Fraser joins Alberta Party, launches leadership bid

A member of the legislature who has been sitting as an Independent since leaving the United Conservatives says he is joining the Alberta Party and is running to be its leader.

“It’s time for me to put up or shut up,” Rick Fraser told a news conference in Calgary on Tuesday with his family beside him.

“Albertans deserve to have a common-sense alternative. I’ve had a front-row seat for the increasing polarization of politics in the Alberta legislature,” he said.

“It’s clear that the government and the official Opposition only want two choices for Albertans, but we know from speaking to Albertans that many don’t feel at home in either party.”

Fraser joins Calgary lawyer Kara Levis in the leadership race for the party, which contested fewer than half the constituencies in the 2015 provincial election, captured 2.2 per cent of the popular vote and delivered one MLA — its leader Greg Clark — to the house. Clark stepped down in the fall. The addition of Fraser means the Alberta Party now has three sitting MLAs. NDP backbencher Karen McPherson crossed the floor last fall to join Clark.

Former Edmonton mayor and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Stephen Mandel is expected to announce today that he, too, is entering the race.

The winner is to be announced Feb. 27 after two days of online voting.

Fraser, 45, is a born and raised Calgarian twice elected in the constituency of Calgary South East. He was first elected in 2012, then reelected in 2015 as a member of the Progressive Conservative party.

Last year, the PCs voted to join with the Wildrose to create the new right-of-centre United Conservative Party under leader Jason Kenney.

Fraser quit during the UCP leadership race last fall to sit as an Independent. He says the UCP and the governing NDP both present ideologically charged extreme positions that don’t serve Albertans well.