Alberta’s leadership fight: Who took the ‘United’ out of the UCP

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right now in Alberta, candidates are competing to be the next leader of the United Conservative Party party. There is no doubt at all that it is a Conservative Party. But if you listen to the people running to be leader and to the person who is actually still atop the party and atop the provincial government, you might come away wondering about the word United. All the Sovereignty Act does is assert our areas of jurisdiction. We want to be treated just like Quebec. I can tell you that those investors, the Alberto Sovereignty Act, would be like Kryptonite for them. They’re interested in political stability, not political chaos. Danielle Smith has plans to introduce a Sovereignty Act that, well, we’ll try to explain exactly what it would do and whether or not it would ever pass. Brian Jean has similar, if not as directly, constitution challenging plans to fight the federal government on all the stuff that Alberta doesn’t like about Trudeau and the Liberals, which is a lot of things. And then there is Jason Kenney, still Premier of Alberta, hoping that one of his more loyal cabinet members can somehow carry the day. So just where is the UCP headed? What does the Sovereignty Act do and would it pass? How does all this infighting and jockeying for position set the UCP up for the next election against Rachel Notley and the NDP? And what do Alberta voters actually care about and want from their next UCP leader? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story.

Jason Ribeiro is a political commentator and a doctoral researcher at the University of Calgary. Hello, Jason.

Jason Ribeiro Hello. Thanks for having me on.

Jordan You’re very welcome. I’m hoping we can maybe start with some level setting for those listeners outside of Alberta. Can you explain the UCP leadership race? I think the last time this show covered Alberta politics, Jason Kenny was stepping down. Now who is running to replace it?

Jason Ribeiro Yes, as you’ve noted, Jason Kenny stepped down as leader of the United Conservative Party here in Alberta in May after getting 51% of the vote from members. This was technically a number that would have allowed him to stay on, but practically would not have allowed him to govern effectively. And so very quickly, you saw seven candidates put their name forward and meet the minimum criteria to run in quick order. You have Lila here, who was the former Minister of Multiculturalism and Status of Women. She was kicked out of caucus for being critical of Jason Kenney and some members of his cabinet for dining out at the Sky Palace, which is a part of the Alberta legislature that has been very storied in Alberta politics for representing Elitism. It’s a private gathering area that former Premier Alison Redford had built. It’s kind of been avoided at all costs. Jason Kennedy has been working out of there. A photo emerged as all of us were sort of sheltering in place and adhering to guidelines that they were not. She critiqued them and was thrown out of caucus or thrown out of the ministry I should say, and is now running. The second is Todd Lowen, another person who has been kicked out of the UCP Caucus. He was the UCP Caucus chair for two years but once he began being critical about vaccines and the public health measures he was removed from caucus and sat as an independent. Rebecca Schultz is also running. She was the former Minister of Children’s Services in 2019, one of the primary negotiators with the federal government on the child care deal that was signed. But she’s quite young, quite green in politics. This is her first go around and quite new to Alberta. She’d only moved here a couple of years before she actually ended up running after living in Saskatchewan and working for Brad Wall as a staffer. We then have Rajan Sawhney, a recently elected candidate in 2019 from Calgary’s Northeast, former Minister of Community and Social Services and Minister of Transportation. You have Brian Gene who is a name that will be familiar to folks not just in Alberta but outside. Was one of the founders of the United Conservative Party as Wild Rose leader, was a Conservative Party MP for nearly a decade and actually ran on directly opposing Jason Kenney in a byelection in Fort McMurray, which he actually won and Jason Kenney signed his papers for. So some interesting dynamics there. The last two were Danielle Smith, a radio commentator as a story history and politics. She was elected as a CB Trustee gallery Board of Education, leader of the Wild Rose in 2012, was set to be premier and then some scandals really ended up doing her in there. She ended up crossing the floor to join the Progressive conservatives in 2014 and ended up losing her nomination. So this is a bit of a comeback for her comeback attempt. And then finally you have Travis Taves who is the most sort of private sector, if I can make that of a word, candidate who ran in 2019, became the Minister of Finance, been very close to Jason kenny, I would argue is one of the more traditional molds of a progressive conservative representing Grand Prairie and he is also running for the leadership race. So you see a bit of a group of misfits of folks who have grudges past histories and then some newcomers who are attempting to cement what their name may mean in Alberta politics in the future.

