Uniting the right right for Alberta
Defeating NDP drives merger
It may be possible, at least mathematically, to jam a bunch of car parts into a can, shake the hell out of it, and get a Maserati at the other end.
Alberta conservatives hope so.
They’ve made a rattling can stuffed with every Wildrose and Progressive Conservative fear, tension and uncertainty. They hope these random bits can be pressure-welded into a mighty machine — the United Conservative Party.
The preliminary agreement announced Thursday is in one way a monument to illogic, but it’s also an ingenious feat of compromise and will probably work.
The membership of both parties will vote on ratification, likely July 22. I’d give that about an 80- per- cent chance of success.
The new party would pick a leader on Oct. 28, hold a founding convention early in 2018, and probably give the NDP a very bad time in 2019.
PC Leader Jason Kenney and Brian Jean of Wildrose will run f or t he l eadership. Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt says he’ll think about it after the parties merge.
Rona Ambrose, interim federal Conservative leader, says no way. But what a coincidence that she announced two days before Thursday’s unveiling of the merger proposal that she’s leaving Ottawa.
Premier Rachel Notley’s New Democrats, meanwhile, now realize they’re not likely to face a divided opposition again.
Rolling out the obvious theme, she said the Alberta right is addicted “to more and more extreme positions to the point where they might fall off the map.”
Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark tried the secondtier strategy; sticking a needle into the conservative wounds Kenney and Jean are trying to heal.
“This isn’t a merger, it’s a hostile takeover,” he said. “It’s no longer the party of Peter Lougheed, it’s what Peter Lougheed f ought against.”
Progressives tend to forget that the first PC premier eventually mopped up support from every corner, including old Social Crediters.
There have always been two ways to unite Alberta Conservatives — merge, or fight with brass knuckles until one party is out cold.
But that was before the NDP snuck up and stole t heir government. Now, merger is the only option.
Conservative intramural bitterness is still powerful. It may yet turn the merger vote and the leadership race into another classic Alberta civil war.
But t oday’s conservatives feel a stronger emotion — hatred for the NDP. Real, visceral contempt, propelled by the fixed belief that Notley will destroy Alberta.
That’s really what drove old Reformer Kenney to run for the PCs. It’s what brings PCs and Wildrose to the brink of merger.
“I could not be happier,” Kenney said after Thursday’s announcement. “It’s been a long, hard road, but I think the momentum is unstoppable now.”
It’s a strange creation, this United Conservative Party, crafted over t wo months by negotiating teams that split the finest hairs.
The PCs will again make themselves an Alberta Society under the law. Wildrose already is.
A new Society will be created — called the United Conservative Party. Wildrose and t he PCs will amalgamate within it, but continue to exist. One UCP board will control all three entities.
Politically, this allows Jean to say Wildrose still exists and even leads. So can the PCs.
Both old parties will retain their money because they can’t transfer it to each other, or to the UCP.
Kenney says t he UCP board will likely use “legacy party” money for political purposes until it’s gone. Meanwhile, he expects the new UCP to raise a bundle.
All this sounds decidedly weird, but there are precedents, both in the creation of the Saskatchewan Party, and the birth of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Both Wildrose and the PCs say all the arrangements have been vetted with the province’s Electoral Office.
On t he potty humour front, Kenney thinks social media hilarity about the new party’s name (“You See Pee”) is “ridiculous and infantile — if that’s the best our critics can do, we’ve hit a home run.”
At this point, it’s more like a double. But this is Alberta and Stephen Harper is the general manager.
Expect more hits.
NO LONGER THE PARTY OF PETER LOUGHEED, IT’S WHAT LOUGHEED FOUGHT.