When and if Premier Jason Kenney and Preston Manning decide to analyze why their conservative picks in Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton were decisively defeated by progressive candidates, the answer may be as simple as ‘behaviour’.
Let’s start with Jeromy Farkas in Calgary, who prior to being a City Councillor was a senior fellow at the Manning Foundation.
In 2018 he was kicked out of the council chambers over a ‘misleading’ Facebook post.
Integrity Commissioner, Sal LoVecchio, found Farkas had undermined public confidence in city council. His punishment was to say ‘sorry’ to fellow council members and the residents of Calgary.
He refused.
Then there’s Edmonton’s Mike Nickel. In July 2020, the City of Edmonton Integrity Commissioner, Jamie Pytel, found that Nickel posted tweets that, “were disrespectful, lacked decorum, contained personal attacks, and misleading information”, that contravened city council’s Code of Conduct.
Subsequently in 2021, he was found in violation of council’s Conduct of Conduct in two more matters.
In Red Deer, Buck Buchanan violated Code of Conduct Rules in three areas for his social media posts and comments.
Unlike the major cities who have full-time staff, Red Deer had to pay an outside consultant $20,000 to investigate.
Buchanan was suspended from attending committee meetings and assuming rotating deputy mayor roles until he gave an apology—which he eventually did when the election was looming.
This may explain why all three did so poorly in the civic elections. Men who cannot meet minimum standards of conduct have no place in civic leadership roles.
Also noteworthy, both Farkas and Nickel usually voted ‘no’ to every motion brought before their respective councils. The easiest way to avoid responsibility is to never support anything! That’s not someone you want in leadership where decision-making is paramount.
Preston Manning and company seem to believe that because the bombastic, unprofessional, child-like behaviour of Donald Trump in the U.S. and Boris Johnson in the U.K. are highly popular in their respective countries, that it should work in Canada.
Perhaps it’s time for a re-assessment.
Jason Kenney is sitting at 22 per cent popularity and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe is making an even bigger mess of COVID-19 because of his petty hatred for Trudeau.
In contrast, Doug Ford of Ontario has set aside his populist behaviour and has become statesman-like and a well-respected conservative leader likely to win re-election.
Maybe it’s time for Preston Manning and company to get out of their 1930 ideology time-warp, and consider the year 2022.
Stephen Harper, Preston Manning’s number one success story, won a minority government, governed like a conservative and was rewarded with a majority.
Yet four years later, he lost to his arch-enemy, third-party leader Justin Trudeau, because of his and his cabinet ministers lack of decorum and respect for others. Pettiness and mean-spiritedness towards immigrants, First Nations, LGBTQ, and the less fortunate became the lasting hallmark of the Harper regime. The snitch lines, burkas and barbaric cultural practices still resonate in the minds of many Canadians, especially in vote-rich suburban areas.
The aforementioned men, who I refuse to call conservatives, but rather oversized male egotists with chips on their shoulders, haven’t served the conservative brand well.
Federal leader, Erin O’Toole, may not be everyone’s choice, but he’s the first Conservative leader since Brian Mulroney and Peter Lougheed that shows attributes necessary for successful leadership—respect, decorum, integrity, humility and adult behaviour.
Arrogant, stand-alone, bombastic, sleight-of-hand, childish behaviour isn’t what the majority of Albertans or Canadians need, or in most cases want, in their political leaders.
Brenda Schimke
ECA Review
