With a looming spring provincial election, voters are splintering off into their preferred camps, most of which seem to be on one side of the political spectrum or the other.
The governing New Democrats are on one side and the United Conservatives are on the other.
Politics is always very divisive, but does it have to be?
As R.F. Staples principal Wayne Rufiange puts his name forward as a nomination candidate for the Alberta Party in the Morinville-St.Albert riding (see Page 1), maybe it’s time to give the province’s third party a serious look.
Led by former Edmonton mayor and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Stephen Mandel, the party could provide an option for those who are not ready to give in to the two-party system model.
With two elected MLAs and two floor-crossers in its current caucus, the Alberta Party is hoping that with quality candidates like Rufiange, they can make even more headway in the 2019 election.
If there is a “big tent” party out there, it seems to be the Alberta Party. One of the floor-crossers, Rick Fraser, was himself a PC before joining the party, and Karen McPherson, who came to the party from the NDP side is also a member of caucus.
The problem with the party, for anyone who remembers 40-plus years of PC government, is that it also seems to be a refuge for those disaffected PCs who couldn’t bring themselves to join the NDP or the UCP. Whether they’ve reformed the entitled attitude that lost them the last election or not remains to be seen.
When the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservatives merged, the new UCP acted like it was a foregone conclusion they would form the next government. That’s something the PCs did in 2015 as well, so there could still very well be a race.
This is hardly an endorsement of the Alberta Party, just a call to examine your options before heading to the voting booth this May. There are many who just follow the crowd without truly examining their options. Everything is not so black and white.
With a valid third party in contention, the look of our government in the coming year could be very different.
Remember, the NDP was the third party in the Legislature and only had four seats before it swept to power in 2015, so stranger things have happened.
