Laying It Out: Uniting just to win just means everyone loses

By Medicine Hat News Opinion on May 22, 2021.

“The lesson of Alberta’s 2015 and 2019 elections is that when conservatives are united, they win. When they aren’t, they lose. It’s up to the UCP caucus members to decide which it will be.” — Katy Merrifield, National Post op-ed

Former communications director to Premier Jason Kenney, Katy Merrifield, is getting pretty outspoken within her new, non-government role as B.C. vice president for Wellington Advocacy, the highly active and suspiciously successful lobbyist group where all Kenney’s best pals seem to end up.

True to form, she’s been making it known that the current United Conservative leader — the one who united conservatives in the first place — is not just the best man for the job, he’s the only man for the job.

She’s had some amazing quotes this week, such as on CBC’s West of Centre podcast, where she blasted dissenting UCP MLAs who publicly opposed restrictions as the third wave was exploding, and questioned their qualifications.

Within a pointed rant regarding the 18 MLAs who signed or endorsed the now infamous anti-restrictions letter, she said, “I have the greatest respect for about 80% of the UCP caucus, but some of these folks wouldn’t be capable of governing a lemonade stand on a hot summer day.”

While a truer statement could only be made by chopping the 80% figure in half, one only needs to pile on MLAs like Cypress-Medicine Hat’s Drew Barnes so high, and I covered what he lacks in detail last week. Apparently others are also questioning what he brings to the table, but if you’re still on the fence check out his recent “What’s Next?” column for a weekly update on how to be stronger and freer.

It’s become so meaninglessly repetitive, Barnes might as well just write “I am Groot” and be done with it.

Nonetheless…

The quote leading this column is from a recent op-ed Merrifield wrote in the National Post. Most of the piece is aimed at making Kenney look like a great leader whose only problem is a group of dissident MLAs whose “insane” policy ideas have mucked up an otherwise great political career.

But what she’s trying to do is remind conservatives of Alberta that they need to stay together, or else they’ll lose. And she’s absolutely right, except, what she fails to mention but made clear through the desperation of her rallying cry, is this time Alberta’s “conservatives” might just lose to a more progressive party even if they stay together.

And if you’re among the group of progressive Albertans (conservative or otherwise) tired of seeing the word demonized in favour of far-right, cold-hearted, doesn’t-work policy — adopted in spades by the UCP despite Merrifield’s attempt to distance from the insanity — then losing as one is actually the more favourable outcome.

We don’t have to speculate on what would happen should the UCP and Wildrose Independence split the vote in Alberta, because the NDP would win and it wouldn’t be close. But when the same scenario led to an NDP majority in 2015 with less than 45% of the popular vote, conservative parties and their bases became so obsessed with correcting the “accident” they allowed for a merger that wasn’t in their own interest.

Albertans rejected the premise of a Wildrose government on two separate occasions, but as we’ve seen by the unpopular policies pouring from the legislature since May 2019, “uniting” the conservative vote clearly resulted in something similar.

If the NDP wins in 2023 because of vote splitting, what stops the process from repeating all over again, with the resulting “unification” being nothing more than another unwanted shift further to the right?

Admitting our current government is not working for Albertans does not make you a socialist, and if we keep giving in to these people out of “fear” of the NDP, it gives them free rein to further act in detriment to our needs. And when conservatives come together for power instead of policy, that’s precisely what we get.

As strange as it feels to write, Merrifield and I want the same thing, which is the complete removal of the “insane” aspect of Alberta’s politics. We might differ on what all falls into the category, but there’s no doubt we agree most of those 18 MLAs are part of it.

Equally strange is we agree the best thing for Alberta is for the United Conservatives to remain that way. The difference is she believes Kenney can rid the party of the insane by winning united in 2023, while I would suggest the most plausible chance comes from losing the same way.

If Alberta’s conservative politicians can’t win with all their votes in one place, it might finally send the message that “too far right” is not good for anyone. It might remind them that most conservative Albertans still have love and compassion for each other, and just because people respect freedoms of business and the individual does not mean they put those ahead of basic human decency.

Barnes and his former Wildrose colleagues still under the UCP’s “big tent” have repeatedly proven for more than a year that in their view, absolutely nothing trumps their right to do what they want, or make money how they want – not even disease.

That is not now, and has never been what Alberta is truly about. At the moment, Kenney – with an assist from Merrifield — is distancing himself from those people because he’s become aware that hitching his wagon to their “insane policy ideas” isn’t what Albertans want.

But if Albertans want him to keep that distance in the future, maybe for now we should ensure they stay close.