The Rise and Fall of elitist Politicians

 

The recent events in Alberta politics and the election of a new leader for the United Conservative Party (UCP) has shown that politician who stay too long and more importantly over promise and under deliver cannot last past their due date. To claim that conservatism is dead is a cope out and a false narrative.

Jason Kenney is a twenty-five-year career politician, who served this country as one of the best Immigration Ministers of all time. So much so that I devoted a whole Chapter about his work in my book Conservatives: Dead or Alive? He took an enormous gamble to leave federal politics to save Alberta from the claws of a socialist Notley government. He achieved to bring the UCP back into government, but along the way, in my opinion he made some mistakes that cost him his position as leader of the party.

To me, some of these decisions were due to circumstances which were out of his control, but some were. He spent a lot of money on trying to get the oil and gas industry back from the death knell of federal regulations. However, he put too much faith in another opportunistic politician Senator Manchin of Virginia and bought a pipeline which was going nowhere for billions of dollars. He also allowed bracket creep into Alberta taxes, while investing a failed project to investigate the involvement of foreign money in the destruction of our energy industry. Then came the Covid pandemic which was outside of his control he allowed too many outside influences to dictate his policies, while presiding on travel, and health scandals within his caucus. While turning a blind eye on some of his caucus behavior, he closed down the province, and arrested pastors and other people who protested against the intransigent Covid laws. In fact he ignore one of the fundamental tenets of conservatism : Freedom. During the pandemic he seemed to have sided more with Ottawa than protected Albertan’s rights to make choices of their own. The Covid decisions, in my view, were the last straws that broke the camel’s back, and an internal revolt saw him calling for a leadership review that handed him a 51% approval and he decided to step down, but not leaving until a new leader was elected. In my opinion, this latest decision was another mistake, which turn many voters to support Danielle Smith.

While the leadership campaign was under way, Kenney proceeded to govern as Premier and spend a lot of money, which came as a complete lucky economic boom caused by the war in Ukraine. The price of oil went up and a surprised surplus came to the rescue of the Alberta economy. The surplus was not the result of fiscal or monetary polices but rather the economic luck of higher oil prices. In his last days he used this windfall to spend on certain programs that should have been part of his government in the first place, albeit with fiscal restraints. Kenney produced some of his best achievements when he had already been voted out as leader, but upon his departure he made some comments that showed how much of a poor loser he had turned into.

Once deposed, he went on TV and gave interviews concerning his departure. The most revealing aspect of his demise according to him was the death of Conservativism which is being replaced by “Populism with a snarl”. His attack on Smith’s plans to use the Alberta a Sovereignty Act (ASA) is based on old style Progressive Conservative principles.  To be clear the ASA states: ““Alberta Sovereignty Act, granting the Alberta legislature absolute discretion to refuse any provincial enforcement of federal legislation or judicial decisions that, in its view, interfere with provincial areas of jurisdiction or constitute an attack on the interests of Albertans.” It does not mean that Supreme Court decisions will be ignored. Many of Smith’s opponents and pundits maintain the ASA may well be unconstitutional, but it resonates with many Albertans that have seen the provincial powers usurped by Ottawa. But if it is defined as populism, it may well be the correct strategy to deal with a Federal government which has for many years disregarded the rights of Alberta to manage its industry that provides so much to Canada’s GDP. The federal government’s clear bias is at the root of Alberta’s stance to have the right to run its affairs. Quebec’s Bill 96 for instance had no blow back from Ottawa, yet many decisions affecting Alberta are deemed subject to the law form Ottawa. Those who claim that the Constitution is being challenged by the ASA, should take a deep breath, and remember that for political reason Ottawa continuously favors Eastern Provinces, and Quebec to the detriment of others. Is Canada still a confederation with equal Provincial rights? Some will say not, hence the proposed use of the Alberta Sovereignty Act.

