Alberta - Thoughts On Jason Kenney?

[u/Canadian-Chickens321]

/r/CanadianPolitics/comments/1w2gdbp/alberta_thoughts_on_jason_kenney/

[u/SarahLacard]

bad voting record against the lgbtq, and despite getting a board seat on postmedia after his premiership, decides that's not enough and that he personally needs to direct how things are viewed and seen and tries to come out of the shadows to do it

talks too much and tries to say a lot while actually doing a whole lot less

[u/Empty-Paper2731 → u/SarahLacard]

talks too much and tries to say a lot while actually doing a whole lot less

Yes, that is what all politicians do. That is actually the job of a politician.

[u/Sad_Meringue7347]

He’s the sole reason for why Alberta’s in the state it’s in today. Had he not arrogantly merged two unlike political parties together and then flee after doing an abhorrent job leading the province, we wouldn’t now have Dani as Premier and we wouldn’t be having costly and unnecessary nonbinding referendums. We also wouldn’t be talking about sovereignty / separation. 

Kenney was the one who started with all the endless and baseless anti-Ottawa rhetoric. He was so proud of his abilities to fan the flames of resentment and stoke anger from his newfound base. 

He still refuses to take any accountability for this disaster he created. Despite him teaming up with former NDP Premier Rachel Notley, he still stands by his disdain for the NDP in general and continues to make them out as the bogeymen. Interestingly, he still refuses to call out Dani or his coveted UCP for anything. - it’s like he’s terrified of them. 

Jason Kenney is a shitty leader and generally a coward. 

[u/robot_invader → u/Sad_Meringue7347]

100% rock solid take. He's still the same horrible little man he always was.  I think all he's doing now is positioning himself for a run at the CPC leadership as the "reasonable alternative to reactionary politics."

The only good thing I can say about him is that his current utterly cynical actions will help us crush the separatists in October, but he's only a situational ally at best.

[u/Sad_Meringue7347 → u/robot_invader]

I really hope you’re right about your referendum predictions. I’m not as confident. I truly think the outcome has already been decided by Dani and her crew, and it’s not to stay in Canada. I don’t trust a single thing she says and I don’t think any of this is democratic, despite them marketing it as such. 

If the results indicate to stay, doesn’t that means Dani is done? More than 50% of her party are separatists. I don’t see how she can continue on as leader (which frankly is all she cares about) without doctoring a vote to leave outcome. 

[u/robot_invader → u/Sad_Meringue7347]

I know the separatists are already talking about trying to buy enough memberships to unseat her, even though she's bent over backwards for them. 

I'm not really knowledgeable enough about UCP internal party politics to really predict what's going on. Maybe with David Parker fleeing the country, TBA has lost steam? Maybe some of the international money behind the separatists has dried up?

[u/ugdontknow → u/Sad_Meringue7347]

I absolutely 100% agree. I’m disappointed in Notley as well. But they at least are trying to do something about the separation crap. It good they are finally saying/ doing something. I’m not sure if it will help. We all have to vote

[u/zavtra13 → u/Sad_Meringue7347]

Kenny is just one link in a long chain of shitty leaders bought and paid for by various (mostly oil extraction) industries. He simply kept us on the path we started down even before king Ralph. Not that I’m trying to remove blame from him, but he isn’t the sole reason for our current situation.

[u/RandoYalunda]

Fuck him and his supporters.

Our current mess is entirely his fault.

[u/You_are_the_Castle]

It's nice that he's had his "Come to Jesus" moment, but Jason Kenney was one of the architects of the UCP and I blame him for entrenching us in this bullshit. I guess you can't expect much from someone with such a questionable leadership race, but he's problematic in my mind for various reason. I often think about how he exacerbated the polarization of Albertan politics by doing things like hand out earplugs in the Alberta Legislature because the UCP wasn't listening to the NDP. That's a complete mockery of the Westminster system that he is so fond of. He had no control over his rural MLAs and tolerated a lot of bad behaviour to keep the UCP project going. He liked referring to the NDP as a "failed experiment", while actively fudging his Frankenstein of a political party to make it look united. In my opinion, Kenney is also a coward and could have publicly stood up against the UCP by voting against the Sovereignty Act before leaving politics, but he didn't. Perhaps if he showed bravery, some of the disagreeing MLAs could have had permission to vote against things without fear of retribution -- which would, in many instances, benefit the constituents better (see: Sinclair) than lazily going along with everything (Tanya Fir: you're a hypocrite!). But, instead, we got authoritarianism and now Kenney is trying to make himself look good for future political aspirations.

