With Premier Jason Kenney stepping down as leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP), many have begun speculating who could replace him as both leader of the party and Premier of Alberta, with some pointing to MLA Devin Dreeshen as the best for the job.
So far, only recently elected MLA Brian Jean and MLA Danielle Smith, both former leaders of the opposition Wildrose Party, have expressed an interest in running for UCP leadership.
However, MLA Devin Dreeshen’s track record paints a sympathetic picture of someone who has tirelessly worked for Albertans while other caucus members were busy playing power games.
Indeed, while Kenney has boasted of his successes, many can be attributed to Dreeshen during his time as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.
Firstly, in late 2019, Dreeshen protected farmers from ravenous animal rights activists stealing livestock and occupying farms by passing Bill 27: Trespass Statutes Amendment Act, 2019. The legislation almost immediately halted these activists, who feared fines of up to $10,000 and/or imprisonment for up to six months for first offences and up to $25,000 and/or up to 6 months imprisonment for six months.
Other provinces copied this amendment.
“Farmers shouldn’t have to worry about people entering their workplaces, interfering with their lives, or threatening the health of their animals,” Dreeshen said in an email to Better Farming.
“We are taking action to protect our farms and ranches from radical activists.”
Dreeshen also made good on his campaign promise to strike down Alberta NDP’s Bill 6, which introduced legislation that forced family farms to operate as if they were unionized conglomerates.
“I just think that the amount of energy and time and frustration that was caused from the original Bill 6 — it was just was a complete disaster,” Dreeshen said in an interview with the CBC. “I just think that will historically go down as one of the worst pieces of legislation, and introduction of legislation, in the history of the province.”
Not losing any momentum, in September 2020, Dreeshen, along with Kenney, announced they would begin sending agriculture representatives from Alberta to trade offices around the world, including in the US, Europe, Mexico, Singapore, China, South Korea, and India, to boost exports from the province.
At the time, crops were estimated to be worth $26.8 billion for the year, already up 11 per cent higher than the year before.
“As we continue to grow more crops, get better yields at good prices, we have to ensure that global markets are there for our farmers to sell to,” Kenney said.
Kenney continued, saying the investment would potentially increase agri-food exports to $16.6 billion per year by 2023, a 43 per cent increase from 2018.
At the time, Alberta’s farmers were experiencing a devastating drought, despite the increase in gains.
To address this, Devin Dreeshen did two things: secured $340 million ($200 per head of cattle) in AgriRecovery funding for ranchers in the province and created the first major expansion of Alberta’s irrigation system in decades.
This expansion came in the form of the Irrigation District Amendment Act, which put Alberta on pace to create more than 200,000 additional acres of irrigated land. This infrastructure will likely continue to bolster Alberta’s agriculture sector for over a century, generating billions of dollars in profit, despite the investment costing $815 million.
https:// twitter.com/devindvote/status/1413283300379029506
Like his revolutionary irrigation reforms, Dreeshen also introduced much-needed reforms in the forestry sector, cutting red tape to attract investors to the province.
“We’ve made it a priority as a government to reach out and do a really deep dive on red tape reduction initiatives. It’s been months of consultation with industry to see where we could actually improve their business environment,” said Dreeshen.
“We want to do everything we can to keep our forestry sector viable and sustainable and to attract more investment into the province.”
Additionally, while Canada was beginning to feel the first signs of out-of-control inflation, the Alberta agriculture sector was one of the only places you could find a significant reduction in costs.
Specifically, farmers saw a 20 per cent reduction in crop insurance premiums in early 2021, leading to more than $55 million in savings, or roughly $8,000 for a farmer with 2,000 acres insured.
Dreeshen was also responsible for producing the esteemed ‘Made in Alberta’ label and program, which helps Albertans identify locally grown products in grocery stores and markets across the province.
“Alberta is known as a place that produces safe, high-quality food. These days, people want to know where their food comes from, and this will make it a lot easier for them to choose food from Alberta,” said Dreeshen in a statement.
“When you buy Alberta food, you are supporting another Alberta family. It keeps money in your community and in our province.”
Around the same time, Brian Jean was railing against then-UCP leader Jason Kenney, to whom he lost the UCP leadership election in 2018.
Going after the UCP’s leadership is a common trend with Jean. For example, only a month after being sworn in, rather than getting to work on fulfilling campaign promises, he chose to investigate the UCP’s election integrity, alleging that memberships were being purchased by the party to skew the leadership vote.
As mentioned, despite being an official UCP MLA for roughly two months, Jean is eying the coveted leadership position, which would confer premiership.
Before the leadership review vote, Jean said, “If [Jason Kenney] cannot get a survivable number, he will leave. If he cannot get a number that shows that he has the moral authority to run our party and all our political lives, he will leave,” Jean said.
“It’s the honourable and decent thing to do.”
Of course, Kenney ultimately resigned, despite securing just over 50 per cent of the vote that would have allowed him to stay on as UCP leader. Indeed, apparently, Kenney was “honourable” by Jean’s own definition.
Recently, Jean has been making moves of a more physical nature within the party.
According to five MLAs, who anonymously provided an overview of recent events during a caucus meeting to the Western Standard, Jean allegedly challenged MLA Shane Getson to a fistfight after being told to “stop talking.”
“Sources said Jean intervened in the caucus meeting repeatedly until “MLA Shane Getson said something along the lines of, ‘Look, Brian, you gotta stop talking because every time you open your mouth, you lose support,'” reports Western Standard.
“Sources told the Western Standard Jean was visibly upset, moved towards Getson, and said, “Let’s take this outside.”
At this point, sources say that Dreeshen, of all people, was the one to intervene, putting his hand on Jean’s shoulder to restrain him and prevent a physical altercation.
“Leading up to the altercation, sources said Jean used his interventions to “slander” people in the room and call his colleagues names. He also made “crazy” and “inflammatory” claims about the RCMP that didn’t reflect how the criminal justice system operates, several sources said,” writes the Western Standard.
“Jean told MLAs they were going to jail soon, that he was smarter than all of them, and that he knows Kenney more than anyone else, one MLA told the Western Standard.”
As Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley noted in a Tweet, “This story is an example of why Brian Jean should never be premier in Alberta but why people should consider Devin Dreeshen when looking for a new UCP leader.”
“I’ve had some people say that they like the fact that Brian Jean challenged a fellow UCP caucus member to a fight. If you can’t handle gentle needling from your own party, you won’t be able to keep control in the legislature, which will make you unelectable to the general public.”
Jean, of course, denies the event even happened.
Besides this event, both men’s histories speak for themselves. One is a history of the aggressive pursuit of power in politics, eyeing key leadership positions, and strategically sewing divisions. The other is a history of progress, of calmly and successfully making the right changes in the right places to benefit all.
Should Dreeshen announce his candidacy for leadership, Alberta will have the choice of which history speaks to their own values.
