Alberta Progressive Conservative Leadership Election - March 18, 2017

[RogueBeaver]

Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson is in.

[Njall]

PC MLA Richard Starke (Vermilion-Lloydminster) entered the race today. Also, Donna Kennedy-Glans officially launched her campaign.

[Njall]

The party officially kicked off the race in Lethbridge last night.

[Njall]

Former St. Albert MLA Stephen Khan will join the race this coming week.

[RogueBeaver]

Jansen out. Kennedy-Glans also out.

[Njall]

With the extremely unfortunate aforementioned withdrawals and with nominations having closed today, the candidate list is as follows:

• Jason Kenney, former Conservative MP for Calgary Midnapore
• Stephen Khan, former PC MLA for St. Albert
• Byron Nelson, lawyer and 2015 PC candidate in Calgary-Bow
• Richard Starke, PC MLA for Vermilion-Lloydminster

At this point, my money's on Starke winning as the consensus non-unite-the-right candidate.

[RogueBeaver]

Jansen is now a Dipper.

[Hatman 🍁]

that's the second Tory to join the NDP this Fall. (The NDP candidate in Niagara West-Glanbrook was a card carrying Tory up until he was nominated!)

Anyways, doesn't the NDP have a no party switching policy?

[DL]

Anyways, doesn't the NDP have a no party switching policy?

Apparently that is a federal NDP policy that was never adopted by the Alberta NDP :-)

[Hatman 🍁]

Anyways, doesn't the NDP have a no party switching policy?

Apparently that is a federal NDP policy that was never adopted by the Alberta NDP :-)

Yeah, but it's a policy I support, so this is a bit disappointing. I'm sure the voters in her riding won't be happy.

[Njall]

Anyways, doesn't the NDP have a no party switching policy?

Apparently that is a federal NDP policy that was never adopted by the Alberta NDP :-)

Yeah, but it's a policy I support, so this is a bit disappointing. I'm sure the voters in her riding won't be happy.

I sincerely doubt that any voters in suburban Calgary will be re-electing their NDP MLAs, tbh.

Personally, I suspect that Jansen may not even be planning on running for re-election, and that this switch was in-part motivated by a belief that she can be more productive and impactful for the last two-and-a-half years of her term as a government MLA.

[Njall]

Following complaints that the Jason Kenney campaign violated leadership race rules by holding a hospitality suite in the same building as the Edmonton-Ellerslie delegate selection meeting on Nov. 16, the party CRO has thrown out the results of the Edmonton-Ellerslie DSM, and the party board has approved the recommended $5000 fine to be levied against the Kenney campaign. A full ruling by the CRO can be found here.

[2952-0-0]

Jason Kenney has clearly learned well from his time as Harper's right hand man.

[DC Al Fine]

So does anyone have any knowledge of how the race is shaping up?

All I hear from people here is "Kenney will win a glorious landslide" and "Progressives shall retake the party, no one wants Kenney and he will win 12%"

[Njall]

So does anyone have any knowledge of how the race is shaping up?

All I hear from people here is "Kenney will win a glorious landslide" and "Progressives shall retake the party, no one wants Kenney and he will win 12%"

Even as someone who's involved in the party but not on a leadership campaign, I don't fully know how it's going. Since Edmonton-Ellerslie was overturned, 3 of the 87 CAs have held their delegate selection meetings, and the limited rumours on Twitter (albeit mostly from pro-Kenney accounts) seem to have him far ahead (if I recall correctly, the claim is that he has 35 of the 45 delegates that have been elected so far). However, friends who are involved with the other campaigns are claiming that the reported Kenney numbers are being inflated.

There are a few other factors that should be considered here. First, Kenney had a big head-start in organizational ground game, and this as well as his strong-arming tactics were first put on display at the Red Deer policy conference. I mention this because members need to have been part of the party for at least 14 days in order to stand as delegates and vote in their local delegate selection meetings. Personally, I'm hoping that his behaviour during and immediately after the policy conference spurred the other campaigns and general anti-Kenney people into action by recruiting more members to support their aims, but anyone who joined in the immediate aftermath of the policy conference wouldn't have been able to vote in the first few DSMs due to when they were scheduled.

