their rainbow hues. He exuded no warm fuzzies.
Kenney’s obsessive need to defend John A. Macdonald, the deeply flawed Father of Confederation, didn’t exactly strike a chord with Albertans. Macdonald turned out to be our shared, drunken, racist, abusive national dad, but Kenney couldn’t let him go. When statues of the first PM were toppled in Montreal and soaked in blood-red paint in Victoria, Kenney wanted to move them all to Edmonton, where, presumably, they could be declared essential infrastructure and held safely in the bosom of Canadian conservatism.
Kenney’s crankily Dickensian views about pedagogy didn’t help either, especially after he teamed up with a former staffer and little known historian to cook up the ridiculous grade school social studies curriculum that bedevils the UCP government to this day. Teachers despise it. Many parents are troubled. Parents who aren’t troubled are often troubling. Yet Kenney’s UCP successors won’t let it go. Then there was the stubbornness that gave us “The Best Summer Ever” in 2021, which turned into anything but when COVID bounced back in the fall and nearly collapsed the health care system.
There was Kenney’s overt religiosity as an adult convert to a conservative strain of Roman Catholicism; his cultish devotion to the monarchy, which culminated in him bizarrely live-tweeting from the lineup to view Queen Elizabeth’s coffin in London; his tendency to adopt a professorial mode and deliver boring lectures at news conferences, making us all feel like students forced to stay after class; his contempt for journalists made clear by his frequent assertion that “I refuse to accept the premise of your question”; and that ridiculous big blue Dodge Ram truck, behind the wheel of which he always looked like an undersized phony, even before it leaked out that the instant he was out of town an aide had to slip behind the wheel to actually drive the thing. All made him hard to like, let alone love.
You could feel sympathy, even empathy, for the guy – but not simpatico. You could feel respect for his discipline and determination without sensing a connection. His political talents, in other words, didn’t seem to include the normal human kinship through which many flawed politicians can paper over the dangers and unpopularity of the agendas they pursue without making people dislike them personally. Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta’s Danielle Smith are both politicians with personalities that make it easy to overlook a multitude of sins. Jason Kenney, not so much.
Probably none of this would have mattered – at least not so quickly – had it not been for COVID-19, where Kenney’s political instincts and practical necessity clashed. He could never make up his mind if he was going to go all in for public health or throw caution to the wind and embrace what’s come to be known as “free-dumb” – the freedom of the grave for many so that their conspiracy-obsessed neighbours and shirttail relatives could enjoy the “freedom” of antisocial irresponsibility.
In the fullness of time, it seemed, almost everyone came to despise the man. He’s probably lucky not to have been run out of Alberta on a rail covered in hot tar and chicken feathers. Not only are most Albertans happy to wash their hands of him, they’re delighted to forget as much as possible about the three and a half long years he led the province.
This is a problem because it’s important to put Kenney and what he did, and what he hoped to do, in a proper historical context. This is something political Alberta has been not very good at doing in the latter part of the nearly 44 years of Progressive Conservative rule, during the NDP’s four years in power, or since, under the UCP.
Which is why this book by Jeremy Appel is so important. It would be easy, given the desire to put Kenney out of our minds, to forget his real policy legacy – decades of steady commitment to destructive neoliberal nostrums in Ottawa and Alberta, a populist pitch that nevertheless held people in contempt if they were not on the invitation list for private rooftop mid-pandemic patio parties, a profound desire to continue cutting public services and replace them with privatized alternatives that work for elites while the rest of us are damned, and a commitment to the fossil fuel economy combined with dismissal of the fate of the environment even if the survival of the planet is at stake.
Jeremy Appel, a fine young journalist, may not have written a conventional biography of Jason Kenney. We can safely leave that to some hoary academic in an ivory tower to get around to later. Kenneyism: Jason Kenney’s Pursuit of Power is a strong second draft of history – synthesizing the first reports with solid analysis and entertaining writing to create an account that puts Jason Kenney in his proper place in Alberta history.
