Wildrose Country?

Political Animal 55 Comments

Global;

Albertans will find out Saturday whether the province’s two right-of-centre political parties will merge into one to try and defeat Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government.
The Progressive Conservatives led by Jason Kenney and the Wildrose party led by Brian Jean will wrap up voting on a proposal to become the new United Conservative Party.

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55 Replies to “Wildrose Country?”

  1. Made sure I voted today…and met Calgary mayoral candidate Bill Smith right after (comes across as a nice guy). Alberta desperately needs to return to responsible business and resident responsive non-ideological agenda driven commonsense governance on every level to claw back that once-vaunted “Alberta Advantage” so willfully wasted and given away. A united conservative party resulting from today’s vote will spell the end of Notley’s reign of error and signal that we’ll be back on track moving in the right direction come 2019. I pray that the WR membership doesn’t turn skittish and not reach the 75% approval threshold. This merge is being done correctly – unlike the Prentice betrayal – and should result in a strong conservative party going forward.

  2. me too. I left the PC party for a good reason, but the risk of a second term of NDP or the more “moderate” Liberal party of Alberta is too big of a risk.

  3. United “Conservative” Party. Hahaha, yea f’ing right. It won’t be conservative, they are politicians. They are elites in it for themselves and whoever will vote the most for them.

  4. Non ideological? What does that look like?
    You have to know what you stand for to beat the full steam ideologues of the NDP. For example how about using the principle of reason over feelings?
    Is it possible that the Old PCs (OPC) lost starting with big spending lefties who were in charge at the end of the Klein days? Ralph was a Liberal-come-PC who could have been just as happy spending Alberta into bankruptcy as the next guy if the CTA and the Alberta public hadn’t wished otherwise. Stelmach was worse and then REd Ali even worse and then the Preston-Smith Franken Party (to turn a term back on Richard Starke) was the ugliest of them all. The OPCs ideology was ‘power because we are the PCs and we are entitiled’. The new Party better have enough ideology to beat that crap, or, a lot of us who have been in will soon be out quickly finding a movement that knows what it stands for.

  5. IMHO, the PC’s are still the same “Progressive” Conservatives that chose as leader, in rapid succession: “Special Ed” Stelmach, Alison “Ripoff” Redford and Back-stabbing Jim Prentice. And I don’t trust the old party at all – that’s why I voted Wildrose.
    But I think Jason Kenney can be trusted, and Alberta desperately needs to get rid of the NDP who are actively and willfully destroying our economy
    Honestly, I would have rather seen a Wildrose provincial government, but after Danielle crossed the floor with a half dozen other WR’s, I really felt betrayed. Still, I felt kind of sorry for her when Prentice wouldn’t even support her bid for the PC nomination.

  6. Good luck to Albertans,hope you can form a Party that can wrest the Province back from economic extinction.

  7. “Still, I felt kind of sorry for her when Prentice wouldn’t even support her bid for the PC nomination.”
    I was elated that the backstabbing B-word and her cabal were used and thrown away by the PCs. How stupid were Smith and her Quislings? Apparently really stupid.

  8. Good grief, lots of folks bitching when what we need here is unity on the right of center. Argue about policies and direction after the fact. Right now suck it up and let us hope that the two parties unite and punt these left weenies into oblivion come 2019.
    Finger crossed this is going to happen.

  9. Alberta is in trouble with or without the NDP in power. US fracking technology has changed the economics of oil sands. Without a west coast pipeline Alberta is in for a major downsizing. This is a structural problem that governments can’t change. Billions of future dollars are being redeployed out of Alberta. It will take years to feel the full effect but even if Notley loses the next election, the incoming government will have to face $50 oil. The oil sands may be break even at $50 but it doesn’t leave much profit.

  10. The PCs are the ones that destroyed the economy. Notley just enhanced that. The “big tent” idea is just the compromising position that they will take. We won’t know what they stand for. What their values are. How they intend to fix both the economic disaster as well as the social engineering going on.
    I expect the same thing as the Harper government. Tweak a few things but overhaul nothing. Not eliminating the search and seizure without warrant in the gun control legislation as well as keeping the CBC we’re his biggest failures. And most threatening for the future.
    I don’t see the new united conservatives as doing anything to endear themselves to the people.

  11. Nutely, smith, prentice, nice try to steer way from the real problem, it was Manning who did the dirt, you know, that bible thumper. He’s the one who convinced them to cross the floor, and also to embrace the gorebullwarm BS.

  13. Around 95% of Wildrose members swallowed their pride and voted for unity.
    Around 5% of Wildrose members were NDPers who bought memberships in the hope of keeping vote splitting.

