Overview

The harsh moralistic worldview of Jason Kenney has spurred right-wing populism to the mainstream in Canadian politics, but he unleashed forces he couldn’t control. From Jason Kenney’s days as an anti-abortion activist at the University of San Francisco, and through his years as a Canadian Taxpayers Federation lobbyist, Reform MP, top cabinet minister in the Harper government, and Alberta premier, he has been single-mindedly driven to bring his harsh moralistic worldview into the mainstream. Kenney took on the old guard of Canada’s liberal consensus and won, playing a key role in shifting the country’s political discussion to the right. But the very right-wing populist forces Kenney cultivated would come back to haunt him. Jeremy Appel has observed Alberta politics and reported on various aspects of Kenney’s agenda since 2017, when Kenney made his way across the province in his big blue pickup truck to rile up aggrieved conservatives. Kenneyism examines Kenney's political beliefs, his rise through federal political ranks, and his ultimate resignation from the leadership of the United Conservative Party.

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9781459752658

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Appel traces with unsparing candor how a politician who saw himself as the smartest man in the room proved instead too incompetent to hold high office. Ultimately, however, the fall of Jason Kenney is not a tragedy. The tragedy lies in the wreckage he has left in his wake. * Trevor Harrison, author, Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, and Professor of Sociology, University of Lethbridge *

Author Information

Jeremy Appel has been covering politics in Alberta since 2017. His work has appeared in CBC News, the National Observer, Jacobin, Ricochet, the Breach, the Maple, and the Canadian Jewish News, among other places, and writes the Orchard newsletter on Substack. He lives in Edmonton.

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