Mandel to run for Alberta Party leadership
Former Edmonton mayor served briefly as MLA for Progressive Conservatives
Former Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel is set to pursue the Alberta Party’s top job Wednesday, the second former Progressive Conservative to join the province’s latest political leadership race.
Mandel will announce his bid in Edmonton at the Boyle Street Community League.
Over the past week, Mandel tweeted the date of his announcement alongside a mysterious series of upside-down Alberta images — a cow, the Rockies, a grain elevator and oil pumps.
Mandel served as Edmonton mayor from 2004 to 2013. He later ran for office under the Progressive Conservative banner, winning a 2014 byelection but losing his seat in the 2015 provincial election.
His former PC colleague, Rick Fraser, announced Tuesday he has crossed the floor to the Alberta Party and will also seek the leadership.
The Calgary-South East MLA — elected in 2012 and 2015 — said Albertans deserve a better type of politics than what’s seen in the polarized conflict between the NDP government and the United Conservative Party.
“I’m running for the leader of the Alberta Party because that hope is not going to be realized without action,” he said in Calgary. “So it’s time for me to put up or shut up, as they say.”
Fraser, 45, and a former paramedic and union official, left the UCP to sit as an Independent two months after the new party was formed last summer by agreement of PC and Wildrose members.
An associate minister in Alison Redford’s PC cabinet, he said he’s not interested in a takeover of the Alberta Party by former Tories.
“Our hope is to bring new people to the party that maybe normally haven’t been involved in politics and give them a place where their voices will be heard and respected,” he said.
Alberta Party caucus leader Greg Clark, whose resignation from the top job late last year triggered the leadership race, said Tuesday he is “thrilled” Fraser has come aboard.
Conversations between the two men date back to before the fall session.
Clark said he has also talked to Richard Starke, the lone holdout among the Tories, but there’s no word yet on whether the Vermilion-Lloydminster MLA will cross the floor.
Clark is staying neutral in the Alberta Party leadership race.
Fraser, Jacob Huffman and Calgary lawyer Kara Levis have all registered with Elections Alberta ahead of the Monday deadline.