  14. In the early nineties I interned at CANMET, where one of the staff PhD engineers showed me a file folder and said, “Oh, we’ve got a way of getting oil out of the tar sands. But it’s not cost effective. If oil ever goes above $50/bbl, Canada becomes an oil superpower.” Then he tossed the folder back on the shelf and ignored it.
    If the history of the Scandinavian countries tells us anything, it’s that basing your region’s entire economy on resource extraction is a risky gamble.

  15. Exactly. All these pipelines should have been built years ago to make hay while the sun shone. Now it is too late and any possible future catch up of lines built and economic benefit will be minuscule as to what could have been. Five years from now they will be still yapping about building the lines, the feds will be stalling, and the same collection of the back to eating grass and living in caves crowd will be paid by US interests to oppose and further pipeline construction and oil production development.
    Smitherenzes, exactly and well said.

  16. As Mark Steyn says:
    “It’s a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice-cream and a quart of dog feces and mix ’em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former.”
    This rule seems to apply to many aspects of life on our Planet.

  17. Hope you are (R)ight, Turtle. There was a rather strong rumor a few weeks back that the NDs had tried to influence today’s vote. We shall see.
    I fear that the Wildrose, for one reason or another has mortally screwed up the vote. My wife bought a m’ship on the 11th of July or thereabouts. The pin number arrived y’day. The cutoff at that time was supposed to be the 12th. Her pin number did not work and I am sure that she is merely 1 of thousands! Can the vote be challenged? We shall see I guess.
    Bottom line, there must be change. Notley, the ‘Head Dufuss’ has got to go! NOW!

  18. What does non-ideological governance look like? When elected members of government use reasonable common sense action over strict ideologically driven emotion. That government begins with smart fair minded leaders at the top. Like Mr. Reagan. Like Mr. Harper. And I’m guessing that is what Alberta will get under Mr. Kenney.
    It looks like the WR vote for Unity of 95.5% is a far ways from skittish. The people of Alberta have spoken. The clock is now ticking for the demise of Alberta’s NDP.

  19. But I think Jason Kenney can be trusted
    Then you deserve him good and hard. What’s not to trust in someone who treated old-stock Canadians as second class when pandering to immigrants? I will vote NDP because people need to see that left-wing idiocy brings about massive catastrophe.

  21. It’s a positive move. Albertans now have a non-NDP coalition that can squeeze the NDP out of power but the left still dominates the culture, education, media, and bureaucracy (and a significant chunk of the “Conservative” coalition). Leftward drift is ongoing and inevitable unless the “Conservatives” take on these institutions. What will likely happen is once they get back in power, they will be content to be big government caretakers, tempering the rate of growth until the NDP comes back to power by convincing all the free-stuff-addicted voters that Conservatives have been too tight with the loot. BC is the model.

  22. We already had unity in the right of centre. No, I don’t want to talk about policy later BECAUSE POLICY IS THE POINT.
    This is a disaster. Voters aren’t shippable goods; you can’t just expect them to stay with the party after its merged. Half of UKIP’s voters went labour. Would not be surprised if a large number of PCs go to the Liberals or AB Party.
    How many mushy vague centre-pandering conservatives have to lose for you people to get it?

  24. Hopefully All of the Progressives go to the Liberals or the Alberta parties. That is where they belong. There is no such thing as a ‘progressive’ conservative. The term is in and of itself a contradiction. Kind of like a cat-dog. You are either one or the other but not both!
    Progressivism is what brought about the demise of the PCs. I quit them way past their best before date 15, 20 or more years ago. The PCs gave more to the electorate per person than any other government in the Dominion. (Along with giving more to those elsewhere in ‘the dominion’ than the ROC.) We got shafted.
    Many of us just sit and dream of what could have been if the cash had stayed here in Alberta instead of being pissed away elsewhere. Sobering thoughts. Perhaps now real change can commence.
    What a hell of an opportunity is within our reach.

  25. The ‘change’ will be for a competent center-statist government. An improvement, but not a very big one.
    What really scares me is the possibility of Jean being replaced by JK or some other backwards, ‘tough on crime’/moar drug war degenerate. Jean isn’t perfect but it’s for the best for him to stay on as leader.

  26. Conservatism! The only answer. Center-statist? – Bull! Right wing – look after yourself and I shall look after myself. You may miss something that I deem important. I can’t take that chance.
    If we get rid of all of the crap that is unnecessary, the grants and the like, there will be lots of assistance for those in need.

  29. Baloney. It will be a grassroots party in the tradition of the reform and federal conservative parties.

  30. It was alberta that commercialized fracking technology and still leads the world no new techniques.

  31. You haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Kenneth was instrumental in reforming the immigration Dept and he was at the forefront of the effort to make new Canadians aware that the cpc and its conservative values were the ones they too had. And that effort is what delivered the cpc a majority and it is what will donit again.
    Kenney is a conservatives conservative. Anyone who knows him will tell you that.

