From Ottawa with love

Politicians in Alberta return to the legislature Monday after a week-long break called constituency week. This week serves as an adjournment for politicians to dedicate time away from decision making and legislative work to spend in their home electoral district. Jason Kenney chose to be in Ottawa talking about his own career, and likely helping fellow conservatives in the Ontario election. At that same time, the people in Alberta, some of those people live in Kenney’s own riding, were bravely anticipating a decision on the Kinder Morgan pipeline, and an agreement between Kinder Morgan and the federal government. Jason Kenney failed to be in Alberta during a time when the Kinder Morgan decision would shape the future of the Albertan economy and the lives of Albertans.

Since unifying Alberta’s two conservative parties under a single banner in 2017, Jason Kenney has been harping on Notley for failing to listen to Albertans. Kenney has been ruthless in his critique of Notley. The approach he has taken with Notley is not new. Kenney consistently launches person attacks against politicians he disagrees with as a method to discredit that individuals character, especially when he is unable to attack their policy.

At the beginning of Kenney’s leadership campaign, he offered a “grassroots guarantee” that promised to in his view restore power to Albertans. It was an intelligent political strategy that played on a common frustration in Alberta. The frustration from people who think: we helped the federation pay the bills, we’ve played by the rules, we haven’t really complained about it, and yet we’re getting royally screwed here,” Kenney says-tapping into a hate of central Canada that most conservatives have held onto since 1960. “In the past year, I have heard more expressions of support for Western or Alberta separatism than I’ve heard in my whole life.” He goes onto say with little facts to back up that claim. All of this is part of a broader strategy to reignite an anti-Ottawa sentiment that has been smouldering in Alberta since the introduction of the National Energy Program in 1980.

Ottawa has never been popular with Alberta. An email from 2012 shows that Kenney himself may have been part of the cause of western alimentation. In the email, Kenney called then deputy premier of Alberta, Thomas Lukazuk, who was asking for a meeting with Conservative MPs an “utter asshole.” Even with Conservatives holding a majority of seats in the Canadian parliament there was still alienation of Alberta. When in Ottawa, Kenney helped foster that idea, like many politicians that came before him.

The fact that Conservatives don’t have a consistent story is an important point to highlight in interprovincial relationships and it harms their creditability when it comes to their ability to lead the country. It means that conservatives are picking winners and losers as it becomes useful to their political careers, especially for career politicians like Kenney.

So where was Jason Kenney during constituency week? If he wasn’t knocking on doors in Calgary-Lougheed to hear from his constituents, what was he doing? All of the members of his riding deserve to have these crucial questions answered.