The fog of Covid, the UCP leadership race is bonkers, and my bike was stolen
PART ONE of a three-part summer-so-far report for June-July, 2022
As a descendant of Scottish settlers, I am grateful to be producing this newsletter in Moh’kinsstis, and the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. I understand that this territory is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. In the spirit of truth and reconciliation, I recognize that the land I work and live on was stolen from these nations and I have been afforded privileges as a result.
NOTE: I’m breaking this newsletter into three parts. This is the first and the following two reports will be posted in the next few days.
Last summer, Premier Jason Kenney declared it would be the “best summer ever.” The province opened up prematurely, the Calgary Stampede was back on, and we were slammed with a huge wave of Covid-19 cases in the fall as a result. Kenney was missing in action, leaving no one from his cabinet in charge. We were told later he was running the province remotely from a mystery vacation destination.
This year, despite having fully vaccinated (two doses) about 77% of the total population (Alberta has one of the lowest rates of vaccination in Canada) Kenney is not having a good summer at all. He has resigned from the United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership after barely eking out a slim majority of support from his own party. He hasn’t stepped down as premier though, vowing only to let go of his posting when a new leader is chosen.
With all mask mandates lifted and any remaining restrictions gone, Albertans are out in droves breaking attendance records at all the big festivals and events. Also record-breaking is likely the number of people with Covid-19. Of course, we have no way of knowing how many people have had Covid since positive tests are not being recorded. Wastewater sampling gives us the best indication and those numbers are trending mostly upwards in Edmonton and Calgary (where there has been a dip in late July).
In every community where the variant is being tracked in wastewater in Alberta, the BA4 and BA5 variants have taken over. These are also the most highly transmissible versions of the virus to date.
Like so many other Albertans, I contracted Covid-19 this summer, specifically in early July. Although I didn’t attend any major events, members of my immediate family were visiting and we weren’t wearing masks. Almost every one of us contracted the virus and it was not the way we had hoped to spend our vacation. There have been some gaps in my social media and newsletter writing over the last two months as we all limped through about 10 days of rotating sickness.
As I write this, late in the day on Friday, July 29, the government finally opened up appointments for children under five to receive the vaccine. All week, parents have been anxiously waiting for the bookings to open. Alberta is one of the last provinces to begin booking the littles in and parents were not happy by the late announcement. The government had promised to start early in the week. Trust is low and the sense of unease with the unexplained delay was evident.
My one-year-old grandson had Covid and although we put on a brave front, the concern for him was weighing heavily on all of us as he rode a feverish wave of coughing and crying. Luckily, he recovered relatively quickly, while the rest of us dragged ourselves around for many days feeling exhausted.
Between fits of coughing and feverish napping, many of us adults (with Covid or not) have likely been tuning in and out of the UCP leadership race. Those of us tuning out were trying to salvage our vacations, not to mention our sanity.
Clearly, Kenney’s spectacularly awful leadership for the past four years has almost destroyed the party he helped form. There was little or no succession planning for this moment and Kenney is just dumping everything onto party members to sort out.
Let’s quickly review the candidates running for the leadership, and the top tweets trending about each of them currently:
Leela Aheer - MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore
Next to Raj Sherman’s pseudo-campaign, Aheer is the candidate most out of place in this contest. She seems to have a tenuous hold on even her own riding association, let alone any hope of winning the leadership.
As has been reported by the CBC, her riding association has been embroiled in a dispute since the end of 2021. The current board mostly supports Aheer, and those that mainly back a challenger to her nomination for re-election have the party’s support to redo the process of selecting the Aheer board.
Most of the top tweets about Aheer are…from Aheer’s own Twitter account. She did receive a bit of good news this week though.
Brian Jean - MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche
Jean is mostly known for his dislike of Jason Kenney, which is not really something that sets him apart from the crowd. This is the guy who was the victim of a “kamikaze” scam in the last leadership contest. Kenney’s involvement is still being “investigated” by the RCMP.
Jean is also a former leader of the Wildrose Party and is in a tough competition with another former leader of the Wildrose Party. Ironically, Jean had to come in and pick up the pieces of that party after she left it in shambles by crossing the floor from Official Opposition to the government side in 2014. But more about Danielle Smith later.
Lately, Jean has really gone more off-the-rails with his comments, presumably in a competition to be more outrageous than Smith.
“Covid killed people, a lot of people, but so did the vaccine and so did the mandates.”
Top tweets are mainly about comparing and contrasting Smith and Jean…the differences are becoming blurrier.
Todd Loewen - Independent MLA for Central-Peace Notley
He was kicked out of the UCP caucus. Loewen is most likely to finish last and have his votes redistributed under the preferential ballot process. How many votes does this add up to and where they go is all that matters. My guess is, not very many votes but most will go to either Jean or Smith.
This tweet kind of sums up Loewen’s approach and standing - commentary on the internet connection - which I hear was bad but…come on.
Rajan Sawhney - MLA for Calgary North East
Sawhney was reported to have done reasonably well in the last leadership debate. I admit I did not watch it but read David Climenhaga’s coverage here. She had the best quote of the debate: “A Danielle Smith victory today means a Rachel Notley victory tomorrow!”
She’s astute. And she’s another former cabinet minister (transportation minister and also community and social services minister) who made terrible decisions while in cabinet but is running on fixing their own mistakes.
This is the "I promise I'll do better at this when I'm the leader" platform. Not exactly a winning formula.
Rebecca Schulz - MLA for Calgary-Shaw
Another former cabinet minister (minister for children’s services) Schulz says she was NOT part of the in-group. Notably, she said this at her campaign kick-off event while flanked on all sides with other Kenney cabinet ministers.