Jordan I want to get to the top contenders in a minute because that’s where this discussion is going to focus. But first, given what you’ve described about all those contenders, how united is the United Conservative Party right now?

Jason Ribeiro Yeah, it’s the running joke here, right? How united are they? I would say, and this is not just for the United Conservative Party, but I would argue for conservative parties across Canada. They’re most united when they have a common opponent, when they have a common enemy. And you would think that during the Pandemic and we saw this play out all over the world. Did we make the virus and protecting people’s public health, the battle that we wanted to fight? Or were we going to fight ourselves over things like public health measures, viewpoints on vaccinations, et cetera? And the UCP took the ladder they began infighting. There were some rural and urban divides and so I think there are some scars that need to be healed. But as we get closer to naming a new leader in October, as we get closer to there’s a scheduled general election in May of next year. But there could also be a snap as it becomes clear who is going to be facing Rachel. Note in the NDP, I wouldn’t underestimate how quickly Conservatives can coalesce and become united again because it doesn’t matter how united they are on the issues, they’re united in their opposition against Rachel, Natalie and the NDP and what they represent in terms of the state of this leadership race.

Jordan As you mentioned, we’re getting closer to picking a new leader. Who are the top candidates and what should we really be discussing? I have to say from again, from a viewpoint outside of the province and not into the details on this, it seems to an outsider like it’s basically a race between Brian Jean and Danielle Smith?

Jason Ribeiro Yes, I would say that for all of the media coverage that is filtered across the country, that could be true. But it’s also, I think, indicative of name recognition. Right. Daniel Smith is a former provincial leader. Brian Jean is a formal federal MP and provincial party leader as well. I would throw Travis Taves in there again, the Minister of Finance very close to Jason Kenny. But there’s two things I want to parse out. One is that all the polling that I’ve seen has been very spotty and I would invite folks to ignore the polling because they’re polling who they believe to be UCP supporters versus UCP members. Only recently have we gotten some indication of where members temperature is on the candidates. And you’re right. It’s Daniel Smith. It’s Brian Jean and Travis Taves. The other caveat I would mention is that both Smith and Travis tapes have recently released that they’ve raised a million dollars, which in over four to five months is quite impressive. Brian Jean has not announced what he’s raised, but the top line here is, yes, this kind of populist conservative rhetoric is filtering through the race and I think is raising eyebrows across the province and across the country, given the polarization around the proposals that they’re putting forward.

Jordan Well, let’s start going through the top contenders then and let’s begin with Danielle Smith. And mostly I say that because myself and a number of listeners who have emailed us over the past little while want to know more about her proposed Sovereignty Act. Can you just first maybe explain what is?

