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Analysis
Politics

Jason Kenney Does Nothing Again

Omicron and political rival Brian Jean are both coming for the Alberta premier. He’s yet to make a move.

David Climenhaga 15 Dec 2021Alberta Politics

David J. Climenhaga is an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet and trade union communicator. He blogs at Alberta Politics. Follow him on Twitter @djclimenhaga.
JasonKenneyOpenSummerPodium.jpg
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has already got it wrong in handling COVID-19. A Christmas Omicron surge poses new challenges. Photo via Alberta Government.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney hardly seemed to know what to do Tuesday. As a result, he did nothing.

Kenney was scheduled to make a big announcement about health care, widely assumed based on hints dropped by the premier himself to be a relaxation of holiday restrictions just in time for another wave of COVID-19.

If this seems unwise with the wildly infectious Omicron variant of the COVID virus now starting to show up in Alberta, it’s completely on brand for Kenney — he’s done the same thing before with terrible results. Who can forget Alberta’s “Best Summer Ever”?

The same day, Kenney had to decide what to do about former Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean, who has just won the United Conservative Party nomination for the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche byelection on a platform of forcing Kenney out of office and taking his job.

Jean was on CBC Radio’s Edmonton morning show Tuesday saying it’s time for Kenney to do the right thing and go voluntarily for the high jump.

“Mr. Kenney knows in his heart what is the right thing to do for the party, for the members, and for Albertans,” Jean told host Mark Connolly. “He knows it because everybody else in Alberta knows it!”

Fuelled by the fact no one in the Premier’s Office has uttered a formal word of congratulation since Jean announced his own victory Sunday night, rumours were flying Tuesday that Kenney would refuse to sign Jean’s nomination papers.

This would be an epic and embarrassing flip-flop for a premier who, back in November, said Jean could run if he wanted to and promised he’d approve his nomination… as long as he passed the party’s standard vetting process.

So if they’re going to dump him now, vetting is about all they’ll have left for an excuse — which is going to look pretty weak since the guy was making no bones about his plans when Kenney said it would be OK for him to run.

Still, this too would be on-brand for Alberta’s premier.

Since Kenney must have known reporters at his scheduled 3:30 p.m. COVID news conference were bound to be poor sports and ask about Jean, it may have come as a relief when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau summoned Canada’s provincial and territorial premiers to a Zoom call about the ominous advent of Omicron.

At any rate, Kenney’s minions first delayed the premier’s news conference to 5 p.m., and then announced it had been cancelled.

They didn’t even say if they were going to give away free COVID rapid-test kits, which was supposed to be justification for relaxing restrictions to please the UCP base when the precautionary principle suggests toughening them up.

So, at this hour, we don’t know what Kenney is going to do next, if anything, about COVID. And we don’t know what’s he’s going to do about Jean either.

But whatever it is he does about either question, it will probably make a lot of people he’d rather not annoy unhappy with him.

It takes a special talent to paint yourself into two separate corners simultaneously, but Jason Kenney seems to have managed just that. [Tyee]

Read more: Politics

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