MLAs past, present not among believers

He’s been retired from party politics for years. But longtime Conservative cabinet minister Clint Dunford would return — on one condition.

If recently resigned Conservative MP Rona Ambrose joined the race to become leader of the province’s new United Conservative Party, he’d be interested.

“I would buy a membership and get involved,” Dunford said Monday, reflecting on the merger between Alberta’s long-serving Progressive Conservatives and their rivals in the Wildrose party.

A longtime MLA from Lethbridge West, Dunford said Ambrose represented the “progressive” side of conservative politics, elected provincially and federally for so many years.

But Dunford says with two right-wing politicians seen as the front-runners for the new party’s leadership, he’s not sure how it can appeal to middle-of-the-road Albertans.

“I was a ‘progressive’ conservative,” he explains. “That’s an oxymoron that I’m comfortable with.”

As a minister in premier Ralph Klein’s government, Dunford says, he was a member of a party that covered a wide range of political views.

“Ralph kept quite an eclectic caucus together.”

But despite his misgivings, Dunford said, he was happy to see a decisive result.

“I was worried there was going to be even a further split.”

With a combined party, “I think it’s good for Alberta politics.”

But Dunford — whose West constituency is now held by Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips — says the merger brings no guarantee of electoral success. To earn the public’s support, Dunford says MLAs and governments have to listen to other people’s ideas.

That’s what the Progressive Conservatives did during Klein’s time, he says.

“I think the New Democrats are fully capable of stealing policy ideas from others,” just as his government did for so many years.

“You have to govern from the middle,” if you hope to keep the voters’ confidence.

Speaking from Lethbridge East, MLA Maria Fitzpatrick predicted the verbal battles between the two right-of-centre movements will continue.

“Over the last two years, those opposition parties have been totally absorbed in their internal affairs,” the New Democrat says.

So Albertans have heard little about what the right wing would do if it gained power.

“The leader of the Wildrose has said he would cut $7 billion from the budget,” but he hasn’t said how he’d do that without hurting everyday Albertans.

“That would mean suffering for every single Albertan,” whether it meant cuts to health care, closing schools or slashing other family programs.

The new party will have to lay out its policies and tell Albertans how it could maintain essential services, Fitzpatrick said. Then voters will have a clear choice.

“We will continue to do the job we were elected to do,” with the support of main-stream Albertans.

During her Lethbridge East door-knocking since the legislature recessed, Fitzpatrick says she’s met four unhappy voters at the door.

“But more than 200 have given me a positive response.”

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