Jason Kenney reassures unite-the-right crowd after tumultuous week for the PCs
Jason Kenney dismissed a week's worth of very public party infighting at a Calgary town hall meeting organized to bring Alberta conservatives together.
"In any leadership election, especially when the stakes are this high, there is going to be some high emotions and some friction," the man who wants to lead Alberta conservatives told reporters after the meeting.
"But I would just ask everybody to just calm down, let's ensure the administration of a fair election and I believe if that happens you will see a huge majority of delegates voting to unite."
Kenney maintained that he has the support of many conservatives. About 300 people showed up to the Calgary meeting.
"We see that being reflected every night in local elections around the province, overwhelmingly choosing the path of unity and supporting my candidacy. We are thrilled with the directions of things."
Days earlier, Alan Hallman, a long-time PC operative and Kenney campaign worker, was booted from the party for inappropriate social media comments.
Upon learning the news, Kenney defended "field organizer" Hallman. But hours later, Kenney's campaign severed ties with him.
That created a divide between young PC supporters.
On Monday night, the executive of the Progressive Conservative Youth of Alberta, or at least some of them, named him their honourary chair in a letter posted to the group's Twitter account.
But the letter was promptly called illegitimate by other members of the youth group.
"I was not informed of any meeting, there was not any meeting called, there was no vote, there are no minutes that are being made available to myself," Sierra Garner said. She's the vice-president for southern Alberta for the PC Youth and she was not alone in rejecting the letter.
In November, Kenney supporters were accused of harassment at a party convention but the party's investigation found nothing to support that.
Kenney was fined $5,000 by the party later that month after he showed up to an Edmonton delegate selection meeting against party rules.
Two prominent political writers have openly wondered about the future of the PC party.
"Will the Alberta Progressive Conservative party dare to kick out Jason Kenney at this late point in the chaotic leadership race? The PC board members might just do it," columnist Don Braid wrote in the Calgary Herald on Wednesday.
While a day earlier, Jason Markusoff posted an article with the headline "The Alberta PCs are burning. That's fine by Jason Kenney," in Macleans.
Kenney faces stiff opposition to merging the right-wing parties by some.
Colin Poole, a staunch supporter of the Wildrose party, couldn't hold his tongue at Thursday's meeting after he said Kenney was disrespectful to his party.
"What he is doing now is further compromising and dividing the position that many of us on the right felt was appropriate," Poole said after being tossed from the meeting for calling out Kenney at the podium.
"Given the comments he made about Wildrose tonight, I just can't buy it, I can't swallow it."
The Calgary resident supports uniting the right but with a catch.
"I don't think that uniting is necessary. I think that anybody who wanted to unite the right, all they needed to do was vote Wildrose."
Meanwhile, Kenney dismissed the fractures and drama by doubling down on his Hallman defence.
"I think most people would agree that the sanction he received was disproportionate to the offence. He apparently didn't even have a right to respond, which would seem to be a violation of due process and natural justice," Kenney said.
"All of that is unfortunate."