Jason Ribeiro There’s a lot of debate going around around what this actually is, but according to the overview that they’ve released and analysis that has been done, basically what this act would do is affirm the authority of the Alberta legislature to refuse provincial enforcement of specific federal laws or policies that they believe in. The legislature violate the jurisdictional rights of Albertans under the Constitution of Canada or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And basically what that amounts to is federal government institutes a law or policy. Basically Danielle Smith and her caucus members decide that this violates Alberta’s jurisdiction. And so what they’re going to do is then introduce a special motion where all MLAs would be entitled to a free vote and basically they would have an opportunity to vote on whether they would ignore federal law or federal policy. It gets quite wonky after that. There’s all sorts of walkbacks and drawbacks and reviews, et cetera. But this. For all of the lawyer friends that we have. I’m sure is raising a ton of eyebrows because they think on its face this is a dubious constitutionality and that the idea that the legislature could supplant the role of the courts and that this would lead to better outcomes for Alberta or for Canada or not lead to a constitutional crisis is pretty much laughable on its face. So let’s say she wins then, first of all, would the UCP really pass this thing? And second, with the federal government even recognize it? I mean, we recently did an episode on the new face of Quebec sovereignty. I don’t see how this is that much different. You’re right. Both provinces have a history of brushing up against the Constitution and how they’re recognized within the federation in terms of when the UCP would actually try to pass this, if they even attempted to. I think timing matters, right? So say Danielle Smith wins on October 6. Is she going to, as premier, try and implement this right away? Does she have the nominees that she will need or the makeup of the legislature to even think that this would pass? And then if that attempt goes through or not and fails, are you then going to run a general election on that? There’s also the opportunity to say, look, we want to build support for this. We want to take this to Albertans at a later date. Let’s get our legs under us. And maybe after a general election, be it a snap or be it the mandated date in May, maybe that’s after the fact when they bring in the Sovereignty Act. But I would say as much as there has been outspoken critique of this Alberta Sovereignty Act, again, I go back to the point about conservatives coalescing when the enemy is common. I absolutely think there are more traditional progressive conservatives who have respect for the courts, who have respect for tradition, who have respect for being a part of this federation, who would soften to supporting Daniel Smith’s Sovereignty Act once it becomes apparent that it’s her party, that she’s the premier, and that they have an upcoming general election against the NDP.

Jordan So here’s where Jason Kenny comes in. Here’s where again, the joke we both made about the United Conservative Party comes in. Jason Kenney has been pretty vocal, as I understand it, about Danielle Smith’s plans here. What has he said and how usual or unusual is it for the outgoing party leader to intervene this much in a leadership race for his successor?

Jason Ribeiro Well, Jason Kenny likes to think of himself as quite special in some ways. And so I think that he said a lot of things he’s talked about, I think in keeping with his role, talking about how this would chase investment away. Something that he’s directly said he ran on was to bring investment to Alberta. He has been relentless in his pace on that file and so to have that success or that progress threatened, we can debate about how he’s gone about it, but to have that progress threatened, I think has sort of caused him to speak up. He’s even then veered into the incendiary, talking about how this would lead to a banana republic, talking about the competency of those who have put this together and how this is kind of cloak and dagger way of thinking about separation and trying to distance himself from these voices because at the end of the day, he is a traditionalist. And so how unusual is it for a former leader to get involved in the race? But again, Jason Kenny is pretty special. After he lost his leadership racer, lost the amount that he would think to stay on, he stayed on as premier. That’s very different where in Alberta, where we toss out leaders fairly regularly, they usually go off into the distance and a caretaker is usually brought in. Jason Kenny is still the premier and so I think it’s almost forced him to be in a position where he’s trying to be the premier, talking about XYZ issue and of course he’s going to get a question from a reporter around, what do you think about the Sovereignty Act? And he can’t help himself but talk about it. And so this is definitely unusual, it’s definitely uncharted territory. We’ve only had former Premiers Endorse leadership candidates in the past that go back to premier, former Premier Peter Lougheed endorsing Alison Redford, but he had been long gone from office. But as unusual as this is, these are unusual times and so I think he feels compelled to speak, but he’s also put himself in a position where he has to speak. Last question about the Sovereignty Act.

Jordan Before we move on to more tangible issues directly affecting Albertans. How do Gene and Tay’s feel about the act? Would they support it what would they do instead?

Jason Ribeiro Yeah, so they haven’t been very compelling. I believe in their critiques because when it concerns Brian Jean, he’s forwarding something that’s just as outside of the mainstream called the Autonomy for Albertans Act. And it’s this bizarre hodgepodge of requests to open up the Constitution, not reject the Constitution through the Alberta legislature, but open up constitutional negotiations and then things like demanding seats. That Alberta has a special seat at the G Seven. I don’t even know how that would work. Would Trudeau and Brian Gene walk into the G Seven meetings in Europe that Alberta gets a seat in the World Bank on OPEC, etc. But and then he’s also veered into full conspiracy theories where he said, our health services and our municipalities are banned from engaging in any sort of consultation with the World Economic Forum. So he’s lost credibility on talking about how crazy the Sovereignty Act is by then putting forward something that I think is just as laughable. Travis Taves hasn’t found his footing as the sort of more moderate, traditional Kenny like voice. He’s been sort of focused on talking about the investment side, but I don’t think he has the sort of gumption to really talk about the constitutionality and why this would reorient Alberta’s place within the federation in a real way that would be wholly damaging. And so both of them are on the opposite sides of the spectrum where you have this very soft critique from Travis Dave and Brian Jean, who’s critiquing but also talking about something that’s just as outlandish.

