On February 28, 2017 the Conservative Party of Canada held their leadership debate in Edmonton, AB.

I’m a progressive guy, but I live in Alberta. I am used to interacting with Conservatives, and I’m fairly well versed in their language and mannerisms.

I wanted to see what their party was like up close, so I showed up unannounced and talked my way in the door with media credentials.

When I enter the the Citadel Theatre, I spot a who’s who of Alberta’s Conservative leadership, stalwarts, pundits, up and comers.

Brian Jean

Derek Fildebrandt and Brian Jean take the front row stage right, and thirteen of the fourteen Conservative party leadership candidates lined up on chairs. Local MP Kerry Diotte was stage left, up a few rows from the stage.

Michael Chong gets booed by the Albertan crowd when he talks about his plan for a revenue neutral carbon tax, and the panel singles him out throughout the debate.

Chong speaks to the crowd, Brian Jean and Derek Fildebrandt front row

He stands his ground, raises his chin, and comes at them swinging. I’m not sure if he won over the crowd, but he definitely put a few of the others on the mat. He was the only one of these guys that I’d even think of voting for. They don’t deserve a candidate this good. An aspirational candidate who defines their party as a reasonable, business minded, big tent party. While other candidates reach for their basest and most foul instincts, Chong appeals to their best traits. He’s business driven, open to the world, and pays thoughtful attention to policy and data.

He’s one of maybe two candidates focused on building an inclusive party that could make an attempt at defeating Trudeau’s coalition (the other being Obhrai). The rest seem to be focusing inwards, on soothing their wounds from the rejection of ’15, on confirming that there’s nothing wrong with them and voters were just seduced by a handsome head of hair.

I meet Chong in the scrum. He’s flanked by local Tory up-and-comers @arundeepyeg and @PonNatalie I snap a photo of them and I go back into the scrum and take more pictures. Petersen wearing an Oilers jersey, Leitch in pink and white, Bernier, in blue and red, the rest nearly indistinguishable in gray flannel suits.

Stephen Blaney had me show off his engineer ring, and he appeared to be having the most fun of anyone in the room.

Here’s where my evening starts to get weird. I hear two guys on the edge of the scrum joking about an undercover New Democrat. (Someone wore orange to this Blue-on-Blue-on-Blue event). I joke about Rick Peterson’s Oiler’s jersey with a pair of guys wearing Leitch pins, and remark that I didn’t care if McDavid voted for a cat, as long as he kept putting the puck in the net. They start yelling about how nobody put the puck in the net tonight, because immigrants are going to steal our jobs.

Rick Petersen, allegedly an undercover New Democrat

They keep yelling about how immigrant kids are so much smarter than our kids, that there’s no way they can succeed with this sort of competition and that I need to think about my grandchildren. I try and divert them, and mention that I’ve been laid off since August. They start yelling about how this is all because of “those Libtards” and the carbon tax, and “those immigrants stealing jobs”. They continue on with yelling about how inferior our school system is and how the immigrants are coming in to boss us around, and how we’re all doomed because of it. I tell them that all we can do is pray for a new government. Amen they reply.

I think that I’ve escaped this hell with a successful diversion. I’m wrong. They go right back into how the immigrants are coming to take our jobs, and how we’re losing our country.

This is not a reasoned policy preference. There is a sputtering, desperate anger within these men that leads them to believe that their country is under attack.

Chris Alexander and a supporter

These men were behaving like twisted fearful beasts, frothing at the mouth with anger and vitriol. A rabid dog with a bum knee and festering lousy sores that won’t heal. Yelling about immigration and their grandchildren, and how the whole country is doomed, and how it’s all Trudeau’s fault, and Notley’s fault, those “libtards’ fault”.

Kellie Leitch

Leitch herself was pleasant. I saw her taking an aside with her campaign manager, and I interrupted to ask for a button. She gave me a button and her card, and told me to give her a call. Leitch is a career politician, and her close game was as good as anyone else who’s playing at this level. While I disagree with her politics with every fibre of my being, she at least seems reasoned to her approach. Her followers are another matter.

They are a pack of rabid, geriatric Nazis, longing for the rise of the fourth reich under a dominion flag. She’s Collingwood, Ontario’s backwater answer to being horrible to everyone.

Andrew Saxton looks at Kellie Leitch, Chris Alexander (background)

I was rattled by these guys, so I went across the street to a bar that had been booked by the University of Alberta’s campus Conservatives and Canadian Thinkers. A room full of men in suits, mingling with a bunch of guys dressed like cowboys and a surprising number of women. Everyone is wearing blue. A handful of super-awkward neck-beards are stumbling around, hammered on draft and riled up by being so close to their idols.

Maxime Bernier and an admirer

I hide with my friends from the Chong campaign, stealing nachos and joking about the advantages conferred to politicos who don’t drink. Leitch walks up and shakes everyone’s hand. The monster is grinning before us, holding out an outstretched hand to everyone. A stifling cloud of tight-lipped awkwardness takes hold of us and the table falls silent. Nobody wants to talk with her, but she’s here anyway. She continues her used-car sales pitch unperturbed. Her close game is impeccably polite, however aggressively noxious it is.

I escape before I suffocate completely and leave before O’Leary shows up. The weird has gotten the best of me, I have to flee.

The level of agitation that I felt in the room that night, and even the day after is unlike anything that I’ve experienced. I can honestly think of no description of the night that doesn’t begin with “fear and loathing” because that seems to be what these people are about. With the exception of the Chong camp, there is not the slightest element of joy in these people.

I fear for my country. There is poison flowing from the tongues of small men with wild imaginations. They want us to hate our neighbors. We must not allow it.