{"id":176199,"date":"2021-02-12T01:29:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T22:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/this-is-not-what-jason-kenney-came-back-to-alberta-for\/"},"modified":"2021-02-12T01:29:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T22:29:45","slug":"this-is-not-what-jason-kenney-came-back-to-alberta-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/this-is-not-what-jason-kenney-came-back-to-alberta-for\/","title":{"rendered":"#This is not what Jason Kenney came back to Alberta for"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#This is not what Jason Kenney came back to Alberta for<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Jason Kenney had a series<\/a> of ambitions for himself and Alberta when he began, five years ago, on a quest to restore the province. He\u2019d become the Alberta conservative movement\u2019s leader, merge two right-leaning parties into one and topple Rachel Notley\u2019s NDP government, which slid almost instantly into unpopularity <\/b>as the oil sector dragged the province into recession. He\u2019d been a Calgary MP for 18 years, though he\u2019d spend only a few days per month in Alberta due to his Ottawa cabinet work and politicking for the Harper Conservatives in immigrant-heavy swing ridings. Ontario-born and Saskatchewan-raised, he\u2019d lived in Edmonton full-time in the mid-1990s while leading a taxpayer\u2019s advocacy group. So this was a homecoming of sorts. There was attitudinal alignment out west: Alberta clearly skewed more conservative than most of Canada, and so did Jason Kenney.<\/p>\n

His promises stayed consistent: resurrect the \u201cAlberta advantage\u201d when it came to the economy; bring back the budget-balancing fearlessness of former premier Ralph Klein; and use government muscle to boost the energy sector\u2019s reputation and might. He bombed around the province in a blue pickup truck and told supporters at rallies: \u201cWe get \u2018er done.\u201d The formula app<\/a>eared to work, at least electorally.<\/i> The province may have become more diverse and urban over 20 years, Kenney told Maclean\u2019s <\/i>during his long campaign, but \u201cthe thing I find is that Alberta is still Alberta.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly two years into Kenney\u2019s stint as Alberta premier, nothing is what it seemed. The disorientation runs deeper than the common, pandemic-induced challenges and public <\/i>malaise that has undone the political agendas of leaders around the world; deeper even than the profound hardship and unemployment inflicted by the downturn of the energy economy. Albertans are coming to realize they\u2019re in the midst of a deeper, structural change, not another bust to be succeeded by another boom. Kenney has taken halting steps toward that new era. But he\u2019s largely stuck with his pre-pandemic agenda\u2014drawing outcry from Albertans angry about cuts to the public sector or government spending on private interests.<\/p>\n

The blowback has come not only from progressive opponents ticked with, say, Kenney\u2019s push to curb doctors\u2019 pay and close provincial parks; or with <\/b>his libertarian reluctance to enact health restrictions as coronavirus hospitalizations rates spiked. It\u2019s coming from within the conservative coalition he knit together, which is increasingly disillusioned and now risks unravelling. Many rural Albertans who supported him are frustrated both by things Kenney has done\u2014such as his partial COVID lockdowns, which some of his own MLAs now openly criticize; and things he hasn\u2019t, like translating his anti-Ottawa rhetoric into action. \u201cThere\u2019s no base right now for this government to hold on to because they have just been agitated in all the different little ways,\u201d says one United Conservative government source who didn\u2019t want to be named.<\/p>\n

Kenney turned the page on 2020 with an even rougher January, when one-tenth of his caucus was caught holidaying abroad despite travel<\/a> advisories and lockdowns. The premier sanctioned a minister and his chief of staff, but only after his lenient <\/b>response was universally condemned<\/span><\/a>. He\u2019d badly misread the popular mood, and not for the first time since he won election with what once <\/b>seemed a perfectly calibrated message.<\/p>\n

More signs of this disconnect emerged after the travel fiasco. His government\u2019s bid to expand coal mining in the Rockies drew backlash from quarters ranging from ranchers to small-town councils to Paul Brandt, the country singer whose tune Kenney had used as a <\/b>campaign theme song. \u201cKenney\u2019s been dwindling since day one,\u201d says Craig Snodgrass, a vocal critic of the coal plan and mayor of the reliably conservative southern town of High River. \u201cHe knows exactly what strings to pull with people to get elected. That only lasts about six seconds after you\u2019re elected. Now you\u2019re the guy, and you\u2019d better have your sh\u2013 together. And he does not.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

