EDMONTON — Don’t cry for me, Alberta, I was leaving anyway.
It’s Premier Jason Kenney’s swan song message as he prepares to depart the province’s top job, forced out by the very United Conservative Party he willed into existence.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc.
It was a time of woe. Alberta’s economy was in the doldrums, its oil and gas sector in the bust phase of its traditional boom-bust cycle. Budgets were bleeding multibillion-dollar deficits. Wesley said such an ethos may have captured the mood of conservatives and enthralled others, “but as Albertans and their government were forced between prosperity and compassion — or as Kenney put it ‘livelihoods and lives’ — his focus on livelihoods was really out of touch with what people were looking for.”
The math was simple, the corollary obvious: If Alberta’s identity is defined by economic prosperity through oil and gas, then those who challenge this worldview are, well, anti-Albertan. To fight slurs on oil and gas, Kenney spent millions to create a “war room” that delivered a parade of gaffes, including a public fight with a children’s cartoon about Bigfoot.
As COVID-19 hit with full force in 2020, decimating the economy, Kenney found himself battling a two-front war as bubbling rifts between him and his caucus and party exploded. But in subsequent waves, Kenney’s promise to balance “lives and livelihoods” left him whipsawed by those wanting rules to keep hospitals from cratering and those who felt the rules were unnecessary and a violation of personal freedom.
Extreme action was needed, so Kenney introduced a type of vaccine passport, something he had promised he would never do — a policy U-turn that enraged many in his party.Kenney said he would’ve acted earlier except his chief medical health officer didn’t recommend anything. Months later, he said Alberta Health Services officials kneecapped his decision-making by delivering shifting bed capacity numbers.