Integrity and Alberta Politics - Should a Cheater Win? - Alberta Votes 2019, part 3 (part 2, revised)

There's an old adage, "Cheaters never win." It likely exists to discourage people from cheating, suggesting karma will get them, or their misdeeds will ultimately revealed. But in this 2019 election, we have one party running whose leader and/or campaign team may very well have cheated their way to control of the largest conservative party, the UCP. 

The allegations brought forward by those in the know are that:

a) Kenney and his team set up a "Kamikaze" or dark horse candidate. This candidate was to attack Kenney's primary rival, Brian Jean, saying things that Kenney, himself, could not during the leadership campaign without appearing to be too nasty. Then the kamikaze candidate would withdraw from the race and throw his support behind Kenney. The Kenney team provided speaking notes, advertising materials, etc. for this opposing candidate.

b) This candidate, Jeff Calloway, needed funding to run for the leadership and this funding was arranged through "irregular" means.

c) Not content with surreptitiously undermining his main opponent, it is alleged that Kenney's team sold many, many memberships to people. Then, instead of submitting these memberships with real emails attached, offshore servers were used to generate email addresses that would be under the control of team Kenney. Many members complained they had not received their codes for voting in the online leadership race. Allegedly, this was because the codes were sent to team Kenney, who then operated kiosks in warehouses to process votes for Kenney using VPN technology (this hides a computers real identity and subverts the coding which prevents multiple votes from a single person), racking up Kenney's vote count.

CBC News searched for registration data using DomainTools and confirmed that dozens of email addresses attached to UCP members were all purchased by anonymous sources in the lead-up to the UCP leadership vote, between Sept. 20 and Oct. 13, 2017.

Albertans have been overwhelmed this past week with a deluge of controversy and scandal from the UCP. With candidates dropping out because of racist, transphobic, and misogynist views, the return of proposed legislation to out LGBTQ kids in school GSAs, impossible promises to "opt out" of equalization payments, and so on, some may have lost sight of the first big scandal.

It strongly appears that Jason Kenney cheated in the leadership election back in 2017. Not just in one way, the identity theft and fake votes, but also with the kamikaze campaign of Jeff Callaway. And the question remains, can someone who cheated to become leader of a party then become Premier of the province?

Some will say that he would have won anyway, that the cheating only increased the margin of his win. But that's not really the point, is it? Shouldn't our elected officials be held to a very high level of integrity? Shouldn't being a cheat disqualify someone from holding such an important office?

I know, the investigation is still underway. And it likely will not conclude before the election. Also, Kenney has been at this political game a long time. It's all he's ever really done. He learned from Harper. He no doubt has plausible deniability built into this scenario. He will say, if it is proven that these acts of cheating happened, that he didn't know. That it was over-zealous campaign staffers. That no one told him.

But just as it was impossible for thinking people to believe that a micromanaging control freak like Harper had no idea about Nigel Wright paying off Mike Duffy's fines, it is impossible to imagine Kenney had no clue of all the machinations that seem to have gone on in the leadership race.

I referred to politics as a game. But it is not. Some politicians conduct themselves as though it was, but their actions have very real consequences for real people. If Kenney wins and changes the rules about GSAs, it is almost certain kids will suffer. Some will probably die. If Kenney makes health care less accessible to the poor, people will suffer. Some may die, and some may go into crushing debt. If the UCP wins and rolls back worker and consumer protection, people will suffer. Some may die. If the UCP wins and cuts the environmental programs in Alberta, everyone will suffer.

It's not a game. And we need to be very, very careful when we choose the party that will form the next government of Alberta.

Integrity and Alberta Politics: the Kamikaze/above the law edition - Alberta Votes 2019 part 5

They were just talking on the radio news about how Jeff Calloway's lawyer is going to try to get an injunction today (April 1) to stop the investigations into irregular funding around the kamikaze campaign during the UCP leadership race. And all I can think is "The unmitigated gall of these people!" They say there is no urgency to the investigation, and people should be left alone during the campaign. NO! There is extreme urgency BECAUSE of the campaign.

Albertans have right to know if the leader of one of the major parties and his team have been up to unethical and illegal things BEFORE we decide who to vote for. They seem to think they are above the law. That a Kenney win eclipses any moral or legal considerations.

But it is the legal and moral considerations that should be front and centre here. Quite apart from his "make the rich richer and to hell with everyone else" platform, can we trust Kenney?

I seem to recall backroom deals with car dealerships to suppress consumer protection and stop sales of certain kinds of inexpensive cars.

Then there is the proposed sell-off of crown land. Who would benefit from this? Not First Nations. In fact, apart from car dealers, we don't know who has paid to play with Kenney because he has not released his donor list.

The people who are backing Kenney's campaign are not looking for the UCP to do things that benefit regular Albertans. They want to roll back worker protections and wages, reduce the regulations that keep up safe, and ignore climate change so they can become even richer. In what possible universe does any of this improve life for average Albertans?

Looking at the UCP platform one can get an idea of who has been giving money to their campaign. Oil and gas, of course, private insurers, private schools, anti-choice groups like the Wilberforce Project and RightNow, possibly large-scale agribusiness, car dealers, and the UCP "tough on crime" agenda has me wondering if someone in the business of building and running prisons hasn't paid for a bit of Jason's attention. But, of course, we don't know, do we?

We do know Kenney is being investigated for claiming a secondary housing allowance for while he allegedly lived in his Mom's basement in a retirement community that doesn't allow sublets. His leadership campaign is under investigation. Some of his candidates and campaign team are under investigation for financial issues as well as the alleged identity theft and fake votes using VPNs and offshore servers. Then there is the kamikaze campaign ploy...

There is so much shade over the UCP campaign right now. And Callaway has the nerve to suggest this should all be swept under the rug? Albertans need to know what's been going on. This election is about integrity. Who do you trust?