Block all floor-crossers from seeking nomination: Wildrose MLA

CALGARY A prominent Wildrose MLA is backing a call to block former MLAs who crossed the floor from being candidates in a new United Conservative Party, but Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney has condemned the idea as undemocratic.

Earlier this month, Kenney and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean announced an agreement had been reached to unite their parties into the new UCP, putting aside a decade of bad blood.

A key moment in the two parties’ tortured history was the mass floor-crossing in late 2014 of most of the Wildrose caucus to the thenPC government, which was subsequently brought down by the NDP in the 2015 election.

Speaking at a Wildrose event Tuesday night, Brandon Swertz — a member of the Wildrose executive — said a nomination committee set up by the new party with representatives from both Wildrose and the Tories should not allow the floor-crossers to be candidates for the UCP.

On Twitter, Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt posted that he was behind the idea, adding later that the floor-crossers had shown that “they cannot be trusted.”

A number of the floor-crossers backed Kenney in his run for the PC leadership on a platform of uniting the two parties.

Kenney is out of the country and was unavailable on Wednesday. But in a statement, Kenney said the agreement in principle between Wildrose and the PCs commits the new party to “open and democratic” nominations.

Kenney said the principle should be “let the members decide.”

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said how floor-crossers will be handled will be up to the committee.

But he said he was “very comfortable with the democratic process.”