Bell: Kenney looks back as campaign nears end

Jason Kenney speaks to the media at his first convention as leader of the United Conservative Party in Red Deer, Alta., Sunday, May 6, 2018.Jeff McIntosh / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Been a long campaign.

But it takes longer to walk through the mud.

When the Notley NDP decided the only way to win was to paint a bullseye on United Conservative leader Jason Kenney, the election campaign got strange, more a slimefest than a fight over ideas.

With election day upon us, a lot of people want more than the personal takedown.

Readers are going for stories like Brad Wall pulling back the curtain on the real Rachel Notley and Vivian Krause telling us how foreign-funded, anti-oilsands cash is trying to defeat Kenney.

Kenney nears the end of the campaign trail. He talks to me, the premier doesn’t. I’ve tried.

“It’s bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like it in Canadian politics,” says the UCP leader, speaking of the ballot battle.

Kenney figures it was quite the win for the NDP in 2015 and they want to cling to power and they’ll do what they think they have to do.

“What they’ve done is run a campaign no one is listening to outside their left-wing echo chamber. It’s backfiring on them. There are precious few Alberta voters who want this kind of mudslinging.”

Some things clearly bug the man who wants to be premier, like being accused of racism when he did so much to welcome immigrants as the immigration minister in Ottawa.

Having a UCP candidate accused on social media of promoting white supremacy. The candidate is a black Albertan born in Africa.

“That’s how ridiculous this has become. It’s not pleasant but I can’t let it get to me. I’ve got a bit of an Irish scrapper in me. I can’t stand sitting in the bleachers. I’ve got to be on the field.”

The self-described “ideas guy” got his work ethic from his mom. He’s proud to tell me “his larger-than-life Irish charmer” dad once coached Barry Trotz.

Trotz coached the Washington Capitals to the Stanley Cup.

Kenney’s dad, who waited in a Calgary hospital emergency room and died.

“I just don’t understand how this can happen, 14 hours in a chair being ignored while he is dying. How does that happen in one of the most expensive health care systems in the world?

“This happens to too many families.”

Kenney does not apologize for uniting two conservative parties.

“Imagine if we hadn’t done this. Just imagine.

“We’d have a PC party and a Wildrose party blowing their brains out. Look at where the NDP is at. They could pull it off a second time. And then, will the last person to leave please turn the lights off.”

If Kenney and his United Conservatives are elected, what will the man think of when the moment the news breaks.

“I’ll think of my dad and how he died,” says Kenney.

He also tells a story. The story still rattles him. It was back when he started this journey leading to this election.

“I will also think about a young man I met on Aug. 4, 2016, at the Esso station in Hardisty,” recalls Kenney.

He is filling up his truck. A young guy in a beat-up pickup pulls up behind Kenney. He’s wearing coveralls with mud all over him.

He rushes up to Kenney, looking real agitated.

“Are you the Kenney guy?” he says.

Kenney thinks he must have cut him off or something.

He asks Kenney how long it will be before the UCP leader can get rid of the NDP.

Kenney says about three years. The guy says it’s not fast enough.

“He says: ‘Well sir, please understand this really matters.’ He’s like putting his finger in my chest,” recalls Kenney.

“He says: ‘My dad lost his job over a year ago. He can’t find any work and he’s getting depressed and I’m worried about him.’”

The guy is a 17-year-old kid and he’s the only paycheque for his mom and dad and his four brothers and sisters. He tells Kenney the pressure is getting to him.

“This kid starts crying in front of me. In any normal time in our history this 17-year-old kid in Hardisty would be working hard and playing hard and wouldn’t know who I am and what the NDP is.”

What would Kenney tell the kid if the UCP leader becomes premier?

“Sorry it took three years but we finally got ‘er done.”


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