Second, the distribution of the ex-officio delegates (I'll probably start calling them superdelegates) must be considered. A number of individuals, including the party Board of Directors, the Presidents of each constituency association, all current and past PC MLAs, and past Presidents of the party, are entitled to attend the convention and vote for leader. It's hard at this point to say how many superdelegates will attend, and further to that, how they will vote. This is especially true for past MLAs; this group could potentially number over 100 (I believe), and the breakdown between pro- and anti-Kenney former MLAs is really hard to predict (I've seen several former MLAs in both camps, in general with Lougheed/Getty and Stelmach/Redford/Prentice-era former MLAs leaning anti-Kenney and Klein-era former MLAs leaning pro-Kenney).

[DC Al Fine]

Thanks for the update

[Njall]

Speaking of superdelegates, yesterday Kenney announced the support of 50 former PC MLAs. According to numbers that I've seen, this represents about 20-25% of the total number of living former PC MLAs, though not all will likely make it to the leadership convention to vote in person. Most of the people on Kenney's list aren't surprising, and a number had previously announced their support individually.

In DSM news, there are conflicting reports on who won the Edmonton-Castle Downs DSM last night. The majority that I've seen, including from former MLA Thomas Lukaszuk, indicate that anti-Kenney delegate won 10 of the 15 spots, but Kenney's claiming he won 11 of the 15...

[RogueBeaver]

Markusoff on Kenney's mission.

[Njall]

State of the Race: December 4, 2016

As of now, 14 of the 87 Delegate Selection Meetings have been held across the province, and another 16 will be held before the winter holidays. The campaigns have been putting out conflicting numbers from most of the DSMs and there is no official count from the party because delegates could change their allegiances after being elected. However, I have put together some rough tabulations of the state of the race so far. The following calculations take into account constituency delegates only, and do not include any "superdelegates" (Party Board, Constituency Presidents, current and former MLAs, etc.). Numbers will also be shown in pro-Kenney vs. anti-Kenney (alternately, unity vs. renewal) form, as that is how delegate counts are being presented on social media.

Count based on Kenney Sources (likely Kenney ceiling): Kenney-Anti Kenney
Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville: 10-5
Spruce Grove-St. Albert: 11-4
Edmonton-Mill Woods: 14-0
Edmonton-Castle Downs: 11-4
Calgary-Acadia: 15-0
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake: 14-1
Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview: 14-1
Little Bow: 11-4
Vermilion-Lloydminster: 0-15
Red Deer-South: 9-6
Edmonton-Manning: 12-1
Calgary-West: 15-0
Edmonton-Rutherford: 12-2
Edmonton-Riverview: 5-10

TOTAL: 157 Kenney, 49 Anti-Kenney



Count based on non-Kenney Sources (likely anti-Kenney ceiling): Kenney-Anti Kenney
Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville: 8-7
Spruce Grove-St. Albert: 9-6
Edmonton-Mill Woods: 7-7
Edmonton-Castle Downs: 10-5
Calgary-Acadia: 15-0
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake: 8-7
Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview: 12-3
Little Bow: 6-9
Vermilion-Lloydminster: 0-15
Red Deer-South: 9-6
Edmonton-Manning: 10-3
Calgary-West: 13-2
Edmonton-Rutherford: 5-10
Edmonton-Riverview: 5-10

TOTAL: 112 Kenney, 94 Anti-Kenney

[Njall]

Richard Starke has received the endorsement of fellow MLA Wayne Drysdale (Grande Prairie-Wapiti). Rumors have been floating around that Kenney has been threatening not to sign nomination papers of current MLAs and prospective candidates if he wins and they don't back him, so this is a bigger deal than it initially may seem.

[RogueBeaver]

Kenney seems confident. Globe claims he's won 2/3 of delegates so far.

[Pandaguineapig]

Kenney seems confident. Globe claims he's won 2/3 of delegates so far.

How many pc's do you think defect to the ndp if Kenney successfully merges with wildrose?

[RogueBeaver]

Kenney says he's far ahead, others concede he's ahead.

[DC Al Fine]

Kenney seems confident. Globe claims he's won 2/3 of delegates so far.

How many pc's do you think defect to the ndp if Kenney successfully merges with wildness?

I'm no expert, so Njall or RogueBeaver please correct me if I'm wrong...

If the federal conservative merger is any indicator, one or two prominent people will quit, and a similar amount will sit as independents and not run again.

Of course, the PC's only have eight MLA's now that Jansen has defected, so we could probably make educated guesses for all of them. I assume McIver and the two MLA endorsements Kenney has would stay. What about the rest?

[RogueBeaver]

I only know what I read in Alberta papers, so ask Njall.