Women of ABpoli Hot Flashes: Spring has sprung
This Week in AB
Less than three weeks until Kenney's leadership review
Whether Kenney wins or loses the leadership review, or a caucus review, he still has to formally step down as premier to trigger a leadership race.
After Brian Jean won the Fort McMurray by-election with his "remove Kenney" platform, a lot of speculation bypassed this important step.
Jean, however, hasn't come out and said, specifically, that he would run to replace Kenney if the opportunity arose - but Danielle Smith has.
Both at the UCP's AGM in Calgary last November, and in her weekly newsletter - where she also mentioned that she'd rather have Florida Governor Ron deSantis advising the Alberta government on COVID policy than Rachel Notley - Smith was very clear: "If the job comes open, yes, I’ll run."
CBC's Elise von Scheel noted on a recent episode of The Writ that Kenney is attempting to position himself as "the moderate" leader of the UCP ahead of the leadership review.
Kenney has said that if his government is "disrupted", there is a danger that "voices of extreme views" could "end up destabilizing the mainstream politics of this province".
Which is a weird thing to say if it's "mainstream politics" that's actually holding the frankenparty in one piece.
Honestly, though, Jason Kenney using scare tactics about the extremist element of the party he stitched together in his desperation to return Alberta to a safe landing spot for disgruntled federal conservatives and their staffers, is pretty much as close to an admission of failure as we're likely ever going to get from that man.
Useful idiot.
Leadership review rules change; opens voting to all members with mail-in ballots
The United Conservative Party will be sending refunds (unless the members want to let the party keep it) to the 15,000 people who paid to vote in the Party's upcoming leadership review.
The Party had chosen to have the review in a one-day event at the Cambridge Hotel (formerly the Capri Centre) where they also held the inaugural Annual General Meeting in 2018. Capacity for that event was around 2,000 people.
While the Party claims the move is in response to members asking to reduce/remove both fees and travel requirements, it's doubtful they'd give back the money if they didn't have to.
For one thing, they expected a few thousand of Kenney's biggest fans.
Second, they couldn't manage 15,000 voters in one day. On March 19, the early bird deadline, they had 14,000 people registered to vote which would have required them to accommodate 38 votes per minute. That would have meant at least 76 polling booths and some stellar organization.
As some have pointed out, the UCP is one of those parties that has a constituency association (CA) in every one of Alberta's 87 ridings. They could have set up polling there.
Kenney loyalists on the Board might not trust 33 or more CAs who demanded the vote remain in-person in Red Deer, however.
On March 4, the Party said it had almost 2,900 registrants which ballooned to 15,000 after March 19, the deadline to buy memberships.
Brian Jean said there are concerns about the number of new memberships, with a large number of "bulk" additions in the last few days before the membership deadline.
Not to lend credit to, or discredit, Jean's concerns, but one reason large numbers of additions arrive in the final days is because that's when organizers submit their information to the Party.
Prior to data entry, each team is able to hold onto their numbers, waiting until the final days so as not to give the other side any indication of how successful (or unsuccessful) their membership sales are going.
This well-used practice makes it hellish for the people who have to enter it into the Party's database, but it's a fairly standard strategy in hotly contested battles like a leadership review (or race).
Jean also accused the Kenney camp of "unethical" sales that are specifically against Alberta election law.
When the UCP introduced Bill 81, the Election Statutes Amendment Act, back in December of 2021, there was some confusion over the law regarding membership sales.
Elections Alberta released a bulletin on November 19, 2021 stating:
"An interpretation of section 25 that would enable an individual to pay for an annual membership on behalf of others would be inconsistent with section 34.
An interpretation of section 25 that would enable third parties, other than individuals who are eligible to make contributions, to purchase memberships would be inconsistent with section 16."
Then-Justice Minister Kaycee "the law is whatever I want it to be" Madu disagreed.
The UCP said at the time that the interpretation disagreement wasn't an issue because its own bylaws and constitution stated that members were only allowed to buy memberships for themselves.
Okay, but it's also the Party that decides which rules it wants to enforce.
When you're consequence-free since 2017...
“It’s 2022. https://t.co/RYkdgQWXO0”
Speaking of which
If you weren't glued to the agonizingly slow release of this story for two years, CBC's Carolyn Dunn has put it all together in a nice little package and wrapped it with a big red bow.
That Jeff Callaway played the role of kamikaze candidate in the UCP leadership race has been well-covered.
One of the pieces that is solidified in the testimony is who was in the room during the kamikaze campaign money talks.
Those include Jason Kenney (who has denied it), John Weissenberger, who was Harper's former campaign manager, and Chair of Kenney's Unite Alberta campaign, and Shuvaloy Majumder, who was, at the time, working for Harper and Associates.
While anything to do with Jason Kenney always makes it feel like Harper's fingers were already somewhere close by, the presence of Weissenberger and Majumder pretty much assuage any doubt.
It was with Harper's help in the beginning that Kenney managed to lure four bus loads of youth to Red Deer in 2016 and stack the PC Youth board with a Kenney-friendly slate that allowed them to begin their hostile takeover of the PC board.
"Let’s not forget this...The buses were full of youth delegates backing Jason Kenney, the party leadership candidate who wants to dissolve the PCs into a united conservative force."
