I Didn't Think the Leopards Would Eat My Face

Congratulations, you played yourself

We are continuing with the Alberta separatism story by highlighting how Jason Kenney—former Premier of Alberta—brought the country to this point.

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The Separatist Call is Coming from Inside the House

What is crystal clear is conservatives flirted with far-right grievances to gain political power only for those monsters of Confederation to use their access to undermine federalism.

CALGARY—To continue last week’s “Canada is giving corruption vibes” theme, one should never leave out the grift that is Alberta separatism. And we have former Alberta premier Jason Kenney to thank for this iteration of the province’s grievances that have turned into a full-fledged attempt at sovereignty.

On April 30, independent journalist Jeremy Appel broke a story of a separatist group led by David Parker, whose Centurion Project has been accused of accessing Elections Alberta’s voter registration database. As reported by Appel in The Orchard, Elections Alberta investigator Ryan Tebb said that “the elections watchdog ‘has reason to believe’ that the organization has built a ‘database’ of voters from the electors list, and will be commencing an investigation.” The RCMP has opened a separate investigation, and The Globe and Mail has since confirmed: “Elections Alberta on Thursday alleged that a separatist organization known as the Centurion Project was using the Republican Party of Alberta’s copy of the list of electors without authorization.” So now we have a group of renegades, whose loyalty is to their own grievances, with a database of Alberta voters’ personal information. Fantastic.

Let me take you back to 2019 when Kenney won the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta and merged it with the Wild Rose Party (led at one point by current Alberta Premier Danielle Smith) to create the United Conservative Party (UCP). As detailed in a paper from York University, Taking Alberta Back: Faith, Fuel and Freedom on the Canadian Far Right, Kenney beat the Alberta NDP (then led by Rachel Notley) “on a campaign to ‘fight back’ against Ottawa’s environmental policies,” and “sought to both harness and redirect the separatist movement into his strategy to obtain a ‘fair deal’ within Canadian confederation.” It is here where the UCP married the far right in a bid for more political power, which Smith is now exploiting. It backfired for Kenney, since he became seen as one of the elites that part of the UCP base saw as an impediment to fairness for the province. Hence why he had to be soft on COVID restrictions until it was no longer feasible.

Credit: Patrick LaMontagne

In a May 4 social-media post, Kenney seemed mystified as to how the separatists became so powerful: “It’s beyond bizarre that we are letting Tin Foil Hat brigade crazies like [Jeff] Rath divide Alberta and dominate the politics of this brilliant province, while giving them our personal data to boot.”

Dude, you are the “we.”

It was Kenney who brought the idea of Alberta not getting a fair deal to the mainstream, even travelling around the country pre-COVID to promote the unfairness of equalization, which is at the core of current Albertan separatist discontent. He launched the Fair Deal Panel in 2019 “to consult Albertans on how to define and secure a fair deal for Alberta.” In the report, there is a whole section opining the unfairness of a system they do not understand, with calls for equalization reform. The panel recommended: “Proceed with the proposed referendum on equalization, asking a clear question along the lines of: ‘Do you support the removal of Section 36, which deals with the principle of equalization, from the Constitution Act, 1982?’” Once this question is legitimized by government authorities such as Kenney, why are we surprised that the separatists ran with it?

COVID eventually took Kenney down because doing the responsible thing—implementing COVID restrictions as people lay dying—is anathema to far-right dunderheads. In addition, his reputation took a hit when he was pictured dining with a group unmasked and not observing social-distancing rules that he implemented. His hypocrisy solidified the view of his inauthenticity as a good ol’ boy for the separatists, and showed him as an irresponsible manager for the province to normal people.

What is crystal clear is conservatives flirted with far-right grievances to gain political power only for those monsters of Confederation to use their access to undermine federalism. The federal Conservative party publicly aligned themselves with the Ottawa Convoy (which in itself had Western alienation roots), including selfies with now-party leader Pierre Poilievre, only for the participants in the convoy to migrate to the separatist movement. The Public Order Emergency Commission released a report on the convoy that specifically states: “The rise of the Freedom Convoy has coincided with a rise in Western separatism.” The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ brief on Alberta separatism states: “The [Ottawa Freedom Convey] movement is also benefiting from cross-border political influences, particularly conservative populism imported from the United States.”

These relationships and patterns may rightly cause one to ask how much American influence has fuelled these two integrated movements, and, to that end, did the conservatives create an opening that offers the opportunity for nefarious actors to advance their interests?

The Hill Times

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