Videos Show Alleged Financial Motive Behind Removing Jason Kenney And Electing Danielle Smith

A series of videos uploaded to TikTok (used @jay_of_sunshine / @Jay) regarding the ongoing UCP leadership race purports to show a money motive behind the campaign to removed Alberta Premier Jason Kenney as the UCP leader and then elect former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith in his place. 

In Jay’s videos, she both debunks the reasoning Danielle Smith has been putting forward for why she crossed the floor from the Wildrose Party to the Progressive Conservatives in 2014, as well as claims to show that non-profit political organization Take Back Alberta was formed to remove Premier Kenney so that Smith could run for leadership.

Jay said after playing a clip of Kurt Kinnear talking about getting rid of Kenney and that Danielle Smith will be running for leadership (well before Smith announced) that:

If Danielle Smith cared at all about Albertans she would have put her name behind that project. She wouldn’t have just come out of the woodwork after they [Take Back Alberta] completed what they set out to complete and throw her name in the ring to be the head of Alberta. It’s the same backroom deals and then coming out and telling us what’s best for us….She may be better looking than Kenney, but the heart is the same. 

In part 2 of her series, Jay then shows the alleged financial motive of some of the people behind Take Back Alberta. Jay plays another clip of Kurt Kinnear speaking where he says “I have to be super careful because obviously Alberta government provides funding” referring to a business he is connected to. 

In part 3 of the series, Jay then follows up on the money motive issue she covered in part 2 and alleges that a lot of the people backing Danielle Smith and formerly Take Back Alberta in order to remove Kenney, were doing so in order to get $20 billion in government contracts they felt entitled to. 

On Facebook, Conservative organizer and operative George Clark fleshed out this claim more when he said that the $20 billion dollars were related to an orphan well cleanup program pushed by the Sustainable Alberta Energy Network (headed by Kurt Kinnear’s brother Kris, who is on Danielle Smith’s campaign) where companies would receive massive payouts through a “convoluted R-Star royalty tax credit scheme”. This scheme would purportedly make it massively profitable just to clean up orphaned wells in a way that would be unfair to taxpayers. 

Clark alleges that this would be, “Basically letting the [Oil & Gas] firms earn themselves and their pals an immediate 25-35 percent profit on their cleanup work plus another 200 percent in Royalty Tax Credits,” (tax credits that would apply to an oil and gas companies future revenues on new oil wells)

At the very least it demonstrates that the push to get rid of Premier Jason Kenney and to potentially elect Danielle Smith as the next UCP leader may have not been entirely about lockdowns and sovereignty issues, and rather not-so-good old-fashioned financial interests.

(This article will be updated with new information as it arises)