David Climenhaga
St. Albert, Alberta
August 2023
The former UCP leader was another phony Conservative and Reformer, just like Ralph Klein was, and Danielle Smith is. They can’t be trusted. They do the most priciest shenanigans, which cost us a fortune, rob us of our oil and tax wealth, which loses us billions of dollars, gut public healthcare, so they can privatize it, underfund the public education system, making it worse, cause utility costs to skyrocket, increase poverty levels, cause crime to elevate, and desecrate the environment. I still don’t know why the R.C.M.P investigation into his leadership race has taken so long. We didn’t see such foolishness under Peter Lougheed.
I am glad to hear that the book coming out, perhaps it will be the definitive book on Kenney which will set the tone for how he is viewed, will not be a revisionist and apologetic one written by Kenney or someone quite friendly to him.
He certainly was not really loved or loveable like say Klein tried so hard to be. He seemed almost Nixonian, a dangerous combination of ambition, conviction and political cunning. I can easily imagine Kenney might have said to himself as he left something like we won’t have him to kick around anymore.
However, lest we forget, Nixon made a surprising comeback after his first defeat running for President. He was not the first politician to make a surprising comeback and in fact our current Premier also did too.
So before we dismiss Kenney as no longer a political threat and just ignore him, we need to understand why he was successful and why someone like him could succeed again. In fact, right now there is Federally a not well liked career type politician, becoming skilled at pushing all the right buttons, who has many aspects of Kenney’s style and approach.
So I am cynical when some say the voters will not get fooled again. I also would not completly write off some sort of comeback for Kenney, although his rehabilitation will take some time and effort. It might be what he is quietly up to now, he was often at his most effective and dangerous when he dropped out of sight for a while to regroup and try a new strategy or plan.
If I were the current Premier, I would also be concerned what Kenney might be quietly up to now. Part of his rehabilitation requires her to fail spectacularly so he can say I told you so and not look so bad in comparison. We can’t prevent the former from happening, but we sure don’t want the latter.
Empathy for Jason Kenney? Are you looking for a punchline?
The only thing I can say about Kenney was that, like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun. Drunk on hubris and his own belief in his unbreakable talents, he believed himself to be the Alexander the Great of Canadian politics. He would look upon great domains and conquer them all — his reach and influence only limited by his extraordinary vision. Well, you know what they say about hubris, and it’s a good saying, too.
Kenney, I recall from the few occasions I met him, struck me as a blowhard and an angry little man. He always has to be the smartest person in the room. If he isn’t, his temper become short and brittle. He has thin skin and everyone was expected to be aware of it, or face his self-righteous wrath.
Andrew Coyne commented that he had never seen a political career rise to such great heights, before crash to earth and being blown to shreds. This is the legacy of Jason Kenney: an angry little man, of little substance, who relished power and influence just for the sake of having it, jealously.
It’s like buying a loaf of bread at the grocery store and noticing after a day or two mold starting to develop.
Most of the politicians these days have a shelf life of about ten years providing they have enough preservatives in them. Looks like Jason Kenny came out of the oven without any preservatives. Hence his short shelf life.
I see no sign of anyone in Kenney’s stitched-up Franken-party having a conscience, humanity or soul. They are the undead, lurching amongst us, hoping to infect us all with their cruelty and heartlessness. So far, it’s working. We can thank Jason Kenney for that.
Congratulations to Jeremy Appel on his book.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
I think that Jason Kenney and his divisive brand of politics in Alberta paved the way for Danielle Smith as premier and for her divisive and incredibly irrational notions and policies. For example, Danielle Smith’s clearly expressed objective of ending publicly funded health care and replacing it with a for profit, pay as you go system follows logically on Jason Kenney’s wish to privatize health care.
How did Take Back Alberta gain so much power within the UCP?
Was that dreadful social studies curriculum written during Jason Kenney’s tenure adopted and is it now being used in schools?