I call this one the "I wasn't anywhere near the scene of any crimes" platform, despite being part of the decision-making on many files.
And oh, "these members of the boys' club will vouch for me."
Even fans are saying she’s not doing well:
Danielle Smith - Radio talk show host, unelected
Smith is the former Wildrose leader who lost to Allison Redford, then infuriated party members by crossing the floor to return to the PC's under Jim Prentice. She and Prentice then both lost her own seats and the general election to Rachel Notley’s NDP. She then retired from politics in disgrace to become a radio talk show host.
She is just hoping everyone forgets what she did previously and her campaign is on track with that goal, mostly because almost every day, she spouts something outrageous. I can’t even keep track.
Hers is now to be referred to as “the bonkers platform.” But yes, she’s in the lead, if you believe the polling. The video script from her campaign launch seemed to be a collection of slogans plagiarised from truck trailer billboards on the side of the highway.
And every day, things get more interesting as Smith went on a blocking spree on Twitter this past week.
Travis Toews - MLA for Grande Prairie-Wapiti - Kenney’s choice
After trusting no one in the cabinet to cover for him while he went on vacation last summer, party members are now supposed to believe former Finance Minister Travis Toews is the one they should trust to take over the reins of power and lead them into the next election.
Toews has been one of the most low-key members of the Kenney cult cabinet. He’s probably most remembered for his appearance on the Sky Palace roof, enjoying whiskey with Kenney’s innermost circle. As they were served by unmasked waiters, the rest of us common folk were under tight Covid-19 restrictions.
Here’s how Toews is making waves with this top tweet:
What I find is not getting enough attention about this leadership contest is that if Smith wins, she would take over the position of Premier of Alberta as an unelected person. This has happened before, several times actually, and although it is wildly undemocratic, it is totally allowed in our current system.
Prentice was also unelected when he became the conservative leader and premier around this same time in the summer of 2014. He did quickly call a by-election though and won a seat. He also appointed two other non-elected individuals to cabinet positions who ran and won seats at the same time.
I do wonder if Smith would be equally assured of winning a by-election, or even if she would call for one. There is no requirement she do so, only a “tradition” that has been voluntarily honoured. Paula Simons wrote a comprehensive analysis of this situation back in 2014 that is definitely worth a refresher.
Notably, the powers of cabinet were increased under Bill 10 during the pandemic and then, under the threat of a lawsuit, repealed with the introduction of Bill 66 last summer. For a short timeframe, cabinet ministers held extraordinary powers, as explained by Duff Conacher around the end of 2020 in Alberta Views magazine.
“With Bill 10 the Kenney government took advantage of the coronavirus crisis to give ministers the power to impose new laws, offences and penalties on Albertans without any debates or vote in the legislature. The legislation passed with only 21 of 87 members of the legislature present. Ironically, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms—founded by John Carpay, formerly of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Wildrose Party and UCP—filed an application in court challenging Kenney’s bill, calling it ‘a betrayal of the electorate and the rule of law’ and ‘an affront to democracy and constitutionalism.’”
Concerns remain around Bill 66 but the lawsuit (and subsequent appeal) were both dismissed in November of 2021 since the offending legislation had beem repealed and the courts decided the previous ruling was correct. This is a decision that remains controversial.
********************************************************************************************************
Finally, with the ranked ballot format of the leadership vote, Graham Thomson wrote a column recently about the “Ed Stelmach effect.” The voting rules say the winner must have the majority of votes, so if no one has a majority after the results of the first ballot, things get complicated.
“If no candidate wins a majority in the first count, the last place candidate is dropped and all of his or her ballots are examined for the second choice. Then those ballots are redistributed among the surviving candidates according to the second choice. The process is repeated until one candidate wins a majority.”
Second choices can make or break a first-place finisher who doesn’t have a majority.
Who is the second choice for most party members? Jean seems mostly likely to lose ground if he doesn’t win a majority on the first ballot. He doesn’t seem to be a strong second-choice candidate, but I’m just going on intuition here…
If Sawhany is a popular second choice, it could indicate Smith is in trouble. Toews seems likely to pick up some second choice votes. Schulz isn’t doing well and might swing some of her votes to Toews. Toews could very well be the Stelmach of 2022, flying under the radar for criticism as Smith makes herself an easy target with bonkers statements and policies.
If Toews won, would the UCP fracture? It seems very likely.
******************************************************************************************************
I know I said earlier that I was having a bad summer, but one thing I did get to do was attend the Outdoor Comedy Festival in Calgary (which was awesome) and I also saw Zoom and Shawn Kellerman recently at the Calgary International Blues Festival. They were sooo good. Here’s a video you might enjoy:
I’ll be talking more about racism and hate in the next newsletter post, so stay tuned.
Not to end on a sad note, but someone broke into the parkade in my condo building this week and stole my lovely blue Townie Electra bike. It’s not an expensive bike but did have sentimental value. It was my main commute-to-work bike before the pandemic (winter too!). Unfortunately, I cannot find a good picture of it - the closest I could find was this selfie I took in 2016. We had some fine commuting adventures together. The basket carried many loads of groceries and sported a dragonfly ornament given to me by daughter. I decorated it with Christmas lights, rode it in cowboy boots, and it almost always carried a coffee thermos instead of a water bottle. I loved that bike.
So, it’s another multi-part newsletter and I’ll send out the second part (of three) in a few days.
Coming up - the convoy has been up to no good, the new book burning involves intimidating libraries and transgender people. Also, White supremacy is ubiquitous (more details on this coming for subscribers also in a new post) and the climate emergency gets some much-needed wins but way more is needed.