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May 20 2022 — Melanie Paradis — Globe and Mail — A month before Canada was first rocked by COVID-19 in March of 2020, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney leveraged his meteoric popularity and organizational mastery to endorse Erin O’Toole for leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. This week, he joined Mr. O’Toole on the pyre of discontent. The ouster of a conservative heavyweight like Mr. […]
May 20 2022 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Had a general election been held in Alberta this spring, chances are premier Jason Kenney would have led his party back to the opposition benches after just one term in office. For months, polls in the province had found Kenney’s government to be out of step with a critical mass of voters. His approval rating […]
May 20 2022 — Jen Gerson — The Line — The first time I had a proper conversation with Jason Kenney was about six years ago. The NDP were in power in Alberta; the federal Conservatives had cast about for a successor to Stephen Harper and, it was decided by silent consensus, said successor would not be Jason Kenney. So the former federal cabinet minister […]
May 20 2022 — Arthur Milnes — National Newswatch — Father of Confederation William Steeves was born on this date, in 1814, at Hillsborough, New Brunswick. Steeves went on to become a highly successful businessman (including in N.B.’s emerging lumber industry) before entering colonial politics. Between 1846 until 1865 Steeves held a variety of important portfolios in various cabinets. Along the way he became a […]
May 20 2022 — Paul Wells — Paul Wells Newsletter — Alberta’s first NDP premier surveys the Kenney-less landscape. On the day after Alberta premier Jason Kenney got such a low vote of confidence in the United Conservative Party leadership review he announced his resignation from politics, Rachel Notley was taking calls. I had taken care to talk my way into the queue. “How much time […]
May 20 2022 — Robin Guy — Sun Media — The Canadian aviation and tourism industries have been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The myriad of public measures has resulted in a decline of travel by approximately 95% of 2019 levels and the financial cost is greater than 9/11, SARS, and the 2008 financial crisis combined.
May 20 2022 — Charles McMillan — Policy Magazine — Since the passing of Sir John A. Macdonald in 1891, the Conservative Party, under all the official titles through which it has cycled, has been, with the Liberal Party, one of two dominating Canada’s political landscape. Since Macdonald, only one Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, has won two consecutive majorities. What lessons might be drawn […]
May 20 2022 — Howard Anglin — CBC — Well, that’s one thing settled. After winning a majority of votes in the UCP leadership review, Jason Kenney announced he will step down as Alberta premier. At least he goes out on a winning streak — a perfect 13 for 13 in political contests by my count. If something sounds funny about a politician resigning […]
May 19 2022 — Rick Peterson — National Newswatch — We’re now witnessing, live and direct, leadership meltdowns in Alberta’s United Conservative Party and in the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s an ugly scene on both counts: the long, painful and twisting campaign leading to Premier Jason Kenney’s ouster in Alberta and an increasingly nasty, personal and divisive race for the Conservative Party of Canada […]
May 19 2022 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Federal Conservative leadership candidates were curiously silent on social media in the immediate aftermath of Jason Kenney’s surprise downfall in Alberta. No thanks or goodbyes, no public comment on the Alberta premier who was once seen as a leading light for modern-day conservatism in Canada.
May 19 2022 — Max Fawcett — National Observer — Always bet on chaos. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after spending more than a decade in Alberta, it’s that politics here inevitably gravitates towards the most dramatic outcome. The long-running UCP leadership review, one that saw Jason Kenney receive just 51.4 per cent support from the 34,000-plus ballots cast, is just the latest data […]
May 19 2022 — Arthur Milnes — National Newswatch — On this date in 1908 a dashing young lawyer named Louis St. Laurent married his sweetheart, Jeanne Renault who, four decades later, would accompany him to 24 Sussex Drive. The two were married for a remarkable 58 years (until Jeanne’s passing in 1966) and had five children together. As it turned out, Jeanne found no […]
May 19 2022 — Don Martin — CTV News — There’s a lesson for Canada’s political leaders in the short life and quick death of Jason Kenney as premier of Alberta. It’s one-strike-you’re-out politics now after Kenney got the weakest vote of confidence possible with a 51 per cent thumbs-up to his leadership from the United Conservative Party base. It’s an almost-unfathomable act of internecine […]
May 19 2022 — Sean Speer — The Hub — Jason Kenney’s swift resignation as United Conservative Party leader is a lamentable outcome for Canadian conservatism. It reflects the rise of an oppositional mindset on the Right that is bad for Conservative politics and the country as a whole to the extent that it marginalizes centre-right ideas and policies and enables progressives to govern essentially […]
May 19 2022 — John Ivison — National Post — Former Conservative minister and senior RBC executive Michael Fortier and his family were asleep in their Montreal home at 1:30 a.m. on May 4, when he was woken by a neighbour banging on his drain pipe to warn him that the Jaguar and Land Rover parked in the driveway were on fire.