Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver.
Canada’s two most prominent conservative premiers share little in common but their political stripe.
Ontario’s Doug Ford came to office burnishing a grassroots persona and a sneer at elites “drinking champagne with their pinkies in the air.”
Alberta’s Jason Kenney entered his province’s politics with unction, departing from his natural habitat of Ottawa to unite the fractured right-of-centre vote in his home province and thereby return Alberta to the conservative brand that has dominated its history. In comparison to Mr. Ford’s folksy approach, Mr. Kenney wore true-blue conservative ideology on his sleeve.
But it’s Mr. Ford who has a second term near to his grasp in the provincial election Thursday. Mr. Kenney is considering career options after a humiliating leadership review last week prompted him to announce that he would resign.
Calgary reporter and columnist Kelly Cryderman has had a rare catbird seat on both leaders. She spent weeks researching and following Mr. Ford for the political profile that was published yesterday. She is also a long-time Alberta politics watcher. In her column today, she reflects on how the paths for these two leaders diverged in unexpected ways. Mr. Kenney, she concludes, never learned the lessons Mr. Ford was able to.
As Kelly writes, Mr. Ford elicits strong reactions, both positive and negative, but has his fans. Despite gaffes and missteps during the pandemic – the big ones, like closing playgrounds, he apologized for – Mr. Ford finds himself as the election approaches with the apparent approval of a significant number of nonconservatives who have concluded that they dislike him less than the other party leaders.
Mr. Kenney is capable of being impressively confident while making the case of Alberta oil exports and its methane regulations at a U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural resources, Kelly writes. But while Mr. Ford was able to build a big tent with the help of long-time political allies, Mr. Kenney didn’t have a close inner circle and struggled to figure out where to hammer in pegs to build a similar tent.
Still, the comparisons, though tantalizing, can be a bit too superficial, Kelly warns. Governing in Ontario and Alberta is not comparing apples to apples.
“Mr. Ford might not have fully understood the PC Party he became leader of in 2018 – which had been shaped in large part by his predecessor Patrick Brown – but compared to the nascent UCP, it was far more cohesive. Mr. Kenney also faces a much stronger political adversary in popular Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley, who has already served as premier, than Mr. Ford faces in the Liberals or the NDP in his province,” Kelly writes.
It’s unclear who will be able to succeed for the UCP where Mr. Kenney failed. Carrie Tait reports today that Doug Schweitzer, the UCP’s most high-profile moderate member, doesn’t want Mr. Kenney’s job. His surprise decision to stay on the sidelines in the forthcoming leadership race weakens the UCP’s assertion that conservatives of all kinds can find allies within the organization.
Rajan Sawhney, the Minister of Transportation, last week confirmed she is considering putting her name forward. Rebecca Schulz, the Minister of Children’s Services, in an interview Friday also said she is considering a run for leader. Both women are from Calgary and stayed out of the public spotlight when UCP MLAs fought over how best to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
So far, only two people have confirmed they intend to enter the race, and both are former Wildrose leaders: Brian Jean and Danielle Smith.
“The big tent is obviously not sustainable,” said Thomas Lukaszuk, who was a cabinet minister under the Progressive Conservative banner before Mr. Kenney led the campaign to create the UCP in 2017 by merging the PCs with the Wildrose Party.
“If Jason Kenney couldn’t keep it together – the guy who sort of orchestrated all this – who is going to keep it together?”
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.