Give him an “A” for effort. If nothing else, Rick Peterson is making the most direct pitch we’ve heard so far from any of the federal Tory leadership candidates for Western support. The Vancouver-Edmonton businessman made a swing through Calgary’s Petroleum Club on Tuesday and he was swinging clubs that the other candidates thus far haven’t touched..Peterson is introduced at the podium by his Calgary organizer, Craig Chandler. Chandler is a social conservative who’s lately been spotted speaking at Wexit rallies, but stops short of coming out as a full sovereigntist. Some fancy Tories don’t like him around, but anyone in Calgary’s political circles knows that he comes with a formidable organizing capacity. The room was filled mostly with Conservatives of the old Wildrose tribe..Unlike in federal elections, Western support matters in the proportional representation model of the Conservative Party of Canada’s (CPC) leadership voting system..To date, most Western Conservatives haven’t seen a lot of reason to be inspired in a race dominated by two big candidates from the East: Peter Mackay and Erin O’Toole. Of those two, O’Toole has been most aggressive in courting support West of the Lakehead, landing the endorsement of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney last week; but other than proudly claiming support for the energy industry, there hasn’t been much in the way of substantive policy from the big candidates that should light a fire under anyone..Rick Peterson came in 12th out of 14 in the 2017 leadership race, but is banking on the Western and libertarian vacuum to give him a fighting chance this time..In a February Leadership Profile by the Western Standard, Peterson was explicit in his desire to take up the mantle of Maxime Bernier, now leading the upstart People’s Party through the wilderness..At his campaign stop in Calgary, Peterson put a little more meat on his Western and libertarian bonafides. Some of it was genuinely bold, some of it milquetoast Toryism, some of it contradictory..In the bold category is taxes. In his own words, Peterson said he would “viciously cut taxes”, and his specifics backed that up, and then some. He pledged to move Canada to a single, 15 per cent flat personal income tax rate..Peterson then spikes the ball with a promise of eliminating corporate income taxes. It’s a wildly ambitious policy that would put him to the right of the People’s Party on fiscal policy, straight on into Libertarian Party territory. It’s bold in the extreme for an otherwise mainstream politician, but candidates fighting from the outside have to be bold..Speaking of Bernier policies, Peterson picked up the mantle of the crusade against Ottawa’s Soviet-style supply management system. If Peterson’s campaign were to gain enough steam to challenge MacKay or O’Toole, he can count on the remobilization of the supply management lobby to keep the natural order of things. He promises to propose a detailed compensation and transition program at a later date..About half an hour after losing the Tory leadership by a hair in 2017, Bernier half-jokingly told his campaign team that if he ever ran again, “there would be no compensation.” In short, there is no transition which the dairy cartel will accept..In the meantime, Peterson’s pledge to scrap the cartel is a nice reminder that not all federal Tories are willing to blindly embrace a feudal economic model in the name of vote-pandering..Peterson’s stance on the West’s place in Canada was strong, but a bit contradictory..He repeats that he understands why many in Alberta and Saskatchewan have embraced the independence movement, and that their grievances are real. He even gives a shout-out to the Buffalo Declaration penned by Michelle Rempel-Garner and three other Conservative MPs willing to stick their necks out..But then Peterson goes on to say – in effect – that he won’t act on most its core recommendations..“Opening the constitution is priority number 29.”.Most of the Buffalo Delcaration’s core recommendations revolve around constitutional reform, like the Senate, House of Commons, and Equalization..Since the courts have shut down any Senate reform without reopening the constitution, Peterson promises to appoint better senators. It’s a promise made by every Liberal and Tory running for the prime minister’s job since Sir John A. MacDonald, less Stephen Harper in his earlier terms..While Equalization is in the constitution, changing the formula of its collection and redistribution can be achieved by legislative means with a simple majority in Parliament. Peterson’s “Equalization Reform” policy doesn’t actually touch on Equalization however. Four of his policy’s five points deal with the “Fiscal Stabilization Fund”, which would effectively turn Alberta into another recipient of federal largess in the short term. Only the fifth policy point on Equalization deals with Equalization, and it is to strike a Royal Commission to ask Canadians about what to do about it (Spoiler: the East says, “Nothing”)..Still, Peterson seems to understand that Westerners want to talk about it, even if most of the Tory leadership candidates don’t..Peterson’s riff on Western themes continues to his promise to scrap the federal carbon tax. Sort of. He tells the room of (mostly) ex-Wildrosers gathered at the Petroleum Club that “climate change is real”, and that the other candidates “can’t win Ontario without a carbon tax policy”. For Easterners he says, “it’s a loser” to not have a robust carbon tax and climate change plan..The regular interruptions of applause for his earlier statements were noticeably absent on this point..Peterson tries to bring it closer to home. He says that he will adopt the carbon tax model of Alberta’s UCP government, which saw the consumer carbon tax repealed, but leave in place the NDP’s industrial carbon tax under the renamed TIER (Technology Innovation and Emissions Regulation). This might be Alberta UCP government policy, but it’s not a policy that its rank-and-file members are especially enthusiastic about being reminded of..As is customary at federal political events in Alberta, Peterson showed off his (seemingly) fluent French. Judging from the blank faces in the crowd, it’s unlikely that anyone besides Peterson understood a word of what he was saying, but assuming that what he said was good, some politely clapped anyhow.. FILDEBRANDT: Rick Peterson moves to outflank rivals for Western votes at Calgary stop .Most columnists – including yours truly – assumed that Peter Mackay had the whole thing sown up and was measuring the drapes of the Opposition Leader’s Office. Kenney’s endorsement of Erin O’Toole last week was the surest sign yet that there is significant discomfort in Western Conservative ranks with that theory..Peterson still faces long odds for the top Tory job, but he seems to recognize that any path to victory for anyone not named Peter Mackay, runs straight through the unoccupied political space between Vancouver and Winnipeg right now..Derek Fildebrandt is Publisher & CEO of the Western Standard.dfildebrandt@westernstandardonline.com.,.Twitter: @dfildebrandt
