So it’s become tentatively official that the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservatives are merging under one banner in a unity agreement, the United Conservative Party (UCP).
Although the agreement has yet to be ratified by each party’s membership, the way things have been leaning, one could make a justified guess that the members will agree on this long-anticipated amalgamation.
It’s not surprising that Wildrose leader Brian Jean would want to return under the Conservative banner. After all, he was a Conservative Party MP for 10 years.
But we suppose that will depend on what surge will come from the far right within the Wildrose membership.
Perhaps it’s telling that the PCs did not trust their own membership to elect Jason Kenney through the one-member, one-vote system, instead choosing the leader via delegate votes earlier this year.
How long this unification lasts will depend on the next time the far right feels disenfranchised and splinters from the whole … yet again.
The Wildrose was formed, after all, because voters felt the PC Party was a big old boys club that paid no mind to what matters most to them: small government, low taxes and doing things as they’ve always been done.
Those same voters are not only fiscally conservative, but socially conservative and how the UCP could possibly balance those perspectives with a shift to the centre is the question.
Can these Wildrose voters be satisfied and swayed?
We’re hoping to avoid another “lake of fire” comment about the gay community.
If the UCP party wants to appeal to everyday voters, their platform will have to shift to the centre, though what that centre actually looks like will depend and how far right that window has moved.
It’s too early to say whether this new party will be any different than what was the Progressive Conservatives and whether the swamped has been cleaned from the inside out.
Time will tell.
