Jason Kenney once bestrode Alberta like a colossus. Now, Jason Markusoff writes, he's on the way out:
When he first rode into Alberta in his blue pickup truck, Kenney seemed a canny long-term thinker, perfectly executing a complex plan to take the reins of the province. Within three years, he won leadership of the once-invincible Alberta Progressive Conservatives, merged them with the right-wing Wildrose Party, became leader of the United Conservatives and easily ousted the NDP in the April 2019 election. He did it all with a mix of cheery populism and screw-our-enemies combativeness, but governing has proven far trickier. Among other things, the man who won by promising to fight “unapologetically” for Albertans has had to issue three apologies to them in 2021, all for COVID-related debacles.
COVID has changed Kenney's fortunes:
The stunning wrongness of his pandemic approach worsened a brutal fourth wave and triggered a health-care catastrophe, while uncorking political anger that had been building since before the pandemic. By disappointing people on both sides of this polarizing issue, Kenney has infuriated not only those who never voted for him, but also the deeply conservative Albertans who voted for the idea of a supercharged right-wing leader.
It’s crippled Kenney’s leadership of the United Conservative Party, where quiet internal grumbles about the premier’s high-handedness have devolved into open hostility and demands—not least from his own MLAs—for his resignation. Barring a miraculous turnaround, his days as premier appear numbered. Even his loyalists say so. And his political demise, later this year or early next, would mark a stunning reversal of fortune. Only two years ago, voters had embraced Kenney as a political colossus who’d make Alberta muscular again. He’d swooped westward from Ottawa, where he had dazzled with his smarts, steadfastness, tactical cunning and communications savvy. Those talents have now either abandoned him or proven to be overblown, while his calamitous mistakes have taken a toll—on his reputation, his party and his province. It’s a downfall story whose operatic scale is eclipsed only by the gravity of its real-world consequences, measured in human suffering and lives lost. How did one of Canada’s most successful politicians—a conservative star whose entire career seemed to lead him to a top job—fail so badly, just when Alberta needed him most?
All politicians have a best before date. Kenney has long since passed his.
Image: Global News