Where Kenney’s gripes against both Smith and newly elected Canada’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre fail, is that he seems to ignore what populism means and why it came to the fore of politics in Canada and other countries. By definition: “Populism is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.” It is exactly the desire for people to be heard instead of being led by career politicians like Kenney that resulted in populism. True conservatism had long disappeared in Canadian politics when the party became Progressive Conservative which in my view meant more closely related to Liberalism. As Canadian Liberals under Trudeau moved towards socialism, it is clear many voters who felt that they were no longer heard turned to populism and are shifting to Poilievre. In Alberta, Kenney’s failure to govern as a true conservative, which I really believe he is, resulted in Smith’s resurrection as a leader in Alberta. If there is a fear that conservatism is dying in Canada and being replaced by populism, politicians should look in the mirror. The reason for the shift results from the inability of career politicians to listen to their constituents. Career politicians with 25 years in office tend to become set in their ways and too often become arrogant and claim to have all the answers. One more reason for my insistence that we should have term limits. Career politician who are rejected by their constituents should not blame a shift in ideology, they should blame themselves, I just hope that the election of both Poilievre and Smith bring a wakeup call to real conservatives and that they should compromise on process but never compromise their conservative principles. They should both listen to their constituents or face the wrath of the people and shown the door like some of their failed predecessors.

 

Marcel Latouche
former President & CEO of IPSA

Alberta Forward

 

The results of the leadership review of the United Conservative Party of Alberta came out. While receiving 51%+ Premier Jason Kenney decided that he would step down and allow for a new leader to take the party forward.

First let us consider that everybody makes mistakes, but some mistakes are more consequential than others. Second, we must understand that to be a leader one needs to have followers. In my opinion Kenney failed under both these criteria. Kenny came back from Ottawa to rescue a dying party and unite the conservatives under a new banner, however there were many sore losers who were still members of the party and never accepted his leadership. Then came Covid which was never his fault, but in my view is where he went wrong ; he accepted the advice of bureaucrats as the basis for too many of his policies. As a Christian, he allowed the arrests of pastors, and worshipers, and never had the opening and closing of the economy and citizens lives under control. He further never really protected Alberta from a dictatorial Federal government and for political purposes never used the ‘separation’ strategy, so adeptly used by Quebec over the years, as a tool to get what Alberta deserves. On the plus side, he revived the economy, but allowed bracket creep in our taxation system, he was lucky because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that resulted in higher oil prices and allowed for a balanced budget. In my view he served Alberta   as best he could and for that we should thank him. But now is the time to really look at ourselves in the mirror and demand that the UCP gets its act together and choose a real leader and prevent the coming back of a Notley government. So how de we do that is the real question.

I have never espoused the Harvard moto that Leaders are not born, they are made. This is a marketing tool to sell university applications and promote their degrees. Given some of the graduates who entered politics we can see that they are wrong ( Nenshi, Buttigieg among others) come to mind. As mentioned before to be a great leader one needs followers. Therefore, any candidate for the UCP leadership must first decided who will follow him/her and how to recruit them. Followers and supporters must decide what they want in a leader and what are the future plans for Alberta. Do we want a government that will get back to small ‘c’ conservative roots or one that still want to add the ‘progressive’ moniker to its future strategy? Forget the social policies that divide us, the Federal laws are settled on these issues. Focus on economic growth, a role for parents in the lives and education of their children, a strong strategy to get what Alberta deserves from the Federal Government. We must have a leader who will compromise on process but never compromise on principles. Those principles that they must defend are those that are espoused and demanded by Albertans. Not those that will allow the leader to play a personal role at a higher political level. We must have a leader who will not sacrifice the tax payers’ money on frivolous law suits that gets us nowhere, given that the current Supreme Court will side with the Liberal government who appointed the judges. We need a leader who will take a page from Quebec leaders who have been very successful at extracting whatever they wanted from the Federal government. To do so we must be able and willing to re-examine our status in the federation and not cower to the whims and desires of federalists Liberal and Laurentians vastly supported by the mainstream media.

