Perhaps it’s just me, but with each passing day Jason Kenney
reminds me a little more of Richard M. Nixon, the talented but deeply
flawed American president who in 1973 resigned from office rather than
be impeached by the House of Representatives and sent packing by the
Senate.

Last night’s exposé by the CBC’s Edmonton investigative
journalists, while perhaps not technically as devastating as their
previous story that the RCMP is now investigating the financial goings
on during Jeff Callaway’s 2017 “Kamikaze” United Conservative Party
leadership campaign, brightly illuminates Mr. Kenney’s Nixonian
characteristics.

The detailed CBC report by journalists Charles
Rusnell, Jennie Russell and Alison Dempster published a little before
midnight is based on what they refer to as a leaked cache of documents
and shows how Mr. Kenney’s leadership campaign team worked hand in glove
with the supposedly rival Jeff Callaway campaign to knock off the
strong challenge by Brian Jean, former leader of the Wildrose Party.

This
directly contradicts statements Mr. Kenney, and his party officials and
supporters, made at the time and more recently. The CBC shows how the
two campaigns were effectively joined at the hip, with the Kenney crew
providing the Callaway camp “with resources including strategic
political direction, media and debate talking points, speeches, videos,
and attack advertisements, all aimed at undermining Kenney’s main
political rival, Brian Jean.” In other words, in a sneaky way, they were
both part of the same campaign. This is certainly unethical – and if I
were a UCP supporter, I’d be furious – but on its own it’s probably not
illegal.