SAINTS PRESERVE US
Here We Go Again
The province of Alberta
has been a member in good standing of the Canadian Confederation since 1905.
Its political history is a bit peculiar. Once a party attains power it tends to
keep it for decades, an era becomes an epoch for others squealing for their
turn at the public trough.
This quirky pattern led in part to the
formation of the new United Conservative Party (UCP), battle tested to date
only in by-elections. It is the manifestation of cries to “Unite the Right!”
The right was in disarray following the 2015 provincial election whose result
was a resounding majority for the left of centre New Democratic Party (NDP). Before
the NDP’s “We won! We actually won!” moment Alberta had been governed by the Progressive
Conservatives (PC) for 44 consecutive years.
PC rule over time followed the law of
declining returns as the party’s administration slid from dynamic and
responsible, to complacent and arrogant, and ultimately sank to a nadir of
indifference. No one inside the circle of power or lobbying around its diameter
even imagined for a moment that the price of oil would drop like a fouled
soccer striker. When booms go bust, as they must, fingers get pointed by
enemies and allies alike. Some of the PC membership believed that the party was
too centrist in its proposed economic solutions, and there were niggling social
issues besides, silly stuff like human rights. This schism was the genesis of
the farther-right Wildrose Party (WR).
Former federal cabinet minister Jason
Kenney, a student of ex-prime minister Stephen Harper, himself a cunning
puppeteer who engineered the unification of the right on the national level,
managed to graft the two provincial factions together in the guise of the UCP.
Kenney then set about consolidating his leadership of the new party by
squashing WR rival Brian Jean, he too a former Harper regime cabinet minister, and
a fellow alarmingly prone to verbal and social media gaffes. Kenney also seized
the opportunity to remove another potentially prickly pear thorn from his shoe
as he focuses on the 2019 provincial election. He banished one Derek
Fildebrandt from the nascent UCP caucus.
Until Friday, Fildebrandt sat in the
legislative assembly as an Independent. The honourable member from Strathmore-Brooks
was first elected on the Wildrose slate. Fildebrandt is one of those guys who
believe ethics is the study of people who are not white men. He is a documented
expense account fiddler. Perhaps a little slow too because he did not get away
clean following his involvement in a hit-and-run. He seems to be one of those
politicians we all see through, one who pursues their own self-interest over that
of their riding, their province and their country.
Fildebrandt is now the self-anointed
interim leader and only member of his primordial Freedom Conservative Party
(FCP). Pity Kenney, who as ringmaster of the conservative circus, has tried to
pitch a big, all-inclusive tent. Apparently the newly unified Alberta right is unable to contain itself
yet again. The FCP is beyond the fringe taking a hunting knife to the seams of
the UCP big top. Kenney’s coalition is too “vanilla” for Fildebrandt.
The freedom fighters’ goal is to shed the
yolk of Ottawa ’s
colonial oppression and “obliterate the NDP.” Fildebrandt imagines the FCP as a
grassroots movement that will engage “Alberta
patriots.” Do you hear a dog whistle? Cup your hand to your right ear. The sound you hear is shriller than the pitch Kenney uses to summon "average Albertans." The vast
majority of Canadians live within three hours’ drive of the American border. A
vast majority of those reside in urban centres. The FCP is betting the farm on
a dwindling number of disaffected rural voters. The inconvenient truth is that
the only Rural Alberta Advantage most of the electorate is aware of is a Toronto indie band.
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