Alberta's United Conservative Party is continually exhorting Premier Rachel Notley to call the spring election. The obvious narrative is that the UCP, the front runner in the opinion polls, wants to get the pesky vote over with quickly so it can don the mantle of governance.
But under the bravado may be a frisson of fear. If the unofficial and then official spring campaign drags on too long, a brewing scandal over the 2017 UCP leadership race might blow up and hinder the party's path to a massive majority.
UCP Leader Jason Kenney handily won the leadership against two other rivals. But there was a third contender, Jeff Callaway, a former president of the Wildrose Party, who dropped out of the race early.
Callaway had devoted just about all his public campaigning to criticizing former Wildrose leader Brian Jean. When he bowed off the field he threw his whole-hearted support behind Jason Kenney.
Critics suggested Callaway had been a vote-splitting stalking horse for Kenney all along. Jean's campaign team called Callaway's candidacy "an ineffective Kenney campaign stunt." Kenney denied it, calling Callaway a man of integrity and depth of character.
And so the lid appeared to settle on the pot for several months.
But the UCP is not without its internal dissenters. Discontented candidates unhappy with nomination races and grassroots member unhappy with the way policy plays out separate from the will of annual conventions are all bubbling under the surface.
An audio recording of UCP members referring to Calloway's "kamikazi campaign" surfaced last fall. While that would fly in the face of Kenney's protestations, technically such a campaign wouldn't be illegal.
But now Elections Commissioner Lorne Gibson, who was taking a look at the leadership campaign, has levied $15,000 in fines against Cameron Davies, Callaway's campaign co-chair, for obstructing his investigation into possible irregularities in the contest.
And he dropped a $3,500 fine on one of Calloway's donors for contributing funds "given or furnished by another person." That would be a violation of election rules. The commissioner, who labours under stiff confidentiality rules, hasn't indicated who the "other person" might be.
The UCP was quick to step as far away from Davies as it could. The party put out a statement acknowledging that Davies had been working on a contract for the party caucus since November, but the contract was terminated as soon as the elections commissioner announced the fine.
"At no time has the election commissioner contacted the UCP, the UCP caucus, the leader's office, nor the leader's previous leadership campaign," said UCP spokesperson Christine Myatt in a statement.
Independent MLA Prab Gill was turfed from the UCP caucus after the party investigated him over ballot stuffing allegations. Gill is now a perennial thorn in the UCP side. He is alleging there was voter fraud involving phoney email addresses during the 2017 leadership and has asked the RCMP to investigate. No word on whether the RCMP is actively pursuing the complaint.
The UCP has dismissed Gill, who darkly predicts there are more scandals to come over UCP nomination procedures, as a purveyor of sour grapes.
But Gill continues to stir the pot and the UCP is rising to the bait. In a bizarre dustup this week, UCP staffers videoed Gill meeting with a senior Notley apparatchik and posted it to Twitter, suggesting Gill may be planning to jump to the NDP.
The creepiness of the UCP video drew plenty of attention, with Gill saying he feels intimidated. He has complained to legislature authorities and now the Legislative Assembly Office is looking into whether the video violates any rules.
Kenney is also faced with a complaint from Brian Jean, who has retired from politics but still occasionally chimes in from the sidelines.
Kenney said all campaigns used VPN to allow campaign computers to be used as voting stations during the leadership. Kenney said the software was just designed to help seniors or other voters without computers to cast ballots.
Jean fired back, saying the rules allowed a maximum of six votes from any one IP address.
"To set the record straight: my team never cheated, used VPNs or voter kiosks during #ucpldr race," Jean tweeted. "In fact we complained to committee when a team was caught using them. @jkenney needs to retract statements made this morning."
All of these little intra-party controversies bubbling along under the surface might not catch the attention of the average Alberta voter.
But in the wider context of Canadian politics at the moment, one wonders if a perceived lack of transparency and a whiff of rule breaking behind closed doors could do some damage at the ballot box.
Photo Credit: Calgary Sun