“Normal human kinship,” empathy and compassion, especially to those who disagree with them, are alien to the cold, aloof ranks of the UCP. There is no middle ground or compromise to be found; politics is war and to the victors go the spoils and the right to write – or rewrite- history.
The problem with DJC’s introduction is that it covers so much ground and is so well written that it could darken the lustre of Mr. Appel’s book. That being said, David’s recommendation makes the price of a copy worthwhile. Best wishes for a successful first edition.
Excellent summary. Looking forward to the book.
My title for summer 2021 was “Surfing the Delta Wave.” Kenney’s wipeout was spectacular.
Kenney’s adulation for Sir John A. Macdonald was a little weird. His real political lineage traced more directly to the Ernest Manning version of Social Credit, as transmogrified by Manning’s son Presto. It’s interesting that the elder Manning, Alberta’s longest-serving premier, disappeared from memory almost instantly, and it was 40 years before anyone got around to doing a proper biography (a valiant effort in 2008 by the late Brian Brennan).
It was fitting that Kenney’s swan song was sung for Presto’s institute, and your report on same is worth rereading: https://albertapolitics.ca/2022/09/jason-kenneys-long-goodbye-draws-to-a-close-let-the-revision-of-history-begin/
I think you were wrong about one thing though. It wasn’t the “Conservative dynasty” Kenney wanted to restore; it was the Manning Social Credit Reform one.
Thinking about these departed politicians reminded me of a song by Charlie Parr, “Ain’t Dead Yet.” This version includes a very funny introduction about Parr’s trip to Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM8xZmQjFkE&ab_channel=SolomonHarvey
One could say the same about our political history.
Thinking about political postmortems reminded
Robert: Ernest Manning probably disappeared so completely because he joined the Senate. Joining the Senate had the same effect on Paula Simons. The last time I saw Mr. Manning, he was ascending into heaven on a swing after a short appearance at the MacPherson Playhouse in Victoria, B.C., sometime in the 1970s. That was in “LaBonza Meets Bill Bennett,” a musical by Greg Welsh and Charles Barber. Alas, I learned recently, there were only two copies of the libretto, and both are missing. DJC
Not grasping the intent of second sentence regarding Paula Simons as she is still vey much involved with happenings in Alberta.
I.E. her various FB articles, comments and appearances at various schools and relevant events. I am personally very happy to see her use past reporting experiences in a very nonpartisan intellect manner. Apologizing in advance if I have misunderstood.
Louise: Fair enough. It was a cheap shot. I’m confident Paula will understand and forgive me. DJC
Big Jason was an incredibly incompetent Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under Harper. He never received the scrutiny he deserved from the national press from his time in the Harper cabinet.
Minor correction: the wording on the “subtly appropriate novelty mug” is FUCK YOU KENNEY. It’s my wife’s favourite mug that I bought her for Christmas a few years back 😉
I still hold on to my own conspiracy theory that a AB political comeback could very well be possible for Kenney if Marlaina Schmidt’s career suddenly goes up in flames. She truly is so terrible that even those who previously hated Kenney would welcome him back with open arms, akin to a type of political Stockholm Syndrome. I wouldn’t be one of them but I certainly could see it happening in this province.
The only positive thing anyone can say about Kenney is Danielle Smith is worse.
I just have to say that I’m so glad I found your website David. I moved to Alberta simply to be close to our daughter who was having her first baby and without that, would have stayed in BC. From day one, under Alberta’s government, I’ve felt like a foreigner and can’t believe what the people here have accepted as ‘leadership’.
Meeting up with you via your great articles and insights doesn’t actually revive my hope for Alberta’s or Canada’s short term (maybe even long term) future I’m sorry to say, but at least I know there are a few other Albertan’s who haven’t aimed for the lowest common denominator. Keep up the good work and blessings to you, Alberta needs you.
“Not only are most Albertans happy to wash their hands of him, they’re delighted to forget as much as possible about the three and a half long years he led the province.”
