Canada 360 | The Disunited Conservative Party of Alberta

Observers of the Alberta political scene have been treated to a whole melodrama in recent months. The main protagonist, Prime Minister Jason Kenney, who was predicted to have the brightest political future, no longer knows which way to turn to save his skin. His rival, Brian Jean, erased from the political map after his unsuccessful attempt to take the reins of the United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP), made a triumphant return. He has just won, on March 15, under the banner of the PCU, the Fort-McMurray–Lac La Biche by-election with the firm intention of overthrowing Kenney. This former leader of the Wildrose Party, who helped coalesce the forces of the right with Kenney in 2017, criticizes the Alberta premier for his bellicose attitude and for having failed to bring together the citizens of the province in times of crisis.

The drama unfolded in several acts. First, we have to go back to the leadership race of the new United Conservative Party in 2017, which was tinged with the scent of scandal. Investigations by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Commissioner of Elections have been launched to shed light on allegations that another candidate, Jeff Callaway, campaigned to attack Brian Jean’s reputation to help Kenney. Callaway withdrew from the race before the vote. He has since been fined for illegal campaign funding.

Then there is Kenney’s catastrophic handling of the pandemic. It alienated both those who wanted more sanitary measures and those who did not.

Although Alberta was one of the provinces that adopted the most flexible measures, the rumblings within the PCU were strong and the elements judging that the Prime Minister was going too far were mobilized.

The pandemic context alone cannot explain the prime minister’s troubles. The PCU never fulfilled its promises. This right-wing coalition, which was to impose itself on the political landscape to offer Albertans the same stability as the Progressive Conservatives of Peter Lougheed by becoming the natural choice of citizens at the polls, did not manage to achieve the hoped-for popularity.

And if we are so active behind the scenes, it is because we fear a victory for Rachel Notley’s New Democrats in the 2023 provincial election. A movement called Take back Alberta, led by the former organizer of the campaign in Kenney’s 2017 executive, David Parker, is pushing for the Prime Minister to be defeated in the vote of confidence.

Some would say that with friends like that, you don’t need enemies.

Brian Jean saw in this tense climate a golden opportunity to come back to haunt his former opponent. While he retired from politics in 2018, he never lost touch with his public, publishing his thoughts in newspapers or on social media. In particular, he called on the PCU to draw inspiration from the Saskatchewan Party of Scott Moe to reconnect with Albertan values.

Since Jean’s election, all eyes are now on the next act of melodrama: the April 9 vote of confidence in Red Deer, where record numbers are expected. Far from admitting defeat, Kenney has been preparing for weeks by trying to restore his image with his base. To get closer to his electorate, he even agreed to host a radio show on Saturday mornings.

The fracture of the right

Regardless of the outcome of the vote, these tensions reveal that the glue has never really taken hold between the Wildrose and the PCU. Founded in 2008, the Wildrose Party positioned itself to the right of the Progressive Conservative Party and wanted to shake its dominance on the provincial political spectrum (the Progressive Conservatives were in power from 1971 to 2015).

Exploiting to the full the theme of Western alienation, wanting Alberta not to enjoy its rightful place within the federation, he wanted to offer strong resistance to Ottawa. He also advocated the least interventionist state possible. It will bring together as many social conservatives, disappointed progressive-conservatives as libertarians. In the 2012 provincial election, polls predicted a Wildrose victory, but at the last moment voters feared the consequences of that choice and opted for the Progressive Conservatives.

The Alberta right does not seem to have found the recipe for a return to success.

In the event that Jean were to win his bet to take Kenney’s place to reform the party from within, nothing would still be won in the next election. For the same reasons Alberta voters were put off by Wildrose in 2012 remain: a strong attachment to a publicly funded health and education system. What the party wants is not necessarily what the electorate wants.

Federal Conservatives will surely take note of the outcome of the April 9 confidence vote and its aftermath, because pressing even further to the right is no guarantee of success in Canadian politics, even in a province considered a conservative stronghold. In the meantime, the big winners of this melodrama are certainly the progressive forces of Alberta, who attend this spectacle with their fingers crossed that the identity crisis of the PCU persists until the next election.