All the words of our magnificent English language have meanings, and those words and their meanings belong to all of us who speak and write in English.
Which is to say I can declare myself to be a progressive conservative if I wish, and those of you who read this column are free to debate that proposition if you are so inclined.
So it is both unnerving and amusing – even in this age of financialization and marketization of everything – to learn that the United Conservative Party (UCP) of Alberta is ready to go to court to stop a couple of former members who happen still to have seats in the Legislative Assembly from using those words to describe their political philosophy and their political party.
To quote the lead of the Globe and Mail scoop, “Alberta’s United Conservative Party has filed a lawsuit against two of its former MLAs, alleging they have conspired to damage the party’s reputation by using the Progressive Conservative name.”
In addition to Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair, the former UCP MLAs who now sit in the Legislature as Independents, the suit also names the Alberta Party, which they would like to rebrand as the PC Party, and its leader Lindsay Amantea, who is on side with their plan.
Now, being a progressive conservative or a Progressive Conservative, or for that matter a plain old unadorned conservative with or without capital letters, is a perfectly respectable thing to be, whether or not one happens to agree with the policies advocated by any party with a similar name.
The United Conservative Party, founded by Jason Kenney and now led by Danielle Smith, is neither progressive nor conservative, and for that matter probably not all that united as the opening day of its annual general meeting approaches at the end of next week.
It is in effect now a Maple MAGA party with, among its electoral base, significant aspirations to drop the maple bit as soon as possible. Its policies call for radical change to health care and education, the antithesis of conservatism. Its notorious legislative attacks on free speech and free assembly – more may be coming this week – are the antithesis of progressivism, as that word is normally used in Canadian political discourse.
Based on their words and deeds, by contrast, both Guthrie and Sinclair are much closer to conservatism and progressivism as normally understood in Canada than the leadership of the party that expelled them. They want Alberta to have a Progressive Conservative Party, they say, to advance that political philosophy, which, they have emphasized, includes loyalty to Canada.
So the only way they and a renamed Alberta Party are likely to damage the reputation of the UCP by using that name is by making it clearer what the UCP really stands for. This can be summarized as chaos, privatization of almost all public services, cruel performative attacks on vulnerable groups in society, denial of climate science, denial of medical science, ultimately absorption of Alberta and perhaps all of Canada into the United States, and the suppression of fundamental freedoms whenever they are inconvenient to achieving those goals.
This goes to the scam at the root of the UCP, as well as of the Wildrose Party that preceded it and ultimately benefited from the double reverse hostile takeover of the old Progressive Conservative Party that was engineered by Kenney.
That is, that the UCP pretends to be a big-tent conservative party that is somehow able to broker the interests of everyone from centre-right Red Tories to wild-eyed MAGA Republicans. Within the party this is obviously a complete fiction. Progressive conservatives have been neutralized or driven out, like Guthrie, who had resigned first as a cabinet minister, and Sinclair, who spoke too frankly in defence of his rural constituents.
But because there is no progressive conservative alternative, the UCP is able to fool enough moderate Albertans who think of themselves as conservatives and are in many cases conservatives with a progressive tinge, to vote for them without paying too much attention to what they really stand for. The same can be said of many proud Canadian voters who would be just happy to get their vaccinations, preserve public health care, protect their CPP pension, and leave people with other lifestyles the hell alone.
Whenever too many Albertans start to figure out what the party of Smith really wants to do with this place, a little red baiting about the NDP seems to do the trick. That might not be so easy with another party with the word “conservative” in its name in the field as well.
A progressive conservative party that was able to call itself that, therefore, might very well be a real political problem for the UCP – a disunited alternative, as it were – popular enough to form a government or at least prevent the UCP from forming another one.
In other words, rather than causing confusion among voters, as the lawsuit alleges, the use of the PC name by another party might result in too much certainty! And that, from the UCP perspective, must be prevented at all costs.
The Globe’s story, by reporters Alanna Smith and Carrie Tait, says that the UCP is seeking damages of half a million dollars and admission by the defendants that they have engaged in a conspiracy and infringed on the UCP’s intellectual property.
Guthrie told the Globe that the UCP is trying to suppress legitimate competition and undermine the independence of Elections Alberta, which is considering an application to change the Alberta Party’s name to the PCs.
“This lawsuit is politically motivated but it’s legally deficient,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “The intention of the United Conservative Party will be to keep us in court as long as possible, certainly to keep us in court until after the next election.”
Indeed, one can be confident the UCP will consider its effort a success even if all they accomplish is preventing anyone from running as a Progressive Conservative until after the next election.
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