Perhaps, yet a certain subset of voters in Alberta are somehow “Like a dog that returns to its vomit, a fool does the same foolish things again and again. People who think they are wise when they are not are worse than fools.” i.e., is the lobbyist radio talk show host better, worse, or the same? Or maybe, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.'” Because April Fool’s Day is every day in Alberta?
Haven’t thought about Dubbya for ages. DJC
Alkyl– Given that Premier Marlaina was born on April 1st, it somehow seems appropriate for it to be April fools Day every day; since the ucp supporters did vote for her. As others have pointed out, you get what you pay for.
Why is it that the RCMP take years and years to investigate politicians, but instantly charge journalists who try to report on their activities?
If Jason Kenney were a native protestor, he would already be behind bars.
As for Jason Kenney himself, he was a smarmy little weasel who lied almost as well as Danielle Smith does.
I have always wondered why Kenney, who was defiant about a 50% result before the leadership review, caved so readily at the actual result. Was it reality, backroom persuasion, cowardice, promises of lucrative board memberships, mental/physical health, TBA pressure? I would love to read Appel’s book for the answer, but I am sure my blood pressure couldn’t take it. Thank you for your insights in the foreword.
LAS: Speaking personally, I’d bet it was a call from Stephen Harper. DJC
Is it possible that elements in the UCP who wanted rid of Kenney threatened to reveal to the RCMP the real story behind his dubious victory in the leadership race that put him at the head of the party? That might explain why he folded so easily when, after all, he had 50+% support in that leadership review preceding his fall. As I understand it, the RCMP have not closed that file, and if new evidence of collusion came to light, his position would have become untenable, especially with such a low showing in that review – he would be seen as a liability in the next election.
I’m throwing this theory out, rather late in the conversation, in the hope that those more familiar with the seamy underside of Alberta conservative politics might weigh in and let me know if I’m straying off into the conspirasphere.
I’ve wondered about that as well. He technically did receive a majority during his leadership review so he easily could have stepped in front of the cameras to declare his “overwhelming” mandate to return to the Premier’s office. I’m interested in DJC’s theory that he was under orders from Harper. I thought the same at one point, speculating that he was, in reality, being called back to the big league in Ottawa. Of course we all know that didn’t happen, as Kenney has basically been a hermit following his resignation. All I can say is Kenney, like certain aspects of his personal life, can be an enigma.
Typo alert – hope this one didn’t creep into the version in Mr Appel’s book …
“Disgruntled partisans thought of Kenny [you omitted the 2nd ‘e’], echoing a phrase he once used to describe Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall’s role on the Prairies, as the real leader of Canada’s Conservatives.”
Thank you Jerry and the others who noted this. It has been fixed. DJC
Great intro, not sure the man deserves it. Hope the book is long on his toadyism to Harper, who is now chairman of the global con organisation. Not sure anyone will care, but Smith only got a handful of votes more from the party, 53 percent? She’s as far away from Kenney as you can go and still barely be called a con when she’s a self admitted right wing libertarian. Kenney was not. So ya. Kenney is starting to look good. He’s gone because he stood up to Parker. Smith is here because she didn’t.
BTW Intro needs a copy edit Z:)
Thanks, MI. The “Kenny” has been fixed. If you see other problems, drop me a line. My readers are my editors. DJC
“…..decades of steady commitment to destructive neoliberal nostrums in Ottawa and Alberta, a populist pitch that nevertheless held people in contempt if they were not on the invitation list for private rooftop mid-pandemic patio parties, a profound desire to continue cutting public services and replace them with privatized alternatives that work for elites while the rest of us are damned, and a commitment to the fossil fuel economy combined with dismissal of the fate of the environment even if the survival of the planet is at stake.”
And this continues with Danielle Smith; it is probably even worse with her attachment to the Take Back Alberta (TBA). In my humble opinion, she is not any more likeable than Jason Kenney.
Hana: For a minute there, I thought you were working up to knocking me for writing semtences that are too long – and just after I criticized Rick Bell on social media for writinng sentences that are too short. DJC
Not so poor old Jason Kenny gets to join the trans kid looking for acceptance and support. Ironic. Do we care? That’s up to the individual! If not? Catch the next libertarian 737 max to… Oblivion?
