Between Naheed Nenshi’s stunning victory over his challengers to lead the Alberta NDP and the Oilers’ heartrending loss last night that had even the skies over Edmonton weeping this morning, an interesting little yarn about how all politics is local has barely managed to get on Alberta’s political radar.
Permit me to bring y’all up to speed.
Alert readers of this blog will recall Jeremy Nixon, former United Conservative Party MLA for Calgary-Klein, Premier Danielle Smith’s minister of seniors, community and social services, and brother of MLA Jason Nixon, minister of finance under long-departed premier Jason Kenney. (Jason Nixon now humiliatingly holds the identical portfolio for the identical premier that his little brother once did.) The Nixon boys are big guys, especially Jason, so they’re hard to forget,
The younger Mr. Nixon was one of the less offensive members of the UCP Caucus, it must be admitted, although he nevertheless went down to defeat in the May 29, 2023, Alberta election at the hands of New Democrat Lizette Tejada.
Before long, though, he was campaigning for the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in the Calgary Signal Hill Riding. According to scuttlebutt, he had the blessing of the federal party to replace retiring MP Ron Liepert, 74, a former Alberta Progressive Conservative provincial minister of education, health, and energy, and before that press secretary to premier Peter Lougheed.
The party’s stamp of approval should have made Mr. Nixon a shoo-in for the nomination.
Naturally, whoever wins a federal Conservative nomination on the west side of Calgary is a deadbolt cinch for a comfortable sinecure in the House of Commons pretty much as long as they continue to draw breath and their riding isn’t redistributed into oblivion.
They don’t even have to come back to Calgary very often to keep getting re-elected, as Mr. Kenney proved when he was a Calgary MP before making the mistake of immersing himself in Alberta politics as a springboard to the Prime Minister’s Office, a scheme that did not work out quite as anticipated.
Since Mr. Nixon is only in his early forties, the nomination would have been a very sweet deal.
There were a few other candidates for the job, most of whose names escape me at the moment. There would have been even more had not former Alberta cabinet rebel Leela Aheer and social media nuisance Wyatt Claypool been denied chances to run.
However, the only other candidate that really matters in this story is a Calgary lawyer and former Foreign Service Officer named David McKenzie.
Unlike Mr. Nixon, Mr. McKenzie lived in the riding and had a history of volunteering to support Mr. Liepert.
Mr. Nixon seems to have chosen to coast to his expected victory on the coattails of his former colleagues in Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP cabinet. He gathered endorsements from the likes of Dan Williams, MLA for Peace River and the minister of mental health and addiction, and Joseph Schow, MLA for Cardston-Siksika and the minister of tourism and sport.
Meanwhile, Mr. McKenzie quietly beavered away, getting his endorsements from residents of the riding who had worked with him to support the party.
In the event, on Saturday, the day tout le monde political Alberta was focused on Mr. Nenshi’s victory, Mr. Nixon was reported to have won the nomination. His short victory speech appeared briefly on social media.
Rumour soon spread, though, that he had won by one vote and there would have to be a recount.
On Sunday, it was quietly revealed that after the recount, Mr. McKenzie had been declared the winner by seven votes.
Judging from the online resume posted on his law firm’s website, it would seem that Calgary Signal Hill’s Conservatives could have done much worse in their search for a candidate. Leastways, Mr. McKenzie’s resume reminded me of some of those old-timey Conservatives with whom you might not agree about much, but who could be counted on not to become a national embarrassment.
Regardless, the key lesson here, surely, is that all politics really is local!
And in Calgary Signal Hill, it would seem, Calgary Signal Hill is more local than Peace River or Cardston-Siksika, just to pick a couple of examples, no matter how illustrious those provincial ridings’ local representatives have become.
The same thing probably applies to Calgary-Klein. So, as a general rule, getting to be known as a parachute candidate may not be necessarily an asset.
Another conclusion that could be drawn might be that the recommendation of a UCP cabinet member, even one from Calgary like Tayna Fir, might not have the cachet it once did.
Be that as it may, it looks as if Mr. McKenzie will be going to Ottawa and Mr. Nixon will have to remain a little longer with his post-election consolation job as director of the UCP’s Calgary Caucus Office.
Here endeth the lesson.
Ron Liepert’s gift to the nation
That said, speaking as we were of national embarrassments, this story would not be complete without a mention of the historic role played by Mr. Liepert when he entered federal politics in 2015.
