EDMONTON — Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner says she will not run in the race to replace Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, characterizing his United Conservative caucus and party as rife with anger, intrigue and implacable division.
Rempel Garner said in a social media post Thursday that she has the willingness, experience, fundraising and popular support to take a serious run at the job, but questioned how she could repair the profound rifts while preparing for a provincial election next spring.
“In the hundred-plus conversations I’ve had with folks close to the situation over the last week, my key takeaway was that the acrimony that led up to Jason’s leadership review is still raw,” wrote Rempel Garner.
“A clear division exists,” she added.
“(There are) those who don’t want the former leadership team to retain any hold on power and those who are part of the former leadership team and want to entirely maintain the status quo.
“Neither of these positions are tenable. The public has no sympathy for it, either.”
She said, “No one I talked to felt there was a simple policy vision that could inspire the team enough to easily overcome this division in a short period of time.”
Rempel Garner, the MP for Calgary Nose Hill, announced on Twitter last week she was seriously considering a run for the job, stepping aside as campaign co-chair for Patrick Brown’s federal Conservative leadership bid to do so.
She said the capstone on her decision came earlier this week when it was learned that several United Conservative caucus members, some of whom she has long friendships with, fought against granting her a waiver on her lapsed party membership card to allow her to run.
“And while the waiver was granted, and I didn’t take any of this stuff to heart, my suspicions about what I’d be in for from caucus if I became leader were validated,” she wrote.
Rempel Garner said the problems she is seeing in the UCP mirror problems in the federal Conservative party as it recently cycled through leaders Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole.
“In both parties there have also been squabbles that have erupted in the pages of national media: public meltdowns, nearly missed physical fights, coups, smear jobs, leaked recordings and confidential emails, lack of consensus on critical issues, caucus turfings, people harassed to the point where they resign roles, and hours-long meetings where members have been subjected to hours of public castigation,” she wrote.
“In virtually every other workplace much of the stuff that has happened would be treated as a violation of labour codes, but in politics it’s considered Human Resources 101.”
Kenney announced last month he was stepping down as UCP leader and premier after receiving just 51 per cent support in a party leadership review.
The vote followed more than a year of public attacks and sniping within Kenney’s caucus and party over his performance as leader.
Kenney has blamed critics he said never forgave him for limiting public freedoms to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Others, including caucus members, said he ran an arrogant, exclusionary, top-down and tone-deaf administration that was too deferential to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government.
Kenney will step down when a new leader is chosen Oct. 6.
There are eight candidates who have announced they are running, including four former Kenney cabinet ministers.
One of those candidates, former Wildrose party leader Danielle Smith, wrote on Twitter, that many Rempel Garner’s concerns regarding the UCP are valid.
“Unity cannot be an empty phrase demanded by the status quo or a single party leader,” Smith wrote. “It must be earned through policy that rebuilds trust, especially among our middle class.”
The United Conservative Party formed in 2017 when the Progressive Conservatives under Jason Kenney and Wildrose Party joined forces.
Kenney was named the inaugural leader and the party won a majority government in 2019.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2022.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
