MACLEOD: Kenney and Notley welcome their political love child — it’s the best advertisement for independence yet

There are moments in politics when satire becomes completely unnecessary because the politicians have kindly done all the work themselves. For Alberta, this is one of those occasions.Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney. Former mortal enemies, former Alberta premiers, and, between them, owners of an impressive collection of Alberta political wreckage, have joined forces to save us from ourselves and those pesky independence supporters. So cute! Are they not just an adorable couple? Kenney and Notley will co-chair a campaign against Alberta independence. The two promise to stand “shoulder to shoulder” defending Canada’s Confederation as Albertans head toward the October 19 referendum. Naturally, the internet responded appropriately. The jokes just about write themselves. One particularly fine piece of AI-generated political art announced the birth of their son, “Douglas Ford Kenney,” weighing 22 pounds, seven ounces..Still, the union makes a certain poetic sense. Jason Kenney arrived in Alberta politics as the conquering conservative hero from Ottawa. After a long federal career as an MP and senior cabinet minister under Stephen Harper, he came west promising to unite Alberta’s fractured conservative movement and liberate the province from Rachel Notley.Remember the big blue pickup truck? There was the denim. Buckles. There were big cowboy boots. There was enough carefully packaged Alberta imagery to make you wonder whether somebody in Ottawa had ordered the complete Ralph Klein starter kit. And it worked! Kenney united the PCs and Wildrose into the UCP, defeated Notley in 2019 with 54.9% of the vote and 63 seats, and he became premier. .Then came the governing part.The man who had ridden into Alberta promising to fight Ottawa eventually discovered an apparently limitless supply of reasons NOT to fight Ottawa quite as vigorously as many of the conservatives who elected him expected. His relationship with the UCP grassroots deteriorated so badly that in 2022 he received just 51.4% support in his leadership review, and he resigned. So, yes, Kenney is technically an Alberta conservative. In roughly the same way an Ottawa consultant in Stampede cowboy boots is technically a rancher. In the same sense that a guy who once bought a pair of Wranglers at the airport gift shop is technically a cowboy. In the same way a recalled product is technically still part of the brand.And the Laurentian establishment label now fits remarkably well. It is less about where Kenney sleeps than the institutional reflex he increasingly displays: Ottawa experience, national institutions, respectable business circles, and the conviction that Alberta grievances are legitimate right up until Albertans contemplate doing something serious about them.Then there is Rachel Notley.Notley became premier in 2015 after Alberta’s conservative movement performed the political equivalent of sawing itself in half and wondering why it could no longer stand up..The NDP won 40.6% of the vote. The PCs took 27.8%, and Wildrose another 24.2%. Combined, the two conservative parties received considerably more votes than the NDP while fighting each other. Notley deserves credit for exploiting the opportunity brilliantly. Albertans rewarded her with one term. During it, her government launched its Climate Leadership Plan, accelerated the transition away from coal-fired electricity, and set Alberta on a path to eliminate coal emissions by 2030. Alberta later became a net importer of electricity in 2019, including power flowing north from Montana. There was something wonderfully Canadian about that arrangement: Alberta could demonstrate its environmental virtue by shutting down coal generation faster at home while occasionally importing electricity across an international border. Apparently, electricity becomes much greener as it crosses the border.Then Kenney defeated Notley and promised to undo the damage. Now they are co-chairing a campaign together. You really could not cast this better.Imagine trying to frighten Alberta conservatives away from independence and deciding the ideal spokesman is the premier their own party has effectively shown the door to.Then imagine trying to reassure Alberta's energy economy and deciding his indispensable partner should be the NDP premier whose signature climate policy was accelerating coal's disappearance from Alberta's electrical grid..This is the political dream team assembled to stop the independence hordes.Kenney and Notley say they disagree about plenty but agree Alberta should remain in Canada. They are entitled to make that case.But their partnership unintentionally illustrates precisely why so many Albertans are questioning Alberta’s existing arrangement with Canada. For decades we were told that our choices were profound. PC versus NDP. Conservative versus socialist. Kenney versus Notley. Blue versus orange. Pick-up trucks versus EVs. Election campaigns were fought as though civilization itself depended on which one prevailed.Now Alberta is debating whether the province should fundamentally reconsider its relationship with Ottawa, and suddenly the great ideological enemies discover they have been standing on the same piece of ground all along.Funny how quickly the family comes together when someone starts discussing the inheritance. So congratulations to the happy couple. Jason and Rachel have put aside their differences, joined hands, and produced a bouncing new political offspring: the establishment unity campaign.Douglas Ford Kenney appears healthy. The parents are reportedly doing well.Whether Alberta wants to continue to pay child support is another question entirely.

MACLEOD: Kenney and Notley welcome their political love child — it’s the best advertisement for independence yet

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