Corporate lawyer named interim leader of struggling Alberta Party
C A LG A RY The Alberta Party has named a Calgary corporate lawyer as its interim leader.
Lindsay Amantea will at least temporarily succeed former Brooks mayor Barry Morishita as leader of the party, which was shut out in the seat count in the past two provincial elections.
In a news release, the party said Amantea has been involved in politics “at all levels of government on both sides of the aisle all across the country” and describes her as a perennial centrist who's worked on improving access to voting and cannabis legalization.
Amantea said runaway “hyperpartisanship” in Alberta demands the grounded decision-making that she offers.
“We need thoughtful, systemic change in areas like health care, energy and housing, policies that don't fit into a sound bite,” she said in a video.
“(We need) an adult in the room to foster collaborative, reasonable, informed decision-making.”
Amantea also said she connects with Albertans' willingness to help each other in difficult times.
“Whether it's working the fields during harvest, bailing out basements during floods or even just making a collective effort to turn off the lights to avoid overloading the electrical grid, Albertans pull together in times of need,” she said.
The announcement comes as the centrist party faces the difficult challenge in attracting voters in what's effectively become a two-party province, with the governing UCP and Opposition NDP dominant.
In stepping down as leader in late 2023 after two years, Morishita said that reality has made it increasingly difficult for the party to raise funds, attract workers and gain any foothold in the legislature.
The party saw its popular vote slump from nine per cent in 2019 under then-leader Stephen Mandel to one per cent in 2023, and no seats from either battle.
In 2022's Brooks-Medicine Hat byelection, Morishita garnered 16.5 per cent of the vote in his home riding to finish third in a contest won by Premier Danielle Smith.
Even so, Morishita said there's still a place for the party's centrist politics in Alberta if enough people came forward to work toward that.