Letter: Article on Kenney a comedy of recorded errors

By Letter to the Editor on October 12, 2022.

Dear editor,

On Oct. 4, the News carried a full page forensic analysis of Jason Kenney’s ignominious fall from grace.

Even for me, a longtime critic and disparager of all things Kenney, I found the article a withering death sentence, not just for his career, but also for the party he created. The author, a journalist for The Canadian Press out of Edmonton, was well placed to chronicle the rise and demise of this political pugilist, and the article reads like the diary of a journey that started smoothly enough but soon soured into a fractious cat parade.

Differences soon disunited this UCP to the point of dismemberment. Kenney’s top-down agenda and his blueprint penchant for picking fights openly and often, characterized his government. Most damaging to Albertans was Kenney’s strongly held belief in the conservative principle of ‘prosperity first’. The wealth creators must be protected and supported first, and then in a distant future, the needs of families and the public can be considered.

Kenney is quoted as saying “… in order to be a compassionate and generous society you must first be a prosperous one.”

This is essentially the old Ronald Reagan ‘Trickle Down’ theory, which did anything but ‘trickle down’ in the US. Likewise, it failed in Alberta, leaving many a loved one suffering alone in the emergency wards.

The Oct. 4 article, “Kenney set to step down from Alberta top job” is a catalogue of mistakes, miscues, his lack of character, his inability to collaborate, his refusal to take responsibility for the off again, on again chaos of COVID, (Best Summer Ever??) his many bad and sad decisions. The article is fair, accurate and disturbing. It will delight people like me; it will enrage followers of Danielle Smith; it will embarrass many good conservatives. It will inform everyone. It should be required reading before the next election.

Peter Mueller

Medicine Hat

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