Every election campaign needs a platform, but things get a little funny when you're running against the election itself.
Jason Kenney's Senate 'election' is a scam. Alberta does not elect senators. The prime minister appoints them. He already has his own process and he's not interested in taking instructions from Kenney.
What this 'election' is really about is giving the conservatives an excuse to go out and campaign for their movement. They're bundling the senate 'election' and their equalization referendum with the municipal ballot in the hopes that they can drive up right-wing voter participation and take over city councils. And they're using it as an excuse to push their messaging, too: they've already passed laws allowing for massive advertising campaigns and to allow Kenney's cabinet ministers to go out and campaign too.
The Premier and his cronies have full control of the provincial government so we can't stop them from running this scam. But we can turn it back against them.
The campaign to 'elect' Duncan Kinney to Senate is how we push back.
We're going to use this campaign to talk about all of the issues that Jason Kenney doesn't want on anyone's mind.
That means talking about real justice and redress for the First Nations. That means talking about how the program of unfettered capitalism is driving up intolerable inequality in our communities. That means talking about democratizing our workplaces and our economy. That means talking about moving funding away from policing our communities and into helping them thrive. And there's more.
There's a whole suite of issues and perspectives that Jason Kenney and his crooked administration are going to try to distract us from, and we're not going to let that happen. And at the end of it all, if Jason Kenney has to suffer the embarrassment of writing a reference letter to the Prime Minister for an anti-colonial environmentalist lefty—well, isn't that just icing on the cake?