Alberta’s right was united for less than two weeks.
While the Wildrose Party may now be extinct, a grassroots movement has already sprouted up to grow a new right-wing party that promises to be a thorn in the side of the freshly-minted United Conservative Party (UCP).
Joining a number of the original founders of the Wildrose Party, Edward Goodliffe of Busby was among 50 people who met in Nisku July 29 to establish a replacement for the Wildrose to ensure those uninterested in uniting with Progressive Conservatives (PC) have a place to call home.
Calling themselves the Alberta Advantage Party, the new party is now on a quest to either collect 7,868 signatures from Albertans, find three MLAs to cross the floor to the party or register 44 candidates for the 2019 election to be recognized as an official party.
Going so far as to question the legitimacy of the vote, Goodliffe said he is furious about the recent merger decision.
“A lot of people couldn’t vote because they didn’t have PINs,” he said. “Whenever they were trying to raise money, they could always find our addresses, but when they were sending out PIN numbers, all of a sudden they can’t get a hold of the members. If we believe that, we’ve got to be really stupid. It doesn’t take anyone of any great intelligence to realize that there’s something very fishy with a 95.4 per cent vote (in favour of unity). You couldn’t get anyone to agree on something to that extent. In my immediate circle of friends I can account for nearly two per cent of the entire ‘no’ vote in the province. I smell a rat.”
Goodliffe suggested that the fact people could join both the PCs and Wildrose parties disrupted the vote, noting that the Wildrose membership increased by over 20,000 members during the campaign whom he suspects were also PCs.
“The party has been stolen from us,” Goodliffe said. “The Wildrose has been taken over from the top by the PC establishment.”
A few minor changes are being implemented to prevent the Alberta Advantage Party from being “stolen” again, but overall the new party will adopt the Wildrose constitution and bottom-up philosophy.
Borrowing a policy from the New Democratic Party, directors and executive committee members will not be allowed to hold memberships in other parties to avoid a mass influx of members, such as what allegedly occurred with the PC-Wildrose merger. The party will also have a recall mechanism to stop a leader who is working against the membership’s interests.
“(Jean) pursued this unity vote without the support of the grassroots,” said Goodliffe. “He said that they won’t go ahead with unity unless the membership wants it, then he ignored the membership and went ahead with it anyway.”
He also expressed his disappointment that Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken had thrown his hat in with the UCP, which Goodliffe considers to be socialism wrapped in a conservative fleece. He said that he had put a lot of work into collecting names to help van Dijken get elected in 2015.
“He probably wouldn’t be our MLA if it we hadn’t done that. We felt pretty disappointed that Glenn has been conned by Brian Jean.”
Goodliffe said the plan was to have the party set up in time to run at least 40 candidates in the 2019 provincial election.
“We have enough people from across the province who are disgusted with what’s happened that it looks like we will be able to have constituency associations and a party up and running, within a couple of weeks or months.”
The Alberta Advantage party is planning to hold its founding convention in October.
Goodliffe said that he was also prevented by Wildrose brass from communicating with other party members and speaking out against the merger.
For him, the entire merger is a bad case of déjŕ vu. He noted that when the federal PCs and the Canadian Alliance parties merged under Stephen Harper, the result was more PC-style governance and most of the grassroots concerns were ignored, including the Alliance’s three big items — an elected senate, transfer payments and recall legislation.
“When people were elected to Ottawa, they never represented us, they represented Ottawa here in Alberta,” he said. “Those three big things were on top of our agenda, then they had this great movement to unite the right, joined forces with the morally bankrupt PCs and what happened? They did nothing.”
“Initiative, referendum, recall… thrown out the window. EEE Senate, nobody gives a damn. Transfer payments? Who cares!” he shouted. “Harper was a globalist who absolutely eviscerated our rights with that terrorist bill. Provincially, we’re going down the same road and if people can’t see it, they have to be blind as bats.”
When asked if he was concerned that bringing a new alternative on the right would potentially split the vote and give the NDP another mandate, Goodliffe commented that he felt it was better to vote with his conscience than to hold his nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.
“I’m sure we’ll split the vote, probably worse than before,” he said. “But it isn’t from our choice. What we’re going to offer is what I consider the best form of government for Alberta.”
He called the idea that everyone should vote UCP solely because it is the one conservative option as elitist.
“That’s what they’re hoping. It was a business decision — they bought out the competition,” said Goodliffe. “It’s like Pepsi bought out Coca-Cola, so if you like Coca-Cola you’re going to have to buy Pepsi. They’re hoping that by buying out the Wildrose brand, anyone who wants a free market is going to vote UCP.”
“What they didn’t bargain for is that there’s going to be another party on the ballot.”