Jordan I’m glad that we know where they all stand on it. Do we know what issues actually matter to Albertans most in the selection? And can it possibly be that province versus federal government is top of the list?

Jason Ribeiro I’m going to guess not. It’s interesting, I think when you come to Alberta, especially because Alberta is a collection of immigrants, we take in huge amounts of interprovincial migration and then migration from beyond Canada. And so you immediately get confronted with the history of the province and the challenges between how we are responsible for our resources and jurisdictional issues and the booms and busts. And so I do think that there is a layer of the federal provincial tension that is always sort of present in conversations about Alberta. But I think at the end of the day, they don’t trickle down often enough to the tangible things that Albertans care about. If you think about 2019, the last provincial election the UCP ran on a tagline of economy jobs and pipelines. And despite the phrasing, those were pretty much the three top issues at the time. How do we build out of a recession that had taken our legs out from under us in 2014? How are we going to prepare for a workforce not so reliant on the energy sector, but also expanding investment opportunities that would bring jobs? And then how do you bring in pipelines what has changed since then? I think some of those things are true. I think we’ve given up the idea that we can get snap our fingers and get pipelines built overnight. But certainly the economy and how we deal with inflation and cost of living, certainly jobs, because the oil patch is not going to produce the amount of direct jobs in the coming years and clean energy jobs are going to grow. How we manage that transition in an orderly fashion matters. But then things like health care, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic and a whole host of other issues like Opioid poisonings, rising age of the average Alberta, social protections for vulnerable folks and the environment are all within that top five, six issues, certainly similar to 2019. But I think the emphasis after Covad 19 is going to be more skewed towards healthcare, social protections and cost of living.

Jordan So among the top candidates, I’d love to know we don’t have time for you to break down all their proposals in detail here. But unless I’m wrong, rising oil prices mean that Alberta is once again kind of flush with cash. And how do the candidates propose to invest that money either to combat the cost of living, to reinvest in healthcare, or anything else?

Jason Ribeiro Well, there’s a famous sticker or decal that people place on cars and trucks in Alberta and it’s like, please God, give me another oil boom and I pray I won’t piss it away this time. And I think that all of the candidates recognize that this is an anomaly. You can’t bank on a global health pandemic that shuts most of the economy and supply chain down and then see an invasion of Ukraine by one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers. You can’t just prepare for that. And so the surplus is absolutely quite large. Very small amounts are attributed to fiscal discipline. The rest is really just royalties. And so candidates are not proposing to do anything, quite outlandish with it. There were some talks about cutting small checks that Rajan had forwarded in the campaign, but she hasn’t talked about it since. So maybe it was more political theater than firm policy. But all of them are kind of in lockstep around some very common sense, practical things which are, hey, we should invest in our Heritage Savings Trust fund which has been depleted over a number of years, which will save for the future and allow us to spend on other things that we may need and grow it to be almost like a sovereign wealth fund. Let’s pay down some debt and our debt servicing costs and then let’s make some changes to the tax code. So nothing really controversial, no outlandish spending proposals. And I think it’s also the weight of inflation is also taming their aspirations right now. Now in a general election next year, if inflation is tamped down and the coffee is full, could we see them trying to spend that money? Sure. But for right now it’s in keeping with, I think, the economics on the fact that you don’t want to fuel anything really inflationary at this moment as we speak. And you mentioned earlier that the fractures in the UCP might sort of magically heal as we get closer to a face off with Rachel Notley and the NDP. Where does the party stand in the polls against the NDP in a potential election right now? I know when we did some reporting during the Pandemic, or at least during when the Pandemic was really active, the NDP had a solid edge. Is that still true? Is it being eaten away? It is being eaten away and I think it was less about that lead that you’re referring to. That edge was less about what the NDP was doing at the time, but what the UCP was doing wrong. Think about that period of time and I’m sure the listeners across the country Alberta was making the news for all the wrong reasons.

