PHOTOS: The Alberta Liberal Party executive. From left to right: Vice-President Fundraising John Roggeveen, Secretary Alyssa Moore, Treasurer Greg Springate, President Karen Sevcik, MLA David Swann, VP David Khan, VP Policy David Gamble and VP Constituencies Dan MacLennan. Below: Potential candidates Nolan Crouse, Mr. Khan and Nirmala Naidoo.

OTTAWA

Optimistically billing themselves “the common sense centre,” Alberta’s provincial Liberal Party launched its contest yesterday to find a permanent replacement for interim Leader David Swann, the party’s sole MLA.

The slogan for the Alberta Liberal leadership race – which will run from today until March 31 – is definitely better than anything the Alberta Progressive Conservatives have come up for their effort to replace their interim Leader, Ric McIver, which alert readers will recall is also under way.

As an aside, it must be noted that the governing New Democratic Party does not have a leadership race under way at the moment, seeing as its leader, Premier Rachel Notley, cannot be accused of having botched the last Alberta provincial election on May 5, 2015.

Nor does the Opposition Wildrose Party, although a substantial number of Wildrose members seem to be preoccupied with figuring out how to get rid of Leader Brian Jean.

Regardless, getting back to the point, the Liberal slogan is as follows: “Our Alberta. Your Choice.”

This makes it the opposite of what, it is said here, the Tories are really thinking, to wit: “Your Alberta. Our Choice.” The PC race is scheduled to end with the elevation of candidate Jason Kenney to the leadership on the first ballot on March 18. There are three other candidates in the Tory race, whose names all escape me at the moment.

In the aftermath of the Liberals’ disastrous last leader – Raj Sherman, who was chosen back in 2011 – the party has only one member in the provincial Legislature, Dr. Swann, who often sounds a lot like a New Democrat.

But to give the Liberals credit, party President Karen Sevcik tacitly acknowledged the reality of the party’s recent lack of success in the press release, noting that the party’s plan is to “choose a Leader with the skills and vision necessary to deliver our message to Albertans.”

No one says that will be easy. But no one should completely discount this, either. If Alberta voters have proved anything in the past couple of years, it is that they are not all conservatives and their mood is highly volatile.

The Liberal news release did not name any candidates or possible candidates, although it indicated applications will start being processed at once, and candidates will therefore be named soon.

However, at least three high-profile potential candidates are known to be seriously contemplating a run for the Liberal leadership: in alphabetical order, St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, Calgary lawyer and party VP David Khan, and former Calgary TV journalist Nirmala Naidoo.

The PC leadership race, meanwhile, seems to have taken a nasty turn.

On Sunday, as your blogger travelled to our nation’s capital for business unrelated to this blog, party organizer Alan Hallman, a volunteer on Mr. Kenney’s campaign, was expelled from the party for Tweeting that other PC supporters were “assholes.”

I apologize to readers for using this rough word, by the way. But as I used to tell my journalism students: “If it’s news, you should spell it out. If it isn’t, don’t use it.” Having painted myself into that corner years ago, I had no choice in the event but to spell the word correctly.

Regardless, Mr. Hallman has now been tossed out of the party for a year and has deleted his Twitter account.

For his part, Mr. Kenney first defended Mr. Hallman – as well he should have, having called former PC deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk exactly the same thing in an email back in 2012 and then hitting the reply-all button – and a little later fired him from his campaign.

I was only joshing readers, by the way, when I said I couldn’t recall the other three PC candidates. They are Vermilion-Lloydminister MLA MLA Richard Starke, former St. Albert MLA Stephen Khan and Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson.

All of them appear to be dedicated to preserving the progressive in Progressive Conservative, and therefore they have the moneybags of the provincial conservative movement ranged against them. This is why I am so confident Mr. Kenney, a former cabinet minister and confidant of former prime minister Stephen Harper, will promptly win the PC contest.

The winner of the race to become new Alberta Liberal leader will be announced in Calgary on June 4. Before that, debates are scheduled to be held in Calgary on April 8 and Edmonton on May 6, followed by online voting from May 27 to June 3.

NDP tops 4th quarter and full year fundraising results

Elections Alberta has now released Alberta political parties fundraising results for the fourth quarter, Oct. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2016. Fundraising results for the quarter and the full year are as follows:

Q4

NDP – $798,166
WRP – $511,668
PC – $218,793
ALP – $85,931
AP – $32,612

2016

NDP – $2 million
WRP – $1.8 million
PC – $399,814
ALP – $211,927
AP – $82,394

I copied these numbers in a darned hurry sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a hotel room. Any errors of transcription or rounding are, of course, the fault of the hotel. DJC

NOTE (Tuesday, Jan. 17) – St. Alberta Mayor Nolan Crouse announces he’s thinking about Liberal leadership bid

It’s been widely rumoured already, including in this space as recently as last night, but St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse formally announced early this morning that he’s thinking about seeking the leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party.

Having said he won’t be seeking reelection as mayor of the bedroom suburb northwest of Edmonton, Mr. Crouse said in this morning’s statement, “I have decided it is time to review other potential opportunities to continue serving Albertans beyond the Municipal realm.”

“As such,” he went on, “I intend to explore important options to serve the people of Alberta through provincial politics.”

Specifically, he said, there are the Liberals. “Yesterday … the Alberta Liberal Party announced the start of this new chapter with its intent to choose the party’s next leader in June, replacing Dr. David Swann. The opportunity to serve Albertans in a capacity such as the volunteer Liberal Party leader is one opportunity that I am seriously considering.” (Emphasis added.)

Mr. Crouse, who has served three terms as St. Albert’s mayor, plus an additional term as a city councillor and five years as chair of the Capital Regional Board, said he “will update Albertans in the near future.”

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

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9 Comments

  1. Not so fast with a Jason Kenney win in Calgary on March 18 2017. With his frothing desire to destroy the PC Party of