Located midway between Alberta’s two largest cities, Red Deer has long been a meeting ground. It’s not the geographic centre of the province, but it’s still seen as the point that separates northern and southern Alberta. And for that, and perhaps for the sake of tradition, the mid-sized city has long played political entertainer and provided the nondescript convention halls needed for big provincial conservative gatherings.
The April 9 leadership review for Jason Kenney is shaping up to be an especially busy day in Red Deer. Where leadership reviews in the days of the old Alberta Progressive Conservative party involved 1,200 or so members, as of late this week there were more than 9,000 signed up to attend next month’s United Conservative Party event.
Conservative organizers say the eventual attendance could be as high as 15,000. For the party executive (who declined to comment on or confirm these numbers), the in-person leadership review vote is going to be a logistical nightmare.
The question is whether a huge potential turnout is also a nightmare for the Alberta Premier. Mr. Kenney’s political rivals say yes – that it’s a sure sign rank-and-file members will travel from across the province to voice their displeasure with the Premier, whose approval numbers have shrunk through the course of the pandemic.
His backers say not necessarily. They say they’re in for a fight to get him majority support from members, with no easy win. But they argue that Albertans, including UCP members, went through two years of chaos with the pandemic and don’t want it to be followed by uncertainty in the political realm. They feel some confidence that “mainstream conservatives” who support Mr. Kenney will get involved in the leadership review. (Mr. Kenney said this month that, considering the fact that he led the party through a crisis, a 50-per-cent-plus-one vote would be enough of an expression of support.)
“Alberta is on the cusp of a tremendous boom. Albertans, for the most part, want to see boring, competent government,” said lobbyist Alan Hallman, a conservative organizer and a constant and sometimes polarizing presence on the provincial political scene. He said he’s volunteering on the Premier’s leadership review campaign.
“They don’t want to see the drama of a leadership race that would put Alberta in chaos,” Mr. Hallman added.
Hal Danchilla, who has been working in the backroom of Alberta conservative politics for decades and describes himself as a “trusted adviser and campaign strategist” for Mr. Kenney, made no predictions about the outcome of the leadership review. But he said he hopes party members will judge the Premier with the “extremely trying times” of the past two years in view.
“It’s unfair to judge him harshly through the pandemic because I think he did a pretty good job,” Mr. Danchilla said.
Two new polls point to Mr. Kenney making up some of the momentum he lost during a dreadful 2021. The first is a new survey from well-known Calgary pollster Janet Brown, obtained by the Toronto Star this week, that shows UCP support is edging back into majority-government territory. Both the Kenney camp and Brian Jean – who won the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election for the UCP on Tuesday and is openly challenging the Premier’s leadership – are taking credit for the bump.
Another Kenney-favourable poll, obtained by The Globe and Mail, is from Vancouver’s Dimitri Pantazopoulos of Yorkville Strategies. It found that if an election were held today – with the UCP up against Rachel Notley’s NDP – the UCP would likely be returned to power, although with a reduced majority.
Perhaps more surprisingly, the Yorkville Strategies poll found that 60 per cent of UCP voters polled said Mr. Kenney should continue to serve as leader of the party. One-third said there should be a race to select a new leader for the party.
“There’s a cohort of voters within the UCP who are not satisfied. But there’s a large cohort who are, who do think that [Kenney] is doing a good job,” Mr. Pantazopoulos said in an interview.
“If you’re looking at people who are signing up to vote at a convention, it may or may not be different from that.”
Mr. Pantazopoulos said Yorkville Strategies does regular work for the UCP but that no one from the party commissioned his poll. It saw 600 Albertans contacted by phone from March 3-9, and the results have a margin of error of four percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Whatever the polls say, the pro-Kenney camp is worried this is no ordinary leadership review and that it is turning into a battle for the soul of the party. Those on the political periphery, they say, are trying to turn the tide against the Premier.
Mr. Hallman said there are “a whole bunch of fringe elements of society that are all banding together” to come and vote at the leadership review.
“It’s the anti-vaxxers, it’s the anti-lockdown people and some of the folks who supported the pastors who ended up in jail. It’s some of the candidates that we have kicked out of the party, disqualified, for not meeting our standards. It’s some elements of the [trucker] convoy.”
“That is what we’re fighting. It’s a takeover of the UCP party is what they’re trying to do,” Mr. Hallman said, adding that he believes some NDP supporters will sign up as UCP members so they can vote against Mr. Kenney.
“That’s what mainstream conservatives are starting to see.”
There has been a race this week to sign up members by Saturday because anyone who joins the UCP after that point will not able to vote in the leadership review.
But even in that frenzied atmosphere, there have still not been many spontaneous public displays of support for Mr. Kenney, from UCP MLAs or other party members. In the weeks ahead, there will be more controversies about the methods and money that will be used to get UCP members – on both sides – to Red Deer. And the narrative that mainstream conservatives are coming out to support Mr. Kenney on April 9 could be a last-ditch effort from a flailing leader and his supporters.
Even the Premier’s backers acknowledge that Mr. Jean’s leadership push, and efforts by Take Back Alberta – a “grassroots” group formed to help UCP members get to Red Deer to vote against Mr. Kenney, at times by providing them with gift cards for gas or groceries – will play a significant role in the leadership review.
But still, no one is yet counting the Premier out in Red Deer.
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