Founding member Burns acclaimed to lead as-yet-unregistered Alberta Advantage Party

A political party established by former Wildrose members announced its first leader Saturday in Red Deer.

Founding member Marilyn Burns was acclaimed to lead the Alberta Advantage Party, which is not yet officially registered with Elections Alberta.

“The only reason I’m doing it is because I love the people of Alberta,” she said. “We are in the process for collecting about 8,000 signatures on a petition … to allow us to participate in the democratic process.”

About 50 former Wildrose members — who were against merging with the Progressive Conservatives to become the United Conservative Party — met in July to form Wildrose 2.0.

That private meeting in Nisku focused on resurrecting the party that would use Wildrose constitution bylaws save for a few tweaks, said Burns at the time, who was then president of the Wildrose’s Edmonton-Southwest constituency association board.

“I adamantly opposed the merger,” Burns said Saturday, calling it a PC takeover.

Burns was previously a member of the Alberta Alliance Party (AAP), which was founded in 2002 and later absorbed by the Wildrose Party.

She ran under the AAP banner in 2004 in Stony Plain, where she came in third, losing to PC candidate Fred Lindsay.

“We want to have a government that advances self-reliant and compassionate people, that advances individual freedoms for everyone and a trustworthy government,” Burns said.

The party has not divulged how many members it has.

The Alberta Advantage Party is not to be confused with the Alberta Party, which has three sitting MLAs in the legislature and have 6,543 members voting in a new leader with online polls closing Tuesday. A provincial election is expected in 2019.

We want to have a government … that advances individual freedoms for everyone and a trustworthy government.