This is not the Alberta that Jason Kenney came back for\u2014it\u2019s different in outlook, and in its reception to the Great Right Hope he presented himself as. He has time in his mandate to figure out what Albertans want, but a track record with so many missteps leaves him with so much more to fix.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d promised Albertans plenty\u2014375 specific commitments in his platform that he made much of during the election campaign, from ending renewable energy subsidies cutting red tape to requiring all universities to adopt free-expression policies. The overarching\u2014<\/i>though unspoken\u2014<\/i>proposition: a new era of political stability, again hearkening back to Klein, the four-term Tory premier of the \u201890s and early 2000s.<\/p>\n

There had been 12 premiers in the province\u2019s 101-year history when Klein resigned in 2006. Alberta has had six in the 15 years since, thanks to both conservative infighting and public dissatisfaction. No premier in that span won two straight general<\/a> elections, all of which has turned Canada\u2019s most politically staid province into its most turbulent. Kenney, with his political savvy as Harper\u2019s lieutenant, was expected to usher in a renewed period of Conservative dominance and reliability. He made serious headway by winning nearly three-quarters of Alberta\u2019s seats in the 2019 election and more votes than the former Wildrose and Tory parties combined. It was better than most polls predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the Alberta that Jason Kenney came back for\u201d<\/p>\n

But the hostility Kenney faced for the snowbird scandal, and his uneven <\/b>COVID response, show that instability is taking no holiday. His approval ratings are in the tank, and several recent surveys put his party behind the NDP. One lobbyist tells Maclean\u2019s <\/i>he\u2019s lately advised clients to keep in touch with Notley\u2019s opposition party, too, hedging against a future change in government.<\/b>\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve been hard on each and every premier that has come through,\u201d says Maryann Chichak, a longtime Conservative activist and mayor of the town of Whitecourt. Not long ago, she says, Albertans were more forgiving of mistakes on the part of Klein or Peter Lougheed. But not long ago, Chichak observes, Albertans were \u201ccontent and comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why should Alberta be politically stable, in a fundamentally destabilizing period? The oil industry, still recovering from a price collapse last decade, was clobbered anew in 2020 by a global supply glut, a demand plunge caused by a halt to international travel and commuting, and growing concern about climate change among global policymakers and financiers (Kenney had dismissed that as \u201cflavour of the day\u201d).<\/p>\n

The province went into the pandemic with Canada\u2019s fourth-highest unemployment rate; by December\u2014even though it had shut down fewer workplaces than other provinces\u2014Alberta had the second-highest, at 11 per cent, behind only Newfoundland and Labrador. There are nearly five Alberta job seekers for every vacancy, according to analysis<\/span><\/a> by University of Waterloo economist Michael Skuterud.<\/p>\n

Parents are increasingly unsure if university-age kids can find futures in the province\u2014a reversal from decades when it was a magnet drawing <\/b>enterprising young Canadians from elsewhere. After having the highest proportion of residents in the 20-24 age demographic in 2010, Alberta <\/b>was seventh on that score by 2019, Statistics Canada estimates show. Jim Gray, a seven-decade oil executive who experienced both sides of several V- and U-shaped economic downturns, says this feels more like a L-shaped slump, and that Alberta faces a new normal. \u201cWe\u2019ve built a wonderful society on a very narrow base. That\u2019s changing, and it isn\u2019t very easy to adapt to that change, Gray says.<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/p>\n

Kenney speaks during a news<\/a> conference in Calgary on April 5, 2019. He\u00a0said he would create a $1 billion crown corporation to support Indigenous resource projects including pipelines if he’s elected to lead Alberta’s government. (Todd Korol\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

Whereas Kenney campaigned that \u201chope is on the horizon,\u201d a sense of resignation is settling in. More than half of Albertans now feel its best days are behind it, according to opinion research<\/span><\/a> by the academic Viewpoint Alberta project. Not long ago, there remained a sense that the province was still ahead, that it was merely being held back by outside forces, namely: an unappreciative central government that premiers have long railed against. \u201cNow there\u2019s a feeling like Alberta is falling behind the rest of Canada, and that is a very different position for a premier to lead,\u201d says Jared Wesley, a University of Alberta political scientist and Viewpoint\u2019s project leader. (Kenney\u2019s office declined an interview request from Maclean\u2019s, <\/i>and also did not provide answers to a set of written questions a spokeswoman had invited. There was also no reply to a request to the minister of jobs, economy and innovation.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Kenney had brought hope of robust, back-to-basics recovery with his 2019 promises. Cut taxes, axe regulations, and use government muscle to defend the energy sector. It resonated. \u201cI don\u2019t think Albertans wanted to pivot hard right\u2014it was a wistful longing for when things were stable and the oil economy was going well and lots of people had jobs,\u201d says Emma May, who was an aide to former premier Jim Prentice. <\/i>Kenney\u2019s simple campaign slogan: \u201cjobs, economy, pipelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is little good news to point to on the first two scores, and Joe Biden\u2019s cancellation of the Keystone XL permit was a major blow on the third. It left Kenney holding the bag on more than $1 billion in investments and guarantees he\u2019d sunk into that project\u2014the sort of gamble with taxpayer dollars he used to mock \u201cas politicians risking your money.\u201d But he swore it was necessary to prevent Keystone\u2019s premature demise.<\/p>\n

