Next month, on May 29, will mark one year since the 2023 provincial elections in which every elected candidate of every party, except one, was allowed to take his or her seat. The only candidate from the only party who wasn’t allowed was, Jennifer Johnson of the UCP, which ironically just happens to be the party that was previously in power. The UCP won its first election in 2019 and then its second in 2023. So why would the UCP dump a successful candidate? Is the UCP so confident of its status that it can afford to throw away a seat?
Jennifer Johnson got three times the votes of her second place NDP competitor. That would seem to make this a strong riding that the UCP would want to have in its pocket, unless the UCP thinks that it can hold this riding no matter what it does to insult its members. Is the UCP questioning the results of an election? I would say yes. Is the UCP allowing political parties, unions and media that are opposed to the UCP to dictate the party’s platform by dictating who can run for the party? I would again say yes. And it wouldn’t be for the first time that.
When Kenny ran his last UCP election the media and NDP were able to get the UCP to dismiss three UCP candidates that had been approved by their CA’s. The only reason that they couldn’t get Jennifer removed is because the ballots had already been drawn up. Does the UCP care about its platform, principles, members etc. I would say, no. Nor does it care about democracy. The undoing of the results of an election or the dismissing of candidates, who hold unacceptable views, is clear evidence that it cares for neither.
We cannot seriously believe we live in a democracy when you aren’t allowed to discuss certain topics during the election process. And when the losing side has the power to oust a winning candidate from the winning side.
Jennifer said nothing illegal or immoral. Nor was what she said meant for public dissemination. Whereas Trudeau posed in Blackface on more than one occasion and he has been charged with several ethics violation but the Liberals haven’t seen fit to remove him nor has the press conducted an orchestrated hit piece against him.
Recent history seems to show that only Conservatives are willing to sellout their own in order to not offend their opponents.
Julian Hudson,
Ponoka