Jordan Best summer ever, I believe. Exactly, that was the joke at the time. Yeah, correct. They had hats made. So that’s what I attribute that sort of bump for the NDP was just that the lack of confidence around the thoughtful sort of middle of the road pandemic plan, the rhetoric that was being used at the time, the fact that the premier sort of owned all of the communications on COVID. As his popularity plummeted, so did the UCP. What has changed since then? As Alberta has been one of the first jurisdictions to open up, one of the first to put covid in the rear view and we’re going to see how appropriate that strategy has come. The fall respiratory season coming up, the UCP has gotten a bump, they’ve moved on and I think they’ve done the things to position themselves well by giving the promise of a new leader and that has hurt the NDP. In all the polling that I’ve seen, the UCP is tracking ahead. So what does that mean for an election? This is going to be won or lost in Calgary and so who makes a more credible case on the economy, on health care, on the environment? Because Calgary is a lot more progressive than I think folks think. These writings are going to be battlegrounds and there’s going to be a lot of seats that need to flip to the NDP. The NDP already has Edmonton, they’re not going to make a play in many of the rural ridings. So really it will come down to Calgary and ultimately where I think that they’ve made a mistake in 2019, where I think the NDP made a mistake during the pandemic was to go very aggressively in their critique of Jason Kenney, go very diligent in their critique of the UCP and the critique almost just dwarfed them talking to everyday Albertans about their concerns. And so if the NDP lets this UCP leadership race play out as it must prepare if there’s a snap election. But focus on the issues that I think they could be seen as more competent on or more trustworthy on. They’ll have a better shot of flipping that narrow advantage that the UCP is currently enjoying. So the general is not until May of 23 unless there’s a snap election before then. When is the UCP leadership decision exactly and what will you be watching for until that happens? So the UCP leadership results will be announced on October 6. Ballots have already been sent out. Over 50% of the ballots have already been received. And so I don’t expect to see a lot from now until October 6. And if we do, shame on the campaigns for not releasing it earlier when it would actually have affected votes, right? So right now I expect a very quiet couple of weeks. People will be making the rounds, candidates will be making the rounds trying to shore up those votes for those last minute voters. But in leadership races like this, especially ones that are happening within parties, I think people know who they’re going to vote for. It’s the more disengaged voter that waits till the last 24 hours in a general election and finds out there’s an election and asks their neighbour or their partner, who are you going to vote for? Okay, I’ll vote for that person. That’s not what this is. This is a party faithful who have been mailed ballots, who have invested a great deal of energy into the party that are going to be making the case. I don’t think that they’ve been successful expanding the party other than through campaigns themselves selling memberships to their supporters, so they will be voting for those candidates. So there’s not a lot of swing voters to sway at these last hours. I think we’re just going to be having to wait until October 6 to see who the next premier is going to be. Jason, thank you for this. I feel a lot more educated about Alberta politics than I was going in anytime.

Jason Ribeiro Thank you for having me.

Jordan Jason Ribeiro of the University of Calgary. That was the bigstory for more head to thebigstorypodcast CA. You know this all by now. I’m going to say it anyway. You can follow us on Twitter at thebigstory FPN. You can email us anything you want to say by emailing. Hello at thebictorypodcast CA. You can call us and leave a voicemail. Bonus points if you’re about to hear the phone number in your head. 416-935-5935, by the way. There are changes to this outro on the way. We heard what you had to say in the listener survey. We’re thinking about what to do about that. You can also find this podcast wherever you get your podcast. I will never stop stop saying that. I will also never stop asking for ratings or reviews. That’s the stuff that makes this show climb the charts. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow..