As you make your exit from anything, you’re entitled to tell your own story your own way. That however, imposes no obligation on anybody else to accept your version of events..It was like that Saturday, when Premier Jason Kenney chatted collegially with my old PMO friend and colleague Sean Speer, at the Canada Strong and Free conference in Red Deer..Kenney savoured old triumphs of his Ottawa days. And as he was often the smartest person in the room, there were some: There’s a solid case that Stephen Harper’s 2011 election victory rested on the work then-Immigration Minister Kenney did in ethnic communities. The premier also graciously conceded some errors of judgment, made in his salad days as a ‘young ideological firebrand,’ that he now admits to..But now, in the elder-statesman maturity bestowed by 18 years in federal politics and five more in Alberta’s bearpit, well, it was time for some tut-tutting upon how a “once-friendly conservative populism” had become “populism with a snarl.” And there were reasons but darn it, said the premier, “civility is also a conservative value.”.Alas, it was all such a shame. But what with social media, and the independent media’s “monetization of anger,” this was the new reality..“Covid hypercharged it, of course. Then came Trump-ism plus Covid, and what is winsome and appealing about conservatism as something that best understands human nature, becomes just a caricature of populism that would win at the polls.”.So really, the premier was just a victim?.Yet that is a card he cannot play. With all due respect to the premier’s many real accomplishments, if Albertans were angry, it was he who had made them so — or enough of them at least to cost him his job: In March this year, more than 15,000 party members signed up to attend a review of Kenney’s leadership of the party he created. The number would grow to 34,000..In more contented times, an event would be considered wildly successful if 1,500 showed up. And of course, for Kenney it delivered a disappointing 51.4% of ballots mailed in, for want of a large enough venue to receive all those signed up. This was anger, alright..It was also disappointment, a lethal combination for a politician..Kenney had promised to take on Ottawa over cancelled pipelines, banished tankers, the promised — and by then ongoing — destruction of oilsands investment, the ongoing rip-off that is equalization. Investment was plummeting, tens of thousands of men and women were out of work, but meanwhile back east, nobody blinked an eye as eastern Canada imported oil from some of the worst places in the world..And all that happened was a few angry letters were sent..The economic carnage continued..Nothing happened..Kenney had won on that promise. He had not delivered..Then came Covid..I still choose to believe that Kenney’s deepest instincts are libertarian. And he talked that way, expressing his extreme disappointment at the necessity of mask-mandates, social-distancing mandates, vax mandates that weren’t vax mandates, enforced by QR codes that weren’t vaccine passports. Nevertheless, disappointed or not, that’s what he did..And so, more people lost their jobs. More small businesses deemed non-essential were closed, some forever. Mental illness spiked, as did opioid use and other deaths of despair. Albertans got all of that and something else we never expected, the imprisonment of pastors who kept their churches open and a government-encouraged nasty, snitch culture: Anonymous tip lines through which neighbours could rat-out neighbours who appeared to have visitors. Some people paid fines of thousands of dollars..And how was it that instead of opening more critical-care beds in Alberta to cope with the pandemic, we ended up with less?.It is true that Doug Ford did worse in Ontario, likewise Francois Legault in Quebec. But that is to set the bar too low. Kenney had promised Albertans something better..In the end, they found him to be pretty much the same..And there is the rub. For all his strong western credentials, schooled in Saskatchewan, representing a Calgary riding and driving a blue Dodge pickup all over the province in his leadership bid, Kenney is a westerner that people in Ontario could accept..‘Oh, he knew how to talk to those western people, he knows his political craft but when you get him alone in an Ottawa salon, he’s really quite reasonable.’ And so in polite Ontario society, they still can’t figure out why so many Albertans were so fed up with him..Then, and this is hard to say, Jason told us what he really thought. A leaked recording has him telling staff that the leadership process was in jeopardy from people with “extreme, hateful, intolerant, bigoted and crazy views…” that “the lunatics were trying to take over the asylum.” The word “kooky” was also used..The full transcript is here..This sounds a bit too much like you know who: “Racists, misogynists and people with unacceptable opinions.”.And after that, it was only a matter of time..Kenney thinks Alberta has changed since his CTF glory-days 25 years ago. More urban, less rural. More multicultural..Well, that may be so..But he overpromised and under-delivered. And then he dissed a lot of people who asked, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ People were justifiably angry..It’s ironic really. That same current of anger that has washed Kenney through the rapids and snagged him in the sweepers, is the same current that has washed Kenney’s erstwhile colleague Pierre Poilievre all the way to the leadership of the Conservative Party..And urban, multicultural Alberta was his ground-zero..Hubris. It was all horribly sad.
