Independent Alberta MLAs revive PC name to create new political party
Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair have been sitting as Independents since the governing United Conservative Party expelled them earlier this year. Now they are preparing to revive the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, the formal name of the party that ruled the province for 43 years before the brand became synonymous with entitlement and cronyism and evolved into the UCP.
But the pair, in a joint interview with The Globe and Mail, said they expect Albertans will associate the name with the PC's better days. They plan to pitch it as a conservative alternative to the UCP under Premier Danielle Smith, who in November won the approval of 91.5 per cent of her party members in a leadership review.
'The UCP has gone off course,' Mr. Guthrie said. 'The Premier has abandoned Albertans.'
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Mr. Guthrie, who serves as the leader of the two-person aspiring party, said the NDP will win the next election if a new centre-right party is not on the ballot.
'Albertans will reject the UCP for the same reason that they voted for change in 2015,' he said. 'And that's to get rid of the same things that are creeping into the government now – that entitlement and corruption, that lack of transparency and accountability.'
Mr. Guthrie, who represents the riding of Airdrie-Cochrane, resigned from cabinet on Feb. 25 because he felt Ms. Smith was mishandling allegations, levelled by Alberta Health Services' former chief executive, of government interference in healthcare contracting and procurement. Caucus later kicked him out. The health agency and government deny the allegations, which have not been tested in court.
The allegations, coupled with related investigations from the RCMP, Auditor-General, and a former Manitoba judge appointed by the Premier, have not had a major effect on Ms. Smith's popularity and control over the UCP.
Mr. Sinclair, meanwhile, was booted because he said he could not support the budget the UCP presented in February, which projected a $5.2-billion deficit. He believes Albertans will gravitate to a revitalized PC party after years of polarization across the province.
'People really don't feel like they have a home politically in our province anymore,' Mr. Sinclair, who represents Lesser Slave Lake, said. 'One party seems too far one way, the other party seems to have shifted too far another way.'
He believes voters are longing for a 'a stable, normal government that is not so chaotic and reckless.'
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The effort must gather roughly 8,900 signatures to proceed with the Elections Alberta process, Mr. Sinclair noted.
He dismissed concerns about recreating a landscape where conservatives split the vote. Mr. Sinclair argued that large swaths of the electorate consider the UCP a separatist party under Ms. Smith. She recently made it easier for citizens to force referendums, appeasing restless members of her party pushing for independence following the federal Liberal party winning its fourth consecutive election in April.
And that means Albertans loyal to Canada, Mr. Sinclair predicted, will side with the NDP in the next election.
'We're trying to provide a really healthy alternative for people,' he said.
Ms. Smith was the leader of the Wildrose Party in 2012, when the PCs pulled out a last-minute victory. Then, in late 2014, she and eight Wildrose MLAs crossed the floor to join the PCs. The defection crashed her political career – she did not win the PC nomination contest in her riding – and contributed to the NDP's victory in the 2015 snap election.
The UCP was founded in 2017, out of fear of vote-splitting. Jason Kenney, a federal cabinet minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, returned to Alberta in 2016 with a plan to unite Alberta's two right-leaning parties. He argued the NDP would win again if conservatives did not consolidate.
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He first won the leadership of the PCs, on a promise to pursue a merger with the rival Wildrose, which itself was an offshoot of the dynastic party. He then pushed Wildrose and PC members to vote on joining forces and won the new party's inaugural leadership contest. Under his leadership, the UCP trounced the NDP in 2019.
After years on the political margins, Ms. Smith won the UCP leadership contest in 2022, pulling the party further to the right.
Her tenure has largely been defined by clashing with Ottawa and eschewing scientific consensus on COVID-19. Most recently, critics accuse her of being a closet separatist, despite her insistence that she favours what she calls a 'sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.'
Mr. Guthrie said a woman in Calgary had control of the PC's formal name and approached the pair about its availability after they were kicked out of the UCP.
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