Jason's decades-long dedication to our province and our country have been marked by lasting transformational change that will be studied and applauded by generations to come.
—@stephenharper, Twitter, October 6, 2022.The timely publication of Blue Storm seeks to begin and perhaps conclude the first part of Harper's hypothesis. Edited by Mount Royal University professors Duane Bratt, Richard Sutherland and David Taras, the collection analyzes the inaugural term of Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party (UCP) in the Albertan legislature. Blue Storm is a comprehensive work covering Kenney's discourse, strategy, policy, and even vehicle choice from the 2019 Alberta provincial election to his resignation as premier in late 2022. Kenny was perhaps the last remnant of the Harper establishment, and his exile from provincial party politics represents a critical point for Canadian conservatism which calls for reflection and analysis. At a commanding 500 pages and 21 chapters, the collection includes some redundancy as it repeats Kenney's story across its chapters of unequal strength and pertinence. Still, it excels when delving into the broader and theoretical aspects of the UCP's much-lauded “return to ‘true’ conservatism” (1).
To this end, contributors Anthony Sayers, David Stewart, Jared Wesley and Melanee Thomas put forward especially notable chapters. Stewart and Sayers continue to be authoritative voices on the behaviour of Albertan voters. They provide insightful data to substantiate commonly held understandings regarding the incoherent coalition within the UCP. It remains to be seen if the subsequent victories of Danielle Smith will lead to greater co-operation within that coalition or if her success is indicative of the supremacy of the Wildrose wing of the party. Jared Wesley's discussion of the Fair Deal Panel provides policy-based and discursive evidence of Kenney's outwardly antagonistic style towards the federal government, the previous Albertan government and the British Columbia government. Wesley notes: “Originally designed to quell separatism and bolster Alberta autonomy, the Fair Deal gamble may end up setting Alberta backwards on both counts” (106). To what extent Kenney intended to quell rather than agitate sentiments of regionalism is debatable. Nevertheless, Wesley's analysis of the popularity of the Fair Deal strategy among Albertan voters corroborates the claim that these conflict-based politics were unsuccessful by any measure. Finally, Melanee Thomas unpacks how representation theory can contribute to the growing literature on the instrumentalization of gender in Canadian conservatism. In terms of descriptive, substantive, symbolic and affective representation, the UCP is found to be lacking; indeed, Thomas explains that the UCP “use gender and progressive language when it helps craft a useful victim narrative, and otherwise ignore or refuse to sincerely address gendered issues or policies that differently affect women” (163). With Alberta at the heart of the Canadian right, these chapters represent crucial case studies with implications for both provincial and federal politics.
The collection's overarching analysis of the UCP government hits its stride when discussing specific policy sectors through periods of animosity and “boondoggles” (to use Kenney's terminology). Case studies by Gillian Steward, Charles Webber and Lisa Young cover health care, public education and post-secondary education, respectively. Lori Williams concludes this section with an overarching chapter on the UCP government's war with labour before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Williams observes that the aforementioned antagonistic style of rhetoric, which she argues has been “uncompromising and needlessly punitive” (395), was also pointed inward at the public sector in Alberta. Williams concludes that in their negotiations with the Alberta Medical Association and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (among others), Kenney and his cabinet misjudged Alberta's political culture and the subsequent unpopularity of curbing public spending with such aggression.
Duane Bratt's analysis of “Public Kenney” and “Private Kenney” and their approach to energy and environmental policy is an excellent example of the asymmetry between UCP rhetoric and action. As a whole, the collection successfully scrutinizes this distinct political theatre and Janus-faced nature of Kenney's campaigns and policies. Nevertheless, Blue Storm's true strength lies within specific chapters, such as those discussed above, that focus on the most pressing questions and their deeper implications. These chapters do justice to a roller coaster of a brief political era that will have a lasting impact within Alberta, providing a crucial case study for conservatism and politics in Canada.
