Alberta Premier Jason Kenney gets letter of support from 19 former MLAs

As United Conservative Party members prepare to cast ballots on the fate of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, 19 former conservative legislature members say they support him.

The 19, in an open letter issued Wednesday, also warn thatchanging leaders now would mean electoral disaster.

"We have been down this road before and we don't want to go downit again," they say in the letter.

They say internal division and turmoil opened the door for theOpposition NDP to win power in 2015 something they fear will berepeated in 2023.

"It is largely for this reason that we will be supportingPremier Kenney in the leadership review," they wrote.

Kenney retweeted the three-page letter on social media, saying"[I am] honoured to have the support of these 19 former PC and Wildrose MLAs in our campaign to keep Alberta united!"

The 19 acknowledge, as has Kenney, that he made mistakesaddressing the COVID-19 pandemic but has done wellmanaging theeconomy.

More importantly, they say, it's too late to pick a new leaderbecause the process would push the party too close to theelectionand hand the NDP a priceless gift of organizational advantage.

Starting Saturday, UCP members provincewide are to beginreceiving ballots on whether to endorse Kenney's leadership. Theballots are to be mailed back and results announced May 18. Kenneyneeds majority support or a leadership race must be called.

Many UCP constituency presidents had long pushed for a muchearlier leadership review and managed late last year tohave theparty executive agree to move it up from the fall of 2022.

Opponents accuse the UCP board of bending to the Kenney camp twoweeks ago, when the board changed the votefrom an in-person ballotto a mail-in one. They suspect Kenney didn't have the numbers to winthe in-person contest.

Kenney has been facing lagging popularity numbers andconfrontations with party factions and caucus membersunhappy withhis leadership, his past COVID-19 policies, and for what they callan imperious top-down management style that ignores the grassroots.

Political scientist Duane Bratt said the letter can't hurtKenney's chances, but it lacks big names from provincial andfederalconservative politics.

"Maybe UCP supporters know who they are. Maybe people in theirformer ridings know who they are. I mean [signatory]Alana DeLongdoesn't even live in Alberta anymore," said Bratt, with Mount RoyalUniversity in Calgary.

He said perhaps there are more names to come.

The 19 represent a cross-section of the tangled connections andshifting alliances in Alberta's centre-right movementover the pastdecade.

There are former cabinet ministers Shirley McClellan, Iris Evansand Pat Nelson and lesser-known backbenchers from the ProgressiveConservative party going back to the 1990s.

Bruce Rowe and Gary Bikman were members of the Wildrose party,which splintered off from the PCs a decade ago,accusing thegoverning of Tories of abandoning fiscal rectitude and grassrootsdemocracy.

In 2014, Rowe and Bikman joined seven other Wildrose members including then-leader Danielle Smith in a massive defection to thePC ranks, gutting and nearly collapsing the Wildrose before it wassalvaged under theleadership of former Conservative MP Brian Jean afew months later.

The PCs, under Kenney, merged with Jean's Wildrose in 2017 toform the UCP. Kenney defeated Jean in a UCPleadership race soiledby accusations of collusion and underhanded dealings.

Jean quit politics in 2018 but has returned, recently winning abyelection under the UCP banner.

Jean, fighting to oust Kenney as party leader, is to be sworn inThursday as a member of the legislature.