At UCP event, Jason Kenney says he never intended to 'be in this gig for a long time'

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney gave some of his final comments as the province's leader Saturday, speaking at an event attended by the candidates running to replace him. 

At a Canada Strong and Free conference in Red Deer, Alta., Kenney said he was proud of much of the legislation passed during his time as premier, but said he would have gone farther on healthcare reform, had the pandemic not quelled those efforts. 

However, the province is moving forward with its chartered surgical initiative, which will contract surgeries out to the private sector, and will be publicly funded.

"We could have gone further and deeper into health reform had it not been for COVID. And I think Canadians are now waking up to the reality that we do need fundamental health reform," Kenney said. 

He also said if he would have run for re-election — he wouldn't have stayed for long. 

"I never intended to be here for a long time. Frankly it was always my intention if I'd gone on to the next election to leave, probably about a year to 18 months after that," he said. 

"I was never intending to be in this gig for a long time." 

Reflecting on the state of conservatism, Kenney said there is growing anger among the alt-right fuelled by social media conspiracy theories and "hypercharged" by the pandemic. 

"Social media comes along 20 years ago and allows people with those kinds of attitudes to self-publish and then to find a virtual community online, and then to push each other into a constant state of anger," Kenney said. 

He said that "liberal mainstream legacy media almost went out of their way to become disaffected from almost everybody right of centre." 

That resulted in the advent of alt-right media to fill the market, he said.

"And for many of them, their business model is the monetization of anger. And the revenue only flows if people are angrier and angrier." 

"I know this is an old fashioned sentiment, but I actually believe civility is a conservative value. And there is a growing sense of profound incivility. And it concerns me greatly," Kenney said. 

He added that he fears conservatism could "become a caricature of a kind of nasty, angry populism that will lose consistently at the polls as well."