Friday May 3, 2019
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 3, 2019
Move over, Doug Ford. Jason Kenney is Canada’s new disruptor
Jason Kenney is back. First stop, Ontario.
Days after being sworn in as Alberta’s new premier Tuesday, sweeping to power with a 55-per-cent majority unrivalled by any politician in Canada today, Kenney wants to win over Ontarians.
Direct and in person.
Best known as a savvy Harper-era federal minister, officially responsible for immigration and multiculturalism, but unofficially assigned to wooing and winning the 905 vote, Kenney has reinvented himself as a fiery prairie populist.
All these years later, the Oakville-born Alberta premier still has an eye, and an ear, for the GTA.
Now he wants to be heard.
Not just by the Bay Street crowd who rewarded him with standing ovations during a lunchtime speech on Alberta’s energy woes, or from the smiling Ontario premier who pledged his support Friday (after bearing a private grudge against him for years — more on that later).
The new premier is getting his message out any way he can, not least in the pages of the Toronto Star. Which is why he sat down for a wide-ranging interview about Alberta’s plight, his political fight, and his plan to disrupt Canada even if it means talking up disunity in a country that still frets about national unity.
Ontarians, he says, should hear him out.
“Obviously, Ontario is sort of the elder brother of the federation, and I think it can play a role,” he tells me. The response at Friday’s business lunch showed “they get what Alberta is going through.”
Many politicians lay claim to a 100-day plan of action. Kenney, however, has unveiled a 100-hour agenda of disruption that he has spent years mapping out.
And he is just getting started — threatening B.C. with a fuel blockade and confronting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a constitutional challenge over control of energy resources. (Continued: Toronto Star)