 Having given my personal opinion. It is left to Albertans, and this case conservative ones to choose a new leader. I implore the faithful to make sure who they choose because there are some candidates, in my opinion, who will be entering the race for personal reasons and not for Albertans future in mind. We must put our differences aside and ensure that who we choose can take us to form the next government. We have a great opportunity to choose and elect a leader who could we be a partner with a new conservative federal government, and also a Republican Congress, even a new Republican President within the next three years. There is a strong tide of conservatism coming. The world is changing fast, there will be many challenges at home and abroad that will affect us. The next leader of the UCP must be one able to protect Albertans by listening to them and more importantly as Premier must be able to ensure that He or She does appoint the right followers in the caucus and on any committees formed to help advise the government. There must be competence as the basis for choosing these people not cronyism. I may sound negative at times but I am optimistic that Albertans will make the ‘Right’ choice this time.

Marcel Latouche

Former President and CEO

The Institute for Public Sector Accountability.

The Chasm Dividing Us

 

While the mainstream media laments a so-called rise in right-wing populist movements, too often we ignore that in the past two decades we have seen a rise in socialist dogma, verging on communism infiltrate our discourse. Recently the Covid pandemic has provided politicians with more power to restrict our freedoms, and cancel culture is on the rise to silence us. Why and how has this happened?

Political polarization has become the norm in most of the free world. The Liberal elite has been allowed to use tactics that have divided us rather than unite us. The constant use of identity rhetoric in every leftist policy has contributed to more conflict in politics. It is regrettable that today the aspirations of former generations are discarded without thought. What once drove the aspirations of ordinary people to achieve greatness has slowly been replaced by a sense of entitlement and the politics of envy. In the western free world, it seems that we have forgotten the following mottos that everyone wanted to be part of their lives; from France Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: these words are regarded as the most famous slogan of the French Revolution. In the United States: "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence and in Canada the True North strong and free"

Equality: the state of being equal especially in status, rights and opportunities was always a goal for citizens of the world. Once equality was the one thing that politicians would fight for. It was at the basis of intellectual, economic, and social growth. Success and growth were based on the equality of opportunity. Although, for many years some people were not allowed to be part of the success, over the years we have seen many gains made by minorities. Civil rights have allowed a greater participation by vast numbers of people. Martin Luther King and many others made it possible for many changes in society and provided access to education and thus economic growth for many. Other improvements have also increased the participation of minorities in the political and economic decision process.

While it is always desired that we move forward and improve on what we have achieved, it seems that the left has gradually but surely moved away from the state of equality towards what they call equity. Their policies of divisiveness use Equity: the quality of being fair and impartial to divide and conquer. It is always easy to make policies that uses taxpayers’ money to buy adulation and therefore votes. Increasingly the Liberal elite uses Equity to promote many of their policies based on identity politics. Furthermore, identity politics is being used to erode many of our constitutional freedoms. In the name of equity, the left has decided that some should be more equal than others. To gain votes and gain power the left has decided to cater to certain groups rather that treating citizens equally. It started with affirmative action, to allow for more participation by minorities. Then it grew into dividing the population into groups that even segregate minorities into different segments. For example, in higher education systems, some Ivy League Universities discriminate between Blacks and Asians when considering admission in certain programs. Martin Luther King said that ‘we should consider the character not the color of one’s skin’ but today this is ignored, and everything seems to be based on gender, skin colour, ethnicity and political ideology.,

 

We discriminate between gender and race for the sake of equity. The white race is being demonized for all the ills that afflict society. The so-called white privilege is used to discriminate in virtually every part of society today. The irony is that these policies are usually made by white Liberal elites like Biden and Trudeau. The worse part of this discriminatory trend is that the mainstream Liberal media is on board with this trend. The media has decided that these divisive policies should be supported blindly. Too often there is no more independent editorial thinking, The media today, echoes political mantras of the left as most of the media except for a very few, just embrace these woke polices of the left. Watching, listening, and reading the mass media today is in many cases like ingesting the same soup without any different flavour. The media today just use the same, words, phrases and sentences to report on events of importance. They now sing from the same page, because many of them are supported by government grants or are regulated by governments. Echoes of the Soviet Union or China’s Politburo?

