Why a Revived Progressive Conservative Party Is a Nightmare for Smith

Ever since the current leadership of the United Conservative Party opted to lend its credibility to Alberta’s hitherto marginalized separatist movement, the creation of a pro-Canadian conservative party in this province was probably inevitable.

Still, the memory of how Rachel Notley’s NDP exploited the vote split on the right between the Progressive Conservative Party and the Wildrose Party to jump from a distant third place to a strong first place in 2015 keeps folks awake at night in conservative circles here in Wild Rose Country.

So it came as something of a surprise Wednesday when two exiled former members of the UCP caucus in the Alberta legislature announced they have a plan to resurrect the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, as the party was legally known throughout its nearly 44 years in power.

Never mind the vote split in 2015, former infrastructure minister Peter Guthrie, MLA for Airdrie-Cochrane, and Lesser Slave Lake MLA Scott Sinclair, both expelled from the UCP caucus for their political sins this year, announced their idea during an appearance on the Real Talk Ryan Jespersen video podcast.

The way the two Independent MLAs described it, their idea is the only way to keep the NDP out of power in the next provincial election. That, they argued, is because the UCP under Premier Danielle Smith has become just too weird and too separatist for normal Albertans. They have a point, although whether that will end up benefiting the NDP or their PC 2.0 party remains to be seen.

“The premier is going to be held accountable for morphing the party from what was supposed to be a mainstream, big-tent party into a separatist party,” Sinclair, who was kicked out of the UCP caucus in March for threatening to vote against Finance Minister Nate Horner’s budget on the grounds it didn’t do enough for rural ridings like his, told Ryan Jespersen.

“We’re going to be able to provide people,” he said, “with a very comfortable option with a name that has credibility, with two MLAs to start that have reputations that I believe are reputable, are solid in their constituencies and represent a lot more mainstream Albertans.”

Guthrie resigned from cabinet in February over how the premier was dealing with the former Alberta Health Services CEO’s allegations about dodgy contracts being pushed by government insiders and was expelled from caucus in April for calling for a judge-led inquiry into those claims.

He also emphasized the UCP’s separatist tilt Wednesday.

Under Smith, he said to Jespersen, the UCP has become a government “that has a separatist motive, and probably creeping around one-third of the caucus who support that.”

On Canada Day, Guthrie posted a photo of himself clad in a red and white Maple Leaf jersey on social media, making it quite clear where he stands.

Say what you will about their idea, it generated enough buzz to cast some shade on Smith’s news conference to announce her government is going ahead and creating the new provincial police force that a majority of Albertans have made clear they don’t want and won’t trust.

The premier’s announcement, a key part of the government’s increasingly separatist agenda, was cast as the appointment of former Calgary police officer Sat Parhar as the chief of an entity called the “Independent Agency Police Service,” to be renamed the Alberta Sheriffs Police Service, and then to operate as a Crown corporation. But everybody in Alberta, pro and con, gets what’s really going on here.

Asked by a couple of reporters about the possibility of the Progressive Conservatives coming back to life, the premier insisted confidently that Alberta election law says “the name of the former legacy parties of the UCP could not be registered as new parties.”

“That is so we do not have confusion of voters,” she said, promising “to raise that with the elections officials and remind them of what the law says. We would expect the law will be followed.”

It is not, however, clear that Smith has the law on her side. For a party to maintain its status, it must have either three MLAs in the legislature or run candidates in at least half the province’s ridings. Under former premier Jason Kenney, the PCs did neither, so the argument can be made the registration has lapsed and the name is available.

According to Guthrie, the name was re-registered by an unnamed person when it lapsed and has now been made available to him and Sinclair. They will need to gather around 9,000 signatures before Elections Alberta will consider their plan, but that is unlikely to be a problem.

Despite her cheerful demeanour at her news conference, Smith has to be worried about this development — as NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi likely is too.

“As the official opposition with 38 MLAs dedicated to listening to and supporting Albertans, Alberta’s New Democrats remain the only choice for positive change for our province,” Nenshi said in a statement emailed to media Wednesday.

“We know this premier will do anything to protect her own power and is fighting to maintain confidence within her caucus under the pressure of massive corruption and threats of separatism,” Nenshi said. “The decision by these two former UCP MLAs to revive the PC party is another clear sign that Albertans are unhappy with this current UCP government and are demanding better for our province.”

Wednesday night, former PC deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk observed that “any additional parties that are right of centre will definitely pose a risk to Danielle Smith and UCP. Now she has the Republican Party to the right and the PC Party to the left.”