Sure, maybe Harper and Kenney are such good buddies that the former PM just wanted to lend a hand out of the goodness of his heart.
Or maybe Kenney promised to cost Alberta millions by implementing a bunch of stupid shit that Harper has been whinging about for years.
Also this week, one of Kenney's staffers decided to record a meeting where Kenney said the stakes of this leadership were much higher than usual.
Apparently the "lunatics" Kenney cozied up with to help him win are "trying to take over the asylum".
Did I already say "useful idiot"?
Members of six UCP constituency associations showed up at the Legislature Thursday to protest changes to the leadership review that will give Kenney an extra 39 days as Premier.
Red Deer South MLA Jason Stephan was there asking for Kenney's resignation, along with Deputy Speaker Angela Pitt, MLAs Dave Hanson, Peter Guthrie, and UCP-turned-independent MLAs Todd Loewen and Drew Barnes.
Former NDP MLA-turned Independent Thomas Dang has news
Dang says he used publicly available information (Jason Kenney's name and birthdate) in September to see if the AHS vaccine portal was actually secure.
It wasn't, and he reported it to AHS.
A number of people I know are saying it was a stupid thing to do, even if you're just trying to prove a point. Anyhoo.
In December, the police conducted a search of Dang's home.
Notley gave a press conference the same day saying they believed it was in relation to Dang's COVID-19 records search and that he would sit as an independent while under investigation.
The UCP is demanding Notley "come clean".
Otherwise, they're a fairly quiet bunch this week.
UCP legislation holds up to scrutiny
Ooh ooh! I know this one!! Kenney's war room!
An adjudicator has laid out her ruling on access to war room information: the UCP doesn't have to have to answer questions about how the war room spends millions of Alberta's dollars.
It came as little surprise because the UCP set its pet project up with the intent that there would be no oversight from anyone other than its three directors: UCP MLAs Sonya Savage, Doug Schweitzer, and Jason freaking Nixon.
Just leave the war room out on the curb with Kenney when you're done with him, please and thanks.
Canada
No, there isn't a "Liberal-NDP coalition" government, but they have agreed (gasp!) to work together
“LIVE: The Liberal-NDP coalition will be a disaster for the Canadian economy
Monday night, the federal Liberals and NDP had a chat. Ostensibly, the Liberals wanted to know what it would take to get support (confidence) from the NDP to complete a four-year election cycle.
The NDP decided amongst themselves that there were things a Liberal government could do to maintain their support during votes of confidence.
The Liberals and NDP made a Supply and Confidence Agreement (much like the one the B.C. NDP struck with the Greens in 2017) which includes progress on items under healthcare, housing, dental and pharmacare, climate, worker benefits, and reconciliation.
To be fair, most of these issues were part of the Liberal campaign platform in 2019.
The two parties have agreed to work together to provide "stability" through to June 2025; aka: the end of a scheduled election cycle.
“Calling this a power grab by the actual sitting Prime Minister is one tactic”
A coalition government is different.
While it also involves an "agreement", what makes it a "coalition" is that members from both parties would be appointed to Cabinet.
That is not happening.
Calling the agreement a "coalition" makes as much sense as calling it "golf foxtrot yankee" - it's remarkably disingenuous and would get people excited for no good reason.
Unless, of course, that reason is misleading people to think you're somehow going to act differently as a government - then, golf foxtrot yankee, with my blessing.
More dudes join CPC leadership race
“The clown car is getting crowded 🤣”
Roman Baber has been accepted as a candidate.
Baber was kicked out of Doug Ford's caucus in 2021 for publicly asking Ford to break away from health and science experts on COVID - or basically follow the Alberta model of "decide for yourself if public health affects you".
Baber joins Lewis and Poilievre in standing against government "overreach" on matters of government responsibility and public interest.
CPC MP Marc Dalton also joins the race.
Dalton, a former B.C. Liberal MLA, can help shoulder some of Charest's burden of hailing from a province where Conservatives can only get elected under Liberal banners.
In his launch, Dalton said he wants to launch an inquiry into the "coercive measures" used by the government to get people vaccinated. Le sigh.
Wastewater testing shows COVID levels are rising again
“this seems bad? https://t.co/uR9kSaHFDU”
Ontario is seeing COVID levels in wastewater 12 times higher than in December with B.A.2 (and Alberta's numbers are ticking up, too) and England's hospitalization rates are almost as high as they were with Omicron the first.
Now, about that booster...
In convoy-related news...
The bi-partisan committee looking into whether the federal government should have implemented the Emergencies Act has a bare two weeks left before their report is due but some information is starting to drop.
For example, the Ottawa Police declared the convoy a national security threat one week before the Emergencies Act came into effect, which might help with the committee's eventual findings.
Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are facing additional charges including "mischief, counselling mischief, obstructing police, counselling to obstruct police, counselling intimidation, and intimidation by blocking and obstructing one or more highways".
Lich has also filed an appeal of bail conditions that restrict her freedom of expression (on social media), freedom to associate (with her fellow organizers - see above), and freedom of assembly (I kid you not).
Insert "Tamara reaping v. Tamara sowing" meme here.
Also, a right wing nutbag from the EU "slammed" Trudeau for not allowing the freeloaders to live in their Ottawa shanty town indefinitely.
Shrug.
It must have been important to someone that we hear from right-wing Eurotrash - if only we could figure out who...