“We must come together to form a single, free-enterprise party and we must do so before the next election”.
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There have been rumours that the Calgary MP might try to unite Alberta’s two right-leaning provincial parties.
The fiscal watchdog organization that Jason Kenney once led is calling on the Calgary MP to give up his perks and pay while he seeks the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives.
Kenney now represents the Calgary Midnapore riding in the House of Commons and served as a cabinet minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
On Thursday, he provided details of his plan, which calls for winning the PC leadership next March and then proposing immediate discussions with Wildrose about unification.
“Albertans I meet can not believe that we have a government that is systematically destroying the Alberta advantage that made this province a magnet for risk-takers and wealth-creators”, Kenney said. “And they are disturbed to find that we have both federal and provincial governments that seem today to be ashamed of our huge engine of wealth and opportunity: our oil and gas industry”. Since then, Kenney has been highly critical of the NDP government, accusing it of destroying Alberta’s economy and not supporting the energy sector. Other elected officials like those who may challenge him, Mr. Kenney said, run for new positions without resigning from their current jobs. This isn’t hard. This isn’t new.
“This is about a lot more than a merger between two political parties”.
Notley wouldn’t be drawn into a direct comment on Kenney.
Anderson, who now practises law, has some advice for the former cabinet minister: make sure his party-merging intentions are well understood when he campaigns. Next winter there would be another leadership race to determine who would head a brand new party, that Kenney suggested would “take of like a rocket”. In December 2014, she led a mass floor-crossing of Wildrose MLAs to the Tories who were headed by former premier Jim Prentice.
“This is not a conventional leadership campaign”. He said that would be challenging but similar to what he and his colleagues accomplished at the federal level in 2003 when the Canadian Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
“That’s inevitable. When you’re forming a coalition, it’s inevitable you will lose a small number of people at the margins, but I think you gain far more in the process”, said Kenney, who at his news conference noted he wanted to “build a big tent, not a pup tent”. The barbaric practices tip-line certainly didn’t go over well either.
“For me there is no going back”.
About half a dozen others are considering a run for the federal party leadership. He’s not even the leader.
But in an interview Thursday, Kenney said there would be a place for those members in a party under his leadership, though he knows some will likely leave.
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“It’s not going to be a walk in the park all the time”, she said.