His other bids to support the oil patch, a $30-million-per-year energy information \u201cwar room\u201d and a public inquiry into foreign-funded oil sands opposition, have generated little more than <\/b>embarrassing headlines<\/span><\/a> that trade on stereotypes<\/span><\/a> about Alberta\u2019s environmental irresponsibility. Meanwhile, many oil companies themselves are adopting net-zero carbon goals. California, Quebec and even General Motors have pledged to stop sales of new fossil-fuel combustion vehicles by 2035.<\/p>\n

Kenney has made some nods towards economic diversification, pledging in last summer\u2019s recovery plan to outline industrial strategies for a variety of sectors. That includes some new tech incentives after he\u2019d axed several of the NDP\u2019s a year earlier. The Trudeau government, which Kenney\u2019s team often maligns, has become a close ally on oil-well cleanup, along with hydrogen and geothermal energy initiatives. Kenney put much stock into accelerating his corporate tax cut, even suggesting it could lure a big eastern financial firm, though none has moved yet. Major banks say Alberta led the country in economic decline<\/span><\/a> last year, and predict its recovery<\/span><\/a> will only be middle-of-the-pack in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s hunger, meanwhile, for more serious soul-searching\u2014especially in Calgary, where nearly one-third of downtown office space sits vacant. Notley has launched consultations to set out a long-range vision for Alberta\u2019s future. \u201cSlowly over the last six or seven years, Albertans have been coming to terms with the fact that there\u2019s no simple, fast magical solution,\u201d says the former premier, who stayed on as NDP opposition leader. May, the former Prentice aide, has formed a non-partisan policy panel called the Next 30. Gray is among the oilmen now dabbling in tech venture capital, and he looks to Kitchener-Waterloo\u2019s tech renaissance as a model for his oil city. \u201cThey reinvented themselves, and that\u2019s what Calgary has to do,\u201d Gray says. \u201cCalgary\u2019s capable of moving with (the changing world), but we mustn\u2019t say let\u2019s just hang this that out, we\u2019re going back to the good old days. We\u2019re not going back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A tanker truck trailer in a field along the Keystone XL pipeline route near Oyen, Alberta on Jan. 27, 2021. U.S. President Joe Biden revoked\u00a0the permit for\u00a0TC Energy Corp.’s\u00a0Keystone\u00a0XL energy pipeline via executive order hours after his inauguration. (Jason Franson\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

***<\/p>\n

In the name of \u201ceconomic recovery and revitalization,\u201d Kenney\u2019s government announced in May it would scrap a 1976 policy that protected areas in the Rocky Mountains and their foothills from open-pit coal mining. Opposition began gradually, with academics and First Nations worried about watershed impact. Then, nearby ranchers on the southern Rockies\u2019 slopes got on board. By January, southern municipalities and country singer Corb Lund began fighting it. So did Brandt, whose heart-tugging anthem \u201cAlberta Bound\u201d Kenney had used during the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t put short-sighted economic benefit ahead of long-term consequences that could devastate our people and land for generations to come,\u201d Brandt said on Facebook<\/span><\/a>, next to a picture of him fly-fishing in an Alberta stream. Four days later, the Kenney government partially retreated, saying it would cancel 11 recently issued coal leases and pause future sales in the once-protected lands.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Snodgrass, the High River mayor, told a podcaster<\/span><\/a> Kenney was \u201cfull of sh\u2013\u201d and was elected on \u201cfalse promises.\u201d The premier, he said, has \u201c<\/b>had no success getting the energy industry going \u2026 and when you\u2019re desperate, when you\u2019re backed in a corner, you start making mistakes.\u201d High River lies in a riding where the UCP won 71 per cent of votes. Yet Snodgrass says the public feedback to his remarks was 100-to-1 positive. <\/i>And by early February, the government had waved the white flag, reinstating the coal policy. \u201cWe\u2019re not perfect, and Albertans sure let us know that,\u201d Energy Minister Sonya Savage told a news conference, pledging to consult on any future changes.<\/p>\n