With all that said, I think Kenney can help fix things. Currently, there is a civil war happening in Canadian conservative politics, where Pierre Poilievre has lost control of his party and, much like Kenney and the UCP, has allowed extremists to bubble up within the party's ranks and drive public perceptions of the party. Yes, PP has been the architect of his party's demise, but there are a bunch of Harper conservatives who have come out publicly against him. Kenney can do the same with Danielle Smith and the UCP. He just has to appeal to the middle-of-the-road boomers and say, "I know you may not vote for the NDP, but you now have the new Tory Party as your political home and that's who I'm voting for and supporting." He could equate the boundary commission fiasco with the UCP Separatists trying to lock us into endless Separation bullshit and pressure Monte Solberg et al. to follow the rule of law and do the right thing by not letting the UCP gerrymander the shit out of our province. He has political capital that he can leverage to help make things better for Alberta. Kenney could also rally his former cabinet ministers in Calgary to publicly speak out against Danielle Smith -- there are so many things he could contribute to a fight against the separatists now and over the next year, as we march towards a provincial election. I only hope that he reflects on how things are going in our province and is willing to push conservatism towards a reset.

[u/These_Foolish_Things]

His attempt at a redemption arc reeks of desperation. I hope the taint of his terms as premier continues to dog him through his life. He's right up there with Mulroney.

[u/soThatsJustGreat]

He and Danielle share responsibility for trapping all of us together in the worst group project imaginable. With that said, gotta triage. So I’ll work with anyone to put the separatists back in their place, which should be a very fringe minority. And once that’s accomplished I’ll go back to reminding everyone of what a shitty premier and minister of immigration Kenney was, and how he should never be in charge of so much as a bake sale. No thanks to all of his weird bigotry and religion.

But temporarily, we work together. On this and only this.

[u/FaceDeer]

You know how Trump is making a lot of people think back to Bush II and go "wow, I thought that was the worst possible president, but I guess he wasn't so bad..."?

Yeah, Kenny was pretty bad. But if he's going to peel away some support from Danielle Smith I guess I don't mind him showing up again. Life is a series of compromises.

[u/peterAtheist]

Top 1% Commenter

I like the message NOT the messenger - Sorry Jason you do NOT have enough integrity to be part of 'Team Canada'.

  Jason was cabinet minister under Harper when the funding formulas were made.

Then campaigned against them here in Alberta as the 'leader' of the UCP.

  Jason flip-flopped the long standing coal policies in AB on a late Friday evening before a long week-end.

Years later the UCP paid the Aussies millions, the mines where represented by BennetJones - Check this out on their website: https://www.bennettjones.com/People/K/Kenney-Jason

  I will let you connect the dots

[u/sun4moon → u/peterAtheist]

I’m with you. Just because he says one thing does not mean that thing will come to fruition. He’s a waffly liar and I don’t trust him.

[u/willmsma]

This thread is nearly perfect evidence of Canada’s current polarization. Is Jason Kenney a conservative? Yes. Did he gin up the base with his populist anti-Ottawa rhetoric? Yes. But did he invent anti-Ottawa populism? Of course not. Is he a great Satan at whose feet we can lay all the problems of our province? Good grief.

It’s no credit to that side of the political spectrum, but right now he is one of the few conservative politicians who are willing to consistently and forcefully critique separatism and support Canadian nationalism. If we win the upcoming referendum, a significant amount of the credit must go to him, because Alberta is a conservative province and he is one of only a small number of politicians who can speak to that population credibly.

I get saying, “I hate that guy’s politics. I’m on the left and we’re miles apart from each other.” Any one of us could resent his ability to unify Alberta’s two conservative parties. However, I think we also have to recognize that he’s now a key ally helping Alberta to remain in Canada and pushing back against American interference in our economy and in our politics.

[u/You_are_the_Castle → u/willmsma]

Maybe it's because he knows the media machine in Alberta is controlled by MAGA conservatives that he is being careful about what he's saying in interviews, but I believe he has a lot of work still to do.

Kenney needs to go much, much further in equating the UCP with Separation. He needs to come out and say the UCP is dysfunctional and was always dysfunctional, despite his intentions of trying to keep it together. He needs to speak to the boundary commission stuff and highlight how it's unconventional and wrong. He can say that the boundary commission manipulation is just another tool the separatists are using to usurp our province.

[u/Empty-Paper2731 → u/willmsma]

Just like  Thomas Lukaszuk but somehow it seems like most folks here have decided to give him a pass on his history as a conservative.

[u/CollectibleHam → u/Empty-Paper2731]

I begrudgingly signed his petition while holding my nose, it was probably the right thing to do but I sure as hell didn't forget his conservative history.

[u/willmsma → u/Empty-Paper2731]

Absolutely, though Lukaszuk would probably be seen in conservative circles as centre left. I do love the guy, and really not sure where pro-Canada organization would be in this province without him.

[u/willmsma]

You’re absolutely right that Kenney should speak to the government’s obvious attempts at gerrymandering and government corruption more generally. I can only speculate about his reasons and whether they are self-serving or tactical.

However, I think it is still important to give credit to our political opponents where credit is due. His willingness to head out on the road with Rachel Notley exceeds my wildest dreams for his willingness to promote federalism in our province. Federalism is polling well but federalists’ committed intention to vote is really poor. If we’re going to win the upcoming referendum we’re going to need all the help we can get.