'He has lost': Kenney critic warns his UCP constituency won't accept premier win in review
The ballots are in and tension is building within the United Conservative Party ahead of Wednesday's revelation of the result of Jason Kenney's leadership review.
Last week, UCP MLA Brian Jean demanded that the premier get far more votes than the simple 50 per cent plus one that's mandated in the party's bylaws.
Kenney affirmed that's also the bar he's set for himself to stay on as premier and party leader.
On Tuesday, a UCP constituency official warned he and others won't agree to a victory by Kenney of any sort.
"We will not believe that result. We will not accept it, but we won't even believe it, because our own polling here within our constituency is 72 per cent against Premier Kenney," Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills president Rob Smith told CTV News Edmonton.
Smith has been critical of Kenney and the voting process for months. He will not stop fighting against the premier, and said he's speaking on behalf of "thousands of Albertans" who are certain that Kenney will lose to the NDP in the next election, if he stays on.
“The results of tomorrow don’t matter. Our minds are made up, and I am sorry, but they don’t involve you,” he said of his message to the premier's office.
KENNEY DEFENDS LOW BAR
Kenney has promised to respect the result of the vote, and he defended the goal he set by claiming that the UCP pool of voters has been diluted by thousands of angry members bent on destruction.
“People who are saying (I have) to get, say, 90 per cent or something really aren't appreciating the different context of this,” he said Monday in Washington, D.C.
Former conservative premiers Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford separately received 77 per cent in their leadership reviews. Each resigned months later.
But the premier claims the "dynamics" of his review are different, saying that "thousands" of new members have signed up to vote against him because of controversial COVID-19 policies.
“I don't expect many of those people to stick around. They came into this vote to destabilize the government, and that cohort typically has never before been involved in a mainstream centre-right party,” Kenney explained.
UCP REFUSES TO GIVE INTERVIEW, TOUR OF AUDIT OFFICE
The UCP hired accounting firm Deloitte to oversee its leadership mail-in ballot. A live stream of the audit process was launched online.
CTV News Edmonton made multiple requests for a tour of that site and an interview about the process, but UCP officials declined.
Jean, Smith and others, including sitting MLAs, have publicly complained about the decision to do mail-in balloting after an event in Red Deer was cancelled.
A local political scientist said the livestream is not likely to calm concerns that people were signed up, and subsequently voted, without their knowledge.
"Something is better than nothing, but the problem rests with things that could have occurred previous to those ballots even being sent out," said Lori Williams at Mount Royal University.
She agrees with Smith that many UCP supporters will not trust a Kenney victory.
Kenney's 2017 leadership victory over Jean is still being probed by the RCMP and correspondence obtained by The Canadian Press indicates Elections Alberta is investigating allegations of possible illegal bulk buying of party memberships in Wednesday's vote.
"The Battle of Alberta might go on for seven games when it comes to hockey, but it will go on much longer when it comes to the UCP, and to Alberta politics," Williams predicted.
The UCP is expected to release results of the vote between 4 and 6 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Kenney is expected to make a speech in Calgary afterwards.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Chelan Skulski and The Canadian Press
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Former Air Canada employees among suspects identified in gold heist at Pearson Airport: police
Nine people have been arrested in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year, Peel Regional Police said Wednesday.
MPs summon ArriveCan contractor to the House to be admonished in rare parliamentary display
Enacting an extraordinarily rarely used parliamentary power, MPs have summoned an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon to be admonished publicly for failing to answer their questions.
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
Gas prices across Ontario expected to climb to levels not seen since 2022, analyst says
Ontario is going to see a big jump at the pumps later this week as gas prices in the province hit levels not seen in nearly two years, according to one industry analyst.
Ancient skeletons unearthed in France reveal Mafia-style killings
More than 5,500 years ago, two women were tied up and probably buried alive in a ritual sacrifice, using a form of torture associated today with the Italian Mafia, according to an analysis of skeletons discovered at an archaeological site in southwest France.
'Enormous sum of money': Actor Hugh Grant settles privacy lawsuit against tabloid
British actor Hugh Grant has settled a lawsuit against the publisher of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspaper, The Sun, over claims journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house, he said on Wednesday.
O.J. Simpson was chilling with a beer on a couch before Easter, lawyer says. 2 weeks later he was dead
O.J. Simpson's last robust discussion with his longtime lawyer was just before Easter, at the country club home Simpson leased southwest of the Las Vegas Strip. About a week later, on April 5, a doctor said Simpson was 'transitioning.'
Some of the winners and losers in the 2024 federal budget
With a variety of fiscal and policy measures announced in the federal budget, winners include small businesses and fintech companies while losers include the tobacco industry and Canadian pension funds.
U.K. plan to phase out smoking for good passes first hurdle
The British government's plan for a landmark smoking ban that aims to stop young people from ever smoking cleared its first hurdle in Parliament on Tuesday despite vocal opposition from within Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party.