The swearing-in of United Conservative Party (UCP) leader Jason Kenney as an official member of the Alberta legislature last week marks a milestone in his long and hard-fought battle to reunite Alberta conservatives after the 2015 election.
While Kenney has been leading the charge against Rachel Notley’s NDP government for months, his December byelection win followed by last week’s swearing-in represents, in many ways, the unofficial start of the 2019 provincial election campaign.
Whether the run-up to the next Alberta vote will be civil and productive or combative and divisive remains anyone’s guess.
What is known is that the stakes for residents in this region, and indeed across the province, couldn’t be higher.
With Notley and Kenney now able to stand toe-to-toe, so to speak, in the legislature, Albertans can expect to see each leader’s respective vision and hope for the future of Alberta laid out on a day-by-day basis.
As well, how each leader acts and re-acts in the legislature may go a long way to convincing voters where to mark their ballots in 2019.
For his part, Kenney said immediately after bring sworn-in that he intents to lead by example.
"I and our caucus will raise the bar of civility and decorum in the legislature, and in the course of the next 16 months before the next election,” Kenney said.
"We believe Albertans deserve a legislature, deserve an official Opposition that demonstrates civility and respect for our democratic institutions, including our opponents.”
Hopefully government MLAs – and the MLAs of other parties – will commit themselves to acting with similar decorum in the months to come.
Recent times have seen examples of leaders, both in Canada and abroad, acting in malicious and child-like ways. Alberta doesn’t need or want any such behaviour.
Premier Notley and UCP leader Jason Kenney will have their first opportunity to go face-to-face in the legislature when MLAs resume sitting on March 8.
Many Albertans, including in this region, will no doubt be watching those proceedings with considerable interest.
Dan Singleton is the Mountain View Gazette editor.
