United Conservative Party critics renew fight for a more robust review of Kenney's leadership
CBC
This column is an opinion from Graham Thomson, an award-winning journalist who has covered Alberta politics for more than 30 years. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.
A group of United Conservative Party members are renewing their push for a provincewide vote on Premier Jason Kenney's party leadership.
Their cause might be doomed but they are not going down without a fight.
Spurred on by the Calgary-Fish Creek constituency association, they are not happy with the party's plan to have the leadership review limited to a special general meeting in Red Deer on April 9 where only party members who turn up in person can cast a ballot.
Instead, the displeased members sent a motion to party headquarters late last week asking that the review be opened up to a provincewide vote of all UCP members where they'd be able to cast ballots at special party polling stations set up in every riding – and then have those votes added to the ballots cast at Red Deer.
All of this would be supervised by an independent auditing firm.
"I'm here fighting for fundamental democratic principles," Calgary-Fish Creek MLA Richard Gotfried told CBC News in an exclusive interview Friday.
Gotfried has become a burr under Kenney's saddle over the past year by speaking out against government "hypocrisy" on pandemic restrictions and by voting against the government's Bill 81 on campaign financing.
In Kenney's decidedly conservative UCP caucus, Gotfried is one of the few admitted progressives, being in fact one of only three sitting UCP MLAs who used to be a Progressive Conservative MLA.
He supported Kenney's leadership for the PCs in 2017 and later for the UCP.
However, Gotfried, along with a majority of Albertans, have soured on Kenney's leadership during the pandemic, according to public opinion polls. Among other things, Kenney has been criticized for a top-down, autocratic style.
Gotfried says the party's leadership vote must be open to as many members as possible, not just those who can stack a one-day meeting in Red Deer.
"The whole idea is that the membership will decide and my perspective on it is if we don't have the support of the membership how are we going to move forward and win an election?," he said.
Sensitive to complaints that he is simply trying to dethrone Kenney without considering how this might damage the party, Gotfried is framing the fight not as anti-Kenney but as pro-grassroots.
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