PCs approve deal to merge with Wildrose, uniting Alberta’s right

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RED DEER (NEWS 1130) – Alberta’s Opposition Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties have overwhelmingly voted to merge forces.

Party members voted 95 per cent in favour of the deal, which would see the creation of a new United Conservative Party.

The deal needed 75 per cent support to be approved.

PC Leader Jason Kenney and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean have been criss-crossing the province in recent weeks to drum up support for a merger.

If both sides approve the deal, it will spell the end of the Progressive Conservative brand that governed Alberta for almost 44 years. That run ended when Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP won a majority in the 2015 election.

A merger has been kicked around in various forms for a decade, but caught fire a year ago when Kenney launched his successful bid for the Tory leadership.

More than 50,000 Tories and about 40,000 in the Wildrose had signed up to vote.

There had been pockets of resistance amid concerns the new party would move far to the right on social issues and open a spot for other parties to grab centrist voters.

Former PC president Katherine O’Neill left the party after Kenney’s leadership win in March and now runs Alberta Together, a political action committee looking to attract progressive conservative voters, perhaps through the Alberta Party.

If the PCs approve the deal, it will launch a leadership race that already has three participants. Jean and Kenney have said they’ll run, and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer is already campaigning. Wildrose finance critic Derek Fildebrandt has said he is also considering it.

As per the unity agreement, joint committees would be struck to get the machinery of a new party in place with constituency associations and candidates. The goal is to be ready for the next election set for the spring of 2019.

Uncertainty remains over what happens if one side fails to ratify.

Kenney has talked about a possible Plan B including some form of co-operation, such as the two sides not running against each other in certain constituencies.

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