Edmonton independent journalist Duncan Kinney is running in Albert's senate election in an effort to display the irrelevancy of the entire process.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Alberta’s senate candidate Duncan Kinney’s platform is simple: if you don’t like Premier Jason Kenney, vote for him.
His satirical campaign also revolves around the notion of the senate election being “fake” and wanting to talk about all of the issues he believes Kenney doesn’t want on anyone’s mind.
“If you vote for me it will surely piss Kenney off,” he said. “I am an independent journalist, I have taken Kenney to court and won … I think it would really stick in his craw to have to officially write a letter to the prime minister saying, ‘pretty please will you make this enemy of mine a senator?'”
Kinney is an independent journalist who’s lived and worked in Edmonton for the past 12 years. He is originally from Calgary where he received a bachelors degree of communications and journalism from Mount Royal University. In 2016 Kinney founded Progress Alberta, which has been running ever since. It started off as an investigative and advocacy journalism platform.
Kinney says it would be extremely unlikely that himself or anyone that wins the Alberta senate elections becomes a senator. But in “the extremely unlikely event” he becomes senator, his focus will be on investigating corruption among those in power.
“I don’t have a lot of respect for the senate as an institution, I think we should get rid of it. It’s an anti-democratic relic of our colonial past and I’ve been doing everything in my power to make that happen,” he said.
His campaign message, beyond the senate election being fake and running to anger Jason Kenney, is to hopefully end senate elections all together.
“If someone like me were to win these quote-unquote senate elections, there is a very good chance we would never have one of these silly, fake senate elections again.”
The senate election will be held on Oct. 18, in conjunction with the Alberta municipal elections.
