The wisdom of United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney’s excursion to India is dubious.
The leader of an Opposition party in a small province in a remote corner of the Commonwealth has nothing to offer the world’s largest democratic economy.
In spite of UPC talking points to the contrary, he was on partisan business.
The man who earned the nickname “Minister of Curry in a Hurry” for his busy social calendar when he was courting Canada’s minorities for the federal Conservative Party was playing to an audience here in Alberta of the ethnic subgroups who support him politically.
A bemused Premier Rachel Notley labelled him “the minister of make-believe."
She said either, “he may have 'seen the light,'" agreeing with NDP policies, or “(was dipping) into legalized cannabis early.”
Her characterization of Kenney misrepresents both his serious nature and his perhaps misguided purpose for the trip.
However, so does Calgary pollster Janet Brown’s characterization of NDP emails and talking points obtained by the CBC through the Freedom of Information Act.
The NDP strategy is to point out that, "the Opposition leader sat on his hands for a decade in Ottawa (on pipeline matters). He failed to do his job so we'll do it for him," Brown said in a CBC interview.
“They've been trying really hard to back Jason Kenney into a corner; they've been trying really hard to vilify him."
"They're attacking him for things that people admire about him — his tenacity, his long history in politics, his slickness and determination as a politician.”
Alberta is in the election window now, and the overheated rhetoric is typical of elections in contemporary elections – and a principal reason why half the eligible voters don’t vote, and the majority don’t like or trust politicians.
The partisan attack and counterattack as Albertans decide in the next eight months whether in future this will be a conservative or progressive province, is reminiscent of the Greek philosopher Socrates’ open statement in his defence at his trial in 399 B.C.
The 70-year-old Socrates was charged with “impiety and corrupting the young men of Athens.”
The old boys’ network of Athens wanted rid of him because he was teaching his students to question the traditional order of things.
The charges were, shall we say, Trumped up.
When the prosecution had presented its case, Socrates rose to defend himself.
He said, “When I heard my accusers just now, I – well – I nearly forgot who I was, they were so persuasive.
“Yet as for the truth, one might almost say they have spoken not one word of truth.
“But what most astonished me in the many lies they told was when they warned you to take good care not to be deceived by me ‘because I was such a terribly clever speaker.'"
Notley and Kenney, both “terribly clever speakers,” can be forgiven if they forget who they are when they listen to the persuasive arguments that each presents against the other in the coming weeks.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business author and journalist.
