Premier Jason Kenney is preparing to leave the top position in the province where he said earlier this month: "I wasn’t planning to be at this party for long," adding that he was planning another provincial election after succeeding in the 2019 provincial elections. Instead, the United Conservative Party members chose a new leader on Thursday.

While Alberta's economy was in a recession, and the oil and gas sector was in a slump, budgets were bleeding from billions of dollars in deficit. Also, some Albertans were angry at Ottawa over rules believed to hinder energy projects, feeling they were giving billions in equalization payments while being ignored in return, so they sought a "stick" to strike Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Kenney was that stick. Kenney adopted a "resistance strategy," vowing to confront Trudeau and other "Laurentian elites" determined to strangle Canada's energy. For him, oil and gas were not just good business, but a "moral issue" to redistribute the land's bounty to neighboring states so that they could avoid buying it from human rights-violating dictators.

After taking office, Kenney cut corporate income taxes, repealed the previous carbon tax of the New Democratic Party government, cut funding after secondary education, launched more private care services within the public health system, sought wage reductions in several sectors, and attacked doctors and nurses as being relatively overpaid. Additionally, he made a big $1.3 billion bet on the Keystone XL oil pipeline which later failed.

Political scientist Jared Wesley from the University of Alberta said Kenney's plan for Alberta was based on a "prosperity first" tendency, stating that Kenney made this clear in his first speech as leader of the United Conservative Party in 2017 by reminding supporters that "to be a compassionate and generous society, you must first be a prosperous society." Wesley added that such a spirit may have captured the mood of conservatives and stunned others, but during COVID-19, the focus on livelihoods was far from what Albertans were looking for.

Kenney mocked the New Democratic Party government led by Notley as a compliant servant to Trudeau's agenda, and over time, he described the NDP as a traitor for their criticism of COVID-19 measures, linking criticism from a radio host of his government to an attack on Alberta itself, where the host was later dismissed.