Sure, Conservatives could point out that British Columbia has been actively expanding its mountainside pit mining. But Kenney\u2019s bid to open more of Alberta\u2019s slopes to resource exploitation reveals his misunderstanding about what Albertans cherish\u2014moreso, even, than economic growth. The same tin ear was apparent when the UCP sought to trim the parks budget by closing or ceding provincial control of 164 \u201cunderutilized\u201d park and wilderness sites.<\/p>\n

This proved a political third rail, as almost anyone who escapes from the province\u2019s cities on weekends might testify. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society made 1,000 \u201cDefend our Parks\u201d lawn signs for inner-city Calgarians, but demand across Alberta grew to about 20,000, one of the biggest sign campaigns in recent memory. \u201cYou don\u2019t mess with parks in Alberta, and this government just didn\u2019t get the memo on that,\u201d says Katie Morrison of CPAWS. Kenney\u2019s team ultimately did: in December, it backtracked and pledged not to delist any parks.<\/p>\n

In recent months, Kenney has lost many of his top aides\u2014including his chief of staff, pushed out after travelling to Britain in December\u2014and there\u2019s been ongoing concern he imported too many of those around him from Ottawa or from other provinces. \u201cToo many people working for you have moved here to work for a stereotypical Alberta that only exists in their heads,\u201d former Wildrose party leader Brian Jean wrote in an Edmonton Sun<\/i> op-ed addressed to the premier<\/span><\/a>. (As some novices and outsiders move on, Edmonton legislature offices have been quietly restocking with veteran aides of Alberta Tory yesteryear.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOn managing that pandemic, Kenney has also received poor grades\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenney\u2019s recent ping-ponging from controversy to controversy is partly due to his obstinacy amid the pandemic. As case-counts and deaths mounted, <\/b>no other Canadian jurisdiction so assertively raced along on other policy fronts like Alberta and its checklist-obsessed premier. That has led the UCP into a very public contract war with doctors in the middle of a public health emergency\u2014a potential preview of bitter pay disputes the government has hinted at with other public-sector groups vital to pandemic recovery, like nurses and teachers.<\/p>\n

Kenney had pledged tough decisions to rescue Alberta from a $7-billion yearly fiscal hole, before COVID and other crises pushed the deficit to triple that level. A collapse in oil royalties and tax revenue has deepened the government\u2019s conviction it has a spending problem; fixing the tax-income side of the ledger is a maybe-next-time problem. The approach does reflect the Albertan ethos that governments must live within their means. But <\/b>there\u2019s a powerful countervailing force: Albertans are used to the top-flight services that oil wealth used to provide, and damned if they\u2019ll surrender much of it.<\/p>\n

Kenney tried to explain away the end of cost-of-living increase to those on severe disability benefits, and a review of eligibility criteria. But even UCP MLAs stress under the steady outcry from recipients and their families\u2014a repeat of withering backlash past Conservative governments faced when trying to tighten up disability benefits\u2014though Kenney wasn\u2019t around for those episodes.<\/p>\n

And while some in the base may applaud spending restraint, a public wracked with unemployment and reduced incomes seems ill-disposed toward further austerity. \u201cHe was the right leader in the minds of many Albertans to carry us through the fiscal reckoning that he promised,\u201d Wesley says. \u201cBut we\u2019re not there anymore.\u00a0 We\u2019re in the midst of a pandemic instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

On managing that pandemic, Kenney has also received poor grades. Some of that may have to do with the cerebral leader\u2019s preference for explaining things rather than empathizing with an anxious public\u2014a tendency even supporters quietly acknowledge. Some may have to do with his insistence on plowing through the rest of his agenda, which in turn has licensed the NDP to keep up the bitter partisanship. Unlike oppositions in other provinces, the New Democrats have cut the governing party little slack in the name of pandemic unity.<\/p>\n

Then there was Kenney\u2019s handling of the fall second wave, as Alberta watched COVID cases and hospitalizations tick up at an almost unequalled pace, while the premier insisted that trusting \u201cpersonal responsibility\u201d was better than the \u201cindiscriminate damage\u201d of spread-limiting restrictions. Finally in December\u2014as the medical system reached a breaking point and field hospitals were in the works\u2014Kenney relented and shut all dine-in restaurant service, salons and gyms. In doing so, he made a great show of contrition to the business owners affected. To critics who pleaded for the same actions several weeks and hundreds of sickened Albertans earlier, he offered no regrets.<\/p>\n