Despite his well-known deficiencies as a provincial cabinet minister, Mr. Liepert was the politician who handed Rob Anders, the worst Member of Parliament in Canadian history at least since the 19th Century, his silly hat.
When the Calgary West riding was eliminated in the 2014 federal redistribution, Mr. Anders was forced to seek the nomination in Calgary-Signal Hill, which included much of the same territory.
When Mr. Liepert won the nomination, that was the beginning of the end of Mr. Anders’ excruciatingly embarrassing political career, which featured such notorious antics as falling asleep in the House of Commons, suggesting NDP leader Thomas Mulcair caused the death of his predecessor Jack Layton, striking butchy poses with his latest firearms, and being the sole MP to vote against honorary citizenship for Nelson Mandela after calling the South African hero a “terrorist.”
For that alone, Mr. Liepert deserves the undying gratitude of Canadians of all political stripes and our best wishes for a long and happy retirement, much of which will presumably be spent in Palm Springs.
The race is way more interesting than even what was described here. You did a better job than any other media of capturing the absurdity of the bloat of Mr. Nixon’s campaign that crashed into the floor on election day.
A lot more intimidation, rule-bending/breaking, and backstabbing went on in the background, which made the failed bid of Nixon all the more funny.
I and Leela (and a third man) were removed from the race and it is telling that after we were removed the turnout fell to just 45% when Anders vs Liepert was 73%. (Leela and I still got a portion of our people out to vote down-line non-Nixon candidates)
I think insiders hoped I would go home and be sad upon being disqualified but if you get people to DQ me for no reason, you bought it and will get every penny’s worth.
Interesting that you Conservatives have an immense talent for what you just described.
‘A lot more intimidation, rule-bending/breaking, and backstabbing went on in the background…..’
Still you all seem to have one common attribute – You do not have shame.
Never mind any behavioral standards or think about the truth.
His website is mostly scrubbed now but for this:
https://positivelyconservative.ca/2024/04/17/my-thoughts-on-the-federal-budget/
The other day I glanced at it and got the impression he is the typical parochial resentful rightwinger whining about how important Alberta is to Canada and how it’s not treated right by Ottawa, yadda, yadda…
But I didn’t read it carefully and may have missed if he said something more intelligent somewhere.
The plan to fix everything is common sense. That’s it. No details, just common sense. Because who needs a plan?
LOL
That is all he talks about. Never saw any plan other than the Bitcoin which was going to make Canada the capital in the world for it.
The environment is not even mentioned.
Like you say just Common Sense – who needs to plan anything?
All he wants is power.
There seems to be a lot of squeaker elections going around at the moment.
On the one hand, there’s the by election in Toronto-St. Paul, which is widely being seen as a referendum on PMJT’s leadership, or apparent lack thereof. The loss of this not-quite-Liberal riding is a jarring blow to Trudeau. If there wasn’t enough bad news going around, he gets a hit that’s way too close to home.
Meanwhile, Alberta, Jeremy Nixon gets the cold shoulder in a CPC nomination contest. What gives? Considering that Calgary is, at the moment, not exactly UCP friendly, maybe the CPC decided that being that close to Queen Danielle was too close for comfort and the garbage needed to be taken out. Suddenly, Skippy Pollivere is concerned about appearances? He may just be. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a CON mark of excellence, and they are not taking about chances.
I have absolutely no appreciation for these phony Conservatives and Reformers, who only benefit themselves and their rich friends.
This is an interesting turn of events in a riding that has had interesting turns in the past. Mr. Liepert does indeed deserve gratitude for ridding us of someone who needed to be retired. That sort of thing can sometimes be a thankless task, but Liepert seemed to comfortably settle in as CPC MP after a rough ride in Alberta provincial politics. So perhaps in this case this was the reward for him itself.
On that note, interesting how disciplined the CPC is compared to their provincial yahoo cousins, the UCP. And while the parties do share an often common outlook, while they have a similar name they do not share exactly the same name. Something to think about for other provincial parties pondering their Federal ties? So Alberta Democrats anyone? At this point the New part is not so new anymore.
Obviously, the influence of UCP heavy weights in Calgary Federal politics is not as great as might have been thought. On the whole that is probably a good thing.