Here’s the tune for our UCP wanna’ be’s! https://youtu.be/0H6re3PCP3E
These UCP people need a swift kick in their truck nuts! It would be humanitarian aid!
Congratulations on being chosen to write the foreword to Mr. Appel’s upcoming book, David, and I agree with Tom in Ontario, that it so well written it threatens to upstage the actual book.
I disagree with your suggestion that Kenney came to Alberta as a step toward the prime minister’s office. I have long felt that, when Jason Kenney made the decision to come to Alberta shortly after Justin Trudeau’s election win, Trudeau looked so unstoppable that Kenney reluctantly stepped out of the federal realm to avoid being the Conservative leader who repeatedly lost to Trudeau. That, then, would be part of the reason Kenney had such an intense dislike for Trudeau; Trudeau stopped Kenney from reaching his destiny as being PM. To watch Trudeau fizzle out as he has only adds to Kenney’s bitterness.
Bob: Thanks for your kind words, and thanks to Tom in Ontario for his, but Jeremy really deserves the credit for the much harder job – writing a real book, and one with substance, not a mere three or four thousand words. My foreword did make a good column, though, that I will admit. DJC
BR: might it be possible that Kenney decided to wait out JT before returning to federal politics as leader of the CPC? After all, he could confidently infer that JT would “fizzle out” like all living leaders inevitably do, and waiting as premier of the region which arguably supplanted Quebec as the federation’s squeakiest wheel would be an excellent guard post on a bridge from Alberta to Ottawa, one Kenney would thus be ready, at a moment’s notice and first in line, to recross back to the Capital. In this sense—which only makes sense if he hadn’t meanwhile fallen on hard political times—he was prudent to avoid guilt by association with the bigoted gong-show that the race to replace Harper quickly became (which even the steady hand of interim CPC leader Rona Ambrose over the next two years could not quell). He secured his position, an excellent deployment which didn’t go unnoticed.
The irony is that the man he needed to make Canada’s enemy was not the one who wrecked his well-laid plan: it was his own creation, the UCP, which became the real spoiler. (And since the UCP is determined to raise the ad hominem stakes to any degree hitherto unseen, I’ve predicted JT might well ruin it all by a simple deke out the back door at the last minute in order to waste UCP and CPC ammo and befuddle their attacks on whomever replaces him.)
The obvious problem with the wait-it-out scenario is that it would depend on the CPC needing a new leader just at the right time for Kenney to make his move. Obviously he couldn’t do it after Scheer fizzled—Kenney hadn’t enough time yet as premier to secure the other abutment of the bridge back to Ottawa, which he only started to do when O’Toole made the journey out West to kiss his ring. The next opportunity came too quickly, too: Kenney was in the middle of the slippery Covid slope from which he eventually slid off into obscurity. And, in any event, he probably cannot figure Pierre Poilievre in this regard because, I think, the two are so much alike in career-experience terms. It would have been much easier if the torch were handed to him from patented softies like Scheer and O’Toole with whom he contrasts so much.
But you never know: PP could lose in a year and a half, a certain death-knell in “conservative” (at least nominally) tradition—presumably allowing Kenney another, better opportunity. The problem with that, naturally, is that the gong show that made Kenney go Ptheeew!-outta there! in 2015 is likely to remain in the CPC, as it does in even more rendered concentration under PP, perhaps condemning the federal right to be more like Kenney’s UCP-creation and, thus, more like conservatives’ traditional opposition to the Natural Governing Party of Canada.
I thought it was just me who found Kenney a bit off. His obsessions with an idealized family, and abortion issues strike me as truly odd given his status as a single. His construct of Canadian politics and social contract is truly foreign to reality. Journalists wrote him up as a superior political strategist, again the best I could see was a diligent water carrier for others. His 3.5 years in Alberta speak to his lack of understanding. I think the only reason he lasted so long was being in a Calgary seat and having an obsession with politics . Otherwise he was hopeless, except as a hardworking uninspiring joe boy. He seemed like a false personality in the end.
