Alberta Premier Jason Kenney had a remarkably easier time winning over the crowd at his United Conservative Party convention Saturday night than his federal ally Andrew Scheer did Friday. While Scheer pleaded from start to finish with Tories to let him keep his job, Kenney had two entirely different tasks: remind the faithful that his government hasn’t fallen into traps of Tory governments of old, and manage the expectations of his ‘Fair Deal for Alberta’ fight.

Kenney pumped his party’s impressive results from the spring 2019 election. In short: the NDP had no chance, and he smashed them.

Kenney’s bragging was justified and borne out by the results. He spiked the ball when he even bragged about passing Bill 22. Bill 22 is 99 per cent known for firing the Elections Commissioner that until last week was investigating them. It is 0.9 per cent known for moving some pension funds around. It is 0.1 per cent known for legally allowing the United Conservative Party to finally and formally absorb the defunct Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties. That part of the legislation was enthusiastically welcomed by delegates, but the reference to the infamous bill by name was greeted by an ovation that was less enthusiastic than most other applause lines.

Kenney directly addressed members that might be upset by his not living up to the “Grassroots Guarantee” entirely. At the party’s convention last year, he famous said that after members passed a controversial bill on parental rights that he would not include it in the platform and government policy because “he holds the pen” on the platform.

Similarly, his Education Minister rushed to microphones today to assure the press that the UCP government would not – repeat not – implement the grassroots policy passed that morning in support of a free-market voucher education system. The NDP had made a boogieman of the policy for weeks leading up the convention and orders had been given to attempt kill it on the floor. With the policy narrowly passed by members, Kenney must have felt that the political pain with the public and the NDP was worth whatever pain he would face with the base.

Kenney didn’t directly apologize for it to members, but he said that most of the party’s grassroots policies were included in the election platform.

“But I think 93 per cent is pretty good proof that we are listening to our grassroots volunteers, and that we’re on the right track!”

It’s difficult to say if the parental rights activists in the room were pacified, but most members appeared to accept it as good enough.

Much more dangerous for Kenney and his government than quibbling over the “Grassroots Guarantee,” is managing expectations over his fight with Ottawa. This column has earlier cataloged that the premier has quietly dropped most of his conditions that Ottawa must meet to avoid Alberta holding a referendum on Equalization. Tellingly, Kenney focused much less of his speech on demanding an overhaul on Equalization, then on demanding what he calls an “Equalization rebate” from Ottawa, to the tune of a one-time payment of $1.75 billion.

With TMX likely to get built and a decent chance of Trudeau giving into an extra transfer, there’s a good bet that Kenney is managing expectations so that he can declare victory and attempt to calm down Albertans ready to consider independence. Without any end in sight to a fight with Ottawa that included the repeal of two anti-pipeline bills, repeal of the federal carbon tax, wholesale change of Equalization, and the building of both TMX and Energy East, Kenney has needed an offramp that doesn’t lead to a brick wall for his federalist-reform agenda.

There was a curious moment towards the end of Kenney’s speech when he seemed to detour from his regular tempo to remind his members of a commitment he made several weeks ago at a Manning Centre Conference that received next to no coverage by the mainstream press at the time.

“We will strengthen our democratic reform agenda by introducing a Citizen’s Initiative Act that will allow Albertans to petition for a referendum to be held on matters of widespread public concern. This will give Albertans the power to hold this and future governments to account if we do not keep our commitment to stand up for Alberta.”

Citizen’s initiative legislation is a mainstay of prairie conservative platforms, but this promise comes at the very time when it could be wielded to ends beyond that previously imagined. Kenney is well aware that if he fails to blunt anger at Ottawa by securing a better deal, that a large portion of his party could decamp to the independence cause.

In the morning’s policy sessions, party members roared in approval for a speaker that joked about changing the party’s name to the “United Conservative Party of the Republic of Alberta.”

By offering them the option of a potential referendum without a change of government, Kenney is hoping that he can hold his Tories together the way that the U.K.’s David Cameron did his Tories as the Brexit referendum threatened his own hold on power.

Derek Fildebrandt is the Publisher of the Western Standard and President of the Wildrose Media Corporation.

publisher@westernstandardonline.com