I realize the PM may be still in shock with the by election result, but it would be good for him and his party to soon collect its wits. It is time for him go gracefully soon to save his party and himself from further embarrassment and damage. I do believe that is the message the Liberals of that riding were trying to give him.
The relationship of the ANDP to the federal NDP seems to be of great interest to political columnists and many others who are not in the party. A quick search seems to show in recent years the Federal New Democrats had around 125,000 members. The surge in new party memberships in Alberta for the leadership campaign has added around 68,000 members to the 16,000 or so who were already automatically members of both the Federal and the Alberta Provincial parties, for a total of over 84,000 members from Alberta. I would expect that Albertans could exercise a great deal of influence in the Federal Party if we’re not in a hurry to cut off our nose to spite our face. This seems to be the modus operandi of Alberta conservatives, but it doesn’t have to be the same for Alberta progressives.
No doubt he is waiting for an appointment to a health board or some sort of Board or Crown Corp.
The lure of a long term position with a gold plated pension would no doubt be his personal preference.
What is the matter….does he not have the qualifications, background, and/or experience to find a real job in the private sector…other than perhap a lobbiest position???
A couple of thoughts. The UCP aren’t as popular in Calgary as they’d like to believe, and the Nixon name also carries a lot of negative baggage. Interesting, the timing of Shannon Phillips leaving politics because of harassment by the OHV community (including being stalked and spied on by the Lethbridge Police) for her attempts to protect the Castle-Livingstone area when she was the NDP Environment Minister. And these same OHVers of course, were the ones Jeremy’s brother Jason was cultivating for support before and after he became the UCP “Environment Minister”. Which was a misnomer, of course, but I digress.
And as far as Ron Liepert goes, being an MP was a pretty soft ride for him, just showing up in Ottawa occasionally to vote against anything the Liberal government put forward. Compared to his roles in the provincial Ministries of Education and Health Care for the PC Stelmach government where he was the proverbial bull in the china shop. He might even be credited with his provincial government career being the turning point for his PC government’s demise and also the party’s.
Lol Jeremy.
Have a seat bud. Well, not that kind of seat, actually maybe just sit down and shut up.
I would conclude all correspondence with my advice to keep his resume current, as the next election was fast approaching. I guess he didn’t take my advice to heart. Would rather see his misogynist, female bullying brother sidelined, but like a bad horror movie Jason lives on.
Was Rob Anders really a worse MP than Myron Thompson or Rahim Jaffer? I would think that the fact that Anders was ectothermic and thus capable of much less mayhem than Thompson, who carried vast stores of energy, or Jaffer who kept the pep in his step with Racehorse Charlie, meant that he was much less likely to do anything than the other two.
“how important Alberta is to Canada”. come again. From a national unity perspective each province and territory is important regardless of size or resources. Alberta has at times had an inflated sense of their worth. In the past few decades some of the premiers of Alberta were more of a joke but no one was laughing.
Besides Lougheed and Notley there hasn’t’ been much nor have they distinguished themselves in Edmonton or Ottawa.
What can I say about Ron Liepart ,can talk for hours on his gig ,
When I think of the “Nixon “ brothers ,I can’t move past “kill the bitch” ,mutilated cows and ho s at home
Gump too
“The younger Mr. Nixon was one of the less offensive members of the UCP Caucus”. Indeed. I actually met him once. A few years ago – I believe it was in the “before times” (pre-pandemic) – he was leading a legislature panel studying potential changes to the tobacco and vapes control legislation, and I was invited to a meeting at the Grande Prairie Public Health Centre. At the time, I was a Cardiac Rehab Nurse in AHS’s North Zone Chronic Disease Management programme, and that was the capacity in which I was invited to meet with the MLA and his staff.
Given my political predilections, I was pleasantly surprised to find he wasn’t a frothing-at-the-mouth, knuckle-dragging so-con or gun totin’ libertarian. Instead, he was remarkably reasonable and personable and listened courteously to what I had to say, as I presented some of the available evidence from the research literature on matters like youth tobacco use, electronic cigarettes, and cardiovascular disease prevention.
A vote for Mark Carney is a vote for the same corrupt, scandal ridden, incompetent Liberal party of the last 10 years. He calls himself an outsider that appoints the very same people to cabinet positions that created the mess. He claims he has changed his destructive policies. Do not believe him. If this were true he would have brought into the cabinet all new people.