Hello DJC,
I think that there are a couple of typos to fix. In paragraph 7, which starts, “the new leader turned out ….”, there is an extra word “was” in line 3.
In paragraph 17 or thereabouts, which starts, “Probably none of this …”, in sentence 1, line 1 the word “no” should be “not”.
Thanks, Christina. Those typical DJC typos have been fixed. Hopefully they were corrected by the book’s editor on the page. I was working from my original draft here. DJC
Now to go out and buy the book. He came back to Alberta and built a party, got elected, but resigned because he didn’t have much over 50% of the party’s support, but why quit? I know there is referance to Harper in the comments, but why would Harper care where Kenny was.
Now both Kenny and Smith are odd balls and their version of the truth may differ from others and their attitude towards social isses is weird, I always got the impression Kenny didn’t have friends, not real friends. It was more like a hollow life, successful in politics, but hollow. Do wonder about his life prior to politics. I know, buy the book.
Hello DJC, late to the party, but one more typo, “This is something political Alberta has not [perhaps insert ‘been’] very good at doing in the latter part of the nearly 44 years of Progressive Conservative rule”.
Related to content, being part of the elite via a graduate university degree, it always bothered me when Kenney would pontificate endlessly while his formal education ended after one year of post secondary learning (I know you don’t want to get sued so we can debate whether he was pushed out or left of his own accord). Not that university degrees are the measure of a man (person?), but before they were re-purposed as training grounds for corporations, one thing most universities did was teach you reason, logic and thought.
Dave: The missing word has been found. I don’t think there’s anything about a university degree that necessarily makes a person wiser or better than someone without, but I agree that if one is going to play professor, one should have some of the necessary qualifications. Just another way that Mr. Kenney was a big phoney. I don’t think you would be at much risk a lawsuit, by the way, if you speculated one way or another about the reasons Mr. Kenney left when he did. DJC
I think Kenney, more than, say, Prentice, Notley or Smith is the real lynchpin of the fulcrum upon which Alberta—and indeed the whole country—is turning. To understand the importance of this fascinating province requires understanding the K-boy.
I agree: a preface the length of a typical daily column cannot upstage a whole book, but it is a very good one, nonetheless. I’m curious as to why you seemed to make a distinction between journalists “tired” of the Kenney story “and the rest of us.” Surely DJC cannot be distinguished from other journalists —except maybe the bad ones. Anyway, I’m not one so-tired and do look forward to reading the book, excellent foreword or not.
Should I or anyone be concerned that some have speculated about Harper’s influence on K-Boy’s decision to resign? I suppose there will be some who are but, IMHO, that would be a diminishment of free and rational discussion, no matter how speculative. Nobody, not even a Harper K-Bot himself, nor democracy itself is hurt by such. No foul, no blame.
Yeah, the Irish whisky thing was probably a “cheap shot” but I’m hoping Senator Simon’s as forgiving as we all are about that. The antiseptic might have gone viral, but it was the vaccines that got Kenney.
Yes, the whole thing is weird and we probably all know why. But that’s why we need a good read about this. Maybe the K-Boy has been waiting, in hiding, for one to drop before releasing his own version…
…not least because a former colleague of his figures so importantly in federal politics. As mentioned, it’s hard not to notice the similarities between JK and PP. Will their paths ever cross again in the halls of power? Who knows, if PP becomes PM then maybe he’ll find a cabinet seat for JK just like SH did for that unelected minister from the PQ where the CPC was shut out PDQ after the former Reform-a-CRAP-a-Con Alliance won its first minority. I’m thinking maybe minister of state for Yukon where one can imagine the CPC getting shut out of completely (it only has one federal seat). But, then again, that would deprive K-Boy of the campaigning he so loves to do.
Hopefully I can read this book before that has a chance of happening.