The election of Donald Trump as United States President, shook the geopolitical world. The liberal elite has still not recovered. However, in many ways Trump was able to awaken citizens from their torpor and has given some the conviction that the radical move by the left should be challenged. There is no intention to advocate for violent revolution, but rather to awaken people to the fact that their freedoms are gradually being taken away, and that it is time that challenges to the increased power of governments and corporations be mounted. The unfortunate murder of George Floyd, a petty criminal, by a rogue police officer, created a perfect storm for the left to use equity and woke policies to acquire more power.  During the summer of 2020, the world witnessed the rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa. Riots, arson, looting and death was the result of a ‘summer of love’ as defined by the left. Democrats want to prosecute parents for standing up for the children’s rights and oppose the teaching of Marxist racist dogma like Critical Race Theory in schools. The defund the police movement also promoted the closure of prisons as  crime rates in mostly Democrat held cities in the U.S is rising at an alarming rate. Attorneys General supported by George Soros refuse to prosecute crimes because they believe in social justice based on equity. The result is the poor and mostly blacks and minorities  are the victims of these crimes, including murder, but for political reasons leftist politicians continue to ignore the failure of their policies of division.

Many politicians of the left saw these so-called ‘peaceful protests’ as means to gain power and win the next Presidential elections. Many politicians and corporations paid for the legal fees of rioters and looters. Corporations allowed themselves to be blackmailed by BLM and paid millions of dollars. Ignored is the fact that BLM is a Marxist organization, and in the aftermath of the 2020 riots it accumulated millions that were used by some members of the organizations to acquire personal real estate, while the real victims have never seen a penny of that million-dollar rainfall. Recently BLM purchased the former Canadian Communist party headquarters in Ontario. By contrast, the Freedom Convoy protesting the Covid mandates has its Go Fund Me millions being stopped and being investigated. Whether you believe that the January 6 was an insurrection or not, except for a very few rogue extremists, The Freedom Convoy is nowhere similar as there is no violence from either side (authorities or protesters). Unfortunately, there were some rogue members in these convoy, who tarnished the original intent of the protest. While the Liberal media has a different take on left and right protest, it was an opportunity for the Black Faced hypocrite Prime Minister of Canada to state “Today in the House, Members of Parliament unanimously condemn the antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia that we have seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days. Together, let's keep working to make Canada more inclusive.”

These Truck Protests are a result of two years of government Covid mandates around the world. The world came to a virtual standstill for two years as businesses were closed and people told to ‘Go home and Stay home’. It is now apparent that all these lockdowns may have been futile as researchers from Johns Hopkins University concluded that lockdowns like the kind imposed in early 2020 only reduced COVID mortality by 0.2% While the costs to society were huge, the effectiveness of lockdowns was marginal at best. The mental stress, especially on children not allowed to go to school, and people being forced to wear a mask in public has taken a toll on peoples’ patience.

There is one fact that is being ignored in the mass media, and Liberal minds- that because of Covid politicians at all levels found a way to acquire powers that verge on authoritarianism. As we get closer to the pandemic becoming endemic, these same politicians want to cling to these powers and do not want to free the citizens. Usually Canadians follow, but this time the Canadian Freedom Convoy is being mirrored in other countries.  It is no wonder that protests are gathering force around the world. The people of the world are starting to understand that their freedoms are at stake, even though an uninformed few are still supporting these mandates. Violence is never condoned in any circumstances, but the real issue is that we cannot blame the right and support the left because we believe in a certain ideology. Equality and not equity should be the benchmark for of our decisions. As the acceptance of Cancel Culture’ grows, we are close to losing our freedom of speech.  The law should be blind and applied equally, if it is not, we are on the verge of accepting dictatorship and lose our freedoms,