Stephen Lougheed says he’s upset by Jason Kenney’s “disingenuous” praise of his father, the late premier Peter Lougheed. At worst, he finds it “hypocritical.”

Lee Richardson, former Conservative MP and close Lougheed aide, goes further.

Distroscale

“It turns my stomach,” he says of Kenney’s frequent attempts to link himself to Lougheed, who was the Progressive Conservative founding premier, serving from 1971 to 1985.

A week before the United Conservative Party leadership vote, the lid is popping off Alberta’s eternal battle between Lougheed-style progressives and the Reform-Conservative school, of which Kenney is a charter member.

Many heirs of Lougheed’s politics think a Kenney victory will be a final divorce decree for progressives and the UCP. They tend to favour candidate Doug Schweitzer, who presents himself as fiscally conservative and socially progressive.

If Kenney wins, many of these people may migrate to the Alberta Party. Some are already holding organizing meetings.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Kenney often harshly criticized aspects of Lougheed’s legacy when he was a young advocate for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and later as a Reform Party MP.

Today, Kenney says he wants to build a Lougheed-style “big-tent” party, drawing in conservatives of all stripes. He refers warmly to Peter Lougheed.

It drives the Lougheed loyalists crazy.

“I never, ever heard him speak of my father with any degree of respect,” says Stephen Lougheed, the eldest of four Lougheed children and former CEO of Alberta Innovates.

“Jason Kenney was an unfair critic of Peter Lougheed’s policies throughout that time,” says Richardson, former MP for Calgary-Centre, who was in the Stephen Harper federal caucus with Kenney.

“And now he wants to wrap himself in that cloak to get some support from progressive conservatives. He’s the furthest thing from a progressive conservative.”

In 1999, Kenney told the National Post:

“Klein realized Alberta could no longer afford the neo-Stalinist make-work projects of the Lougheed and Getty years, and he set about to distance himself from them.”

He was referring to the late premier Ralph Klein’s efforts to eliminate debt left by the regime of Don Getty, who succeeded Lougheed.

Neo-Stalinist? That infuriated Lougheed supporters, and no doubt Peter Lougheed himself. Stephen Lougheed is still bitter about the rhetorical link between his father and one of the 20th century’s worst political mass murderers.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Kenney says he doesn’t remember saying that, although he doesn’t deny it either.

“Did I actually use that phrase?” he said when asked by Postmedia’s James Wood. “Is that in quotes?”

It was in quotes, actually.

“I have no recollection of saying that,” Kenney continues.

“But if I did, it was obviously in jest. I have never called Peter Lougheed a socialist. That’s ridiculous. Throughout the campaign I have praised positive aspects of Peter Lougheed’s leadership.”

He names Lougheed, Klein, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, ex-PM Stephen Harper and former B.C. premier Christy Clark as leaders who have built successful conservative coalitions.

“My praise for Peter Lougheed in recent weeks has been focused on his strong fight against the Pierre Trudeau government and the National Energy Program, which I think is relevant to the predicament we’re facing today.”

He says he met Lougheed at about age 13 “and was profoundly impressed by him.”

But Stephen Lougheed remembers Kenney “as a fiercely ardent and negative critic.

“This is fair enough in that Jason was expressing his contrary ideological views and beliefs.

“Now, however, in almost every speech he gives, Jason refers to Peter Lougheed frequently, drawing parallels to himself.

“This strikes me and others I talk to as disingenuous and hypocritical, unless, of course, Jason Kenney has truly changed his views.”

Most of Kenney’s critics don’t believe that for a second.

The upshot could be the rise of yet another party, the latest in the everlasting war between Alberta’s conservative factions.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com

Twitter: @DonBraid