  32. I don’t give a rats ass about what has happened in AB in the past. It’s the future that worries me.
    I bought a WR membership and voted for unity. Kenney was a good cabinet minister in the Harper government.
    This is not going to be easy but another 4 years of ndp and lookout scout. I’m going all in on defeating the ndp.

  35. If 95% of both Conservatives and Wildrose supporters are in favour of a merger, and as of April 28-17, 61% of Albertans were for either the Conservatives or the WR, why don’t you folks just have a referendum and kick Notley out??
    I was really overwhelmed to see the merger come together today. From Saskatchewan, my Rider hat comes of to you!! God Bless Alberta.
    A song from Ian Tyson to celebrate the victory.
    https://youtu.be/v7f65nMlZfI

  39. It doesn’t matter, Gord, who invented fracking or where it was invented. Where was the wheel invented? What matters is where the resources to be fracked are located and right now they look to be mostly in the USA, the very country we are trying to build pipelines to, to sell our oil.

  40. I was correcting you. Admit your mistake.
    As for who will lead – most certainly the US will dominate in the next few years largely because they have the largest reserves and secondarily they have arguably a better regulatory environment.
    But there are massive advancements happening in heavy oil extraction that are crushing the cost of extraction here in Canada and the energy source for heating it – NG it is almost free now.
    In SK heavy oil projects are resuming while in AB virtually nothing new has been started. Expect the growth of heavy oil production to resume (perhaps with a vengeance) in AB once the NDP are gone in 22 months.

  41. I’m always amused by these bilious comments about politicians in general, and, in this case, about Jason Kenney in particular. I accept that some people have no respect for politicians or our political system. I disagree, but we are entitled to our own opinions, and at least we haven’t adopted the loony Australian system of compelling people to vote. It’s just interesting that they always show up when people who are interested in political questions (because they recognize how much government impinges on our lives) are discussing political matters. Nihilists and anarchists need not apply.
    Could Mr Kenney have accomplished more along with Prime Minister Harper? Quite possibly, but no government can’t get too far ahead of the country that it governs, and Mr Harper understood that socialism was being built in Canada since the 1950s and it wasn’t going to be in-built in a few years. If you want to look at the good things accomplished by the Harper government, just look at the things that the Trudeau government has overturned and plans to overturn.

  42. Do you ever get tired of spouting CPC talking points? Do you have any objective thought other than the party line?

  43. “why don’t you folks just have a referendum and kick Notley out??”
    No legislation on recall in Alberta.

  44. Not true. I have been critical of the party and the leader.
    I think pmsh was too slow and not aggressive enough of his advocacy for an elected senate and the vetting of Supreme Court nominees. And he made a terrible decision in hiring jenni Byrne.
    And I have been very vocal for years at Almost every party about what a miserable comms strategy the party has (which has already changed dramatically under scheer’s leadership).
    As for the party line – the cpc is a grassroots party – the party line is the policy book – which PMSH adhered to completely when the party was in power.

  45. I could be wrong but when I look at Brian Jean I keep getting the impression that he doesn’t want the leadership position. It’s as though his heart’s not in it somehow. It’s just a feeling of course. Maybe Health minister? To get some … because of the death of his son? I don’t know.

  47. I’m going to say this with all due respect but guys like you are the reason the allegedly conservative party never does anything wrt pulling back the leftist’s agenda.
    Kenney is the reason the TFW program existed, Kenney went hat in hand begging Sikhs and other”Canadians” for votes, and Harper’s right hand that, as part of the Con majority, did nothing to further a liberty-or personal freedom- based agenda.
    You say Kenney is a “conservative’s conservative”. I say that’s why conservatives never get anywhere.
    PS: captcha is Another Mexico. Agreed.

  48. Grass roots died in the Conservative party the day it merged with the PC’s. If the party was grass roots. It’d have one member one vote with no weighted BS.
    Conventions wouldn’t be elitist gab fests costing $940 to attend. Want a vote in your party or a say in your policy? Pony up!
    Caucus votes would be free instead of party whipped.
    Members would be treated as more than cash cows for donation.

  50. Bogus opinion on your part:
    Most cpc riding associations reimburse delegates for their convention expenses.
    (Would you rather the party have free membership and conventions?
    Any member can put forward policy resolutions and do – and some have made it into the policy book. The remainder are usually the fruit of local EDA efforts. So the grassroots in both the cpc and the Wra is alive and well. You would know that if your ever went to one of the conventions.
    And votes on non-money bills are not whipped. Period.

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