\"Wayne<\/p>\n

Wayne Smith and his grandson Matthew Lo, 10, enjoy dining in at Hunter’s Country Kitchen, as Alberta begins Step 1 of a plan to ease restrictions, in Carstairs, Alta., Feb. 8, 2021. (Jeff McIntosh\/CP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In January, Kenney admitted internal public polling suggested <\/b>that about 40 per cent of Albertans had found the province\u2019s <\/b>health restrictions to be insufficiently strict. About the same proportion said they were well-balanced, while a mere one-fifth found them to be overkill. He revealed the numbers on the same day <\/b>in late January that he announced a phased reopening of restaurants and gyms, while three things were happening: COVID hospitalizations had steadily dropped, more infectious new variants were cropping up in Alberta, and several small-town restaurants were already reopening in defiance of provincial orders. At the same news conference, the premier scolded those business owners for \u201cthumbing their noses at the ICU nurses,\u201d while informing them they could legally resume table service in about a week.<\/p>\n

The province\u2019s options, on COVID and so much else, range from tough to brutal, Kenney says. \u201cOften we only have poor choices to make, but there is no easy way through this pandemic,\u201d he told reporters at a Feb. 3 briefing. \u201cThere is no easy way through a global recession and a massive collapse in energy prices. Frankly there is only a hard way through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a small segment of Alberta may agitate for looser restrictions, but that is Kenney\u2019s segment of Alberta. The heavily rural Conservative base. It much prefers his appeals to freedom, jobs and personal responsibility. \u201cThey\u2019re far more willing to have things open up than worry about the health consequences,\u201d says William Stevenson, a small-town accountant in Carstairs, and former UCP treasurer. In February, two backbench government MLAs defied Kenney by publicly joining an \u201cend the lockdown\u201d group. When Ontario Premier Doug Ford was faced with a member publicly criticizing restrictions, he promptly turfed them the MPP from caucus for undermining health advice. Kenney, normally a heavily controlling leader, said he\u2019ll tolerate a range of expressed views in his ranks.<\/p>\n

The restoration of personal-trainer sessions and 10 p.m. last calls at the bar seems unlikely to mollify these Albertans. Yes, they were the ones who chafed hardest against lockdowns and restrictions. But they were also the ones who felt most betrayed to learn a cabinet minister, five backbenchers and some government aides had jetted off on Christmas vacations. They were no more pleased with Kenney, when his initial response was to publicly praise safe travel and urge support of Calgary-based WestJet rather than sanction those who ignored stay-home advice (that came via Facebook<\/a> post three days later). He didn\u2019t appreciate the anger fellow Conservatives felt, some supporters say.<\/p>\n

These are also the voters who want him to move more quickly on Alberta-first, anti-Ottawa actions with which he has long tantalized his Trudeau-loathing base. His offerings include a referendum demanding equalization reform, and proposals to create Alberta\u2019s own police force and pension plan\u2014two pricey initiatives that find little favour except among ardent conservatives. But those conservatives truly lap them up. Expect him to find more red-meat morsels for his base this year, lest frustrated UCPers move to fledgling, quasi-separatist parties on the right, or reject him at a forthcoming leadership review. He can\u2019t show them success on jobs, the economy or pipelines, so he has to do something<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got to have at least the appearance of listening to what the public wants, rather than just doing what he thinks is best,\u201d Stevenson says. Such a disconnect, perceived or real, has proven the end of other premiers in Alberta\u2019s last decade of political churn. One of the most politically experienced figures in Canadian leadership, Kenney has yet to prove he can rise to the demands of multi-crisis leadership, and his offerings of pre-crisis policy have been out of sync with public expectations in a new reality.<\/p>\n

He does, however, have the benefit of time before Alberta\u2019s 2023 election\u2014time to figure out how to balance his rural base\u2019s demands with those of urban moderates, and <\/i>bring the economic revival he\u2019d promised, and <\/i>manage a structural fiscal crisis without alienating everyone who relies on public services and salaries, and <\/i>figure out a way forward for the energy economy, either through transition or steely resilience.<\/p>\n

When he set off on his complicated quest to swoop in and unite two warring conservative parties <\/b>and lead this united group to victory, political watchers\u2019 refrain was: if anybody can do it, Jason Kenney can. <\/i>With problems all around him, who\u2019s saying that now?
\n<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s been enough to tick off nearly everyone. The latest Leger survey<\/span><\/a> says that 72 per cent of Albertans are dissatisfied with their provincial <\/b>government\u2019s handling of the pandemic, far worse than any other province. Of the remainder, a dismal four per cent say they\u2019re \u201cvery satisfied.\u201d In other words, it\u2019s easier to find Albertans who think the Keystone XL cancellation was a good thing<\/span><\/a> than to find ones saying they love what Kenney\u2019s done on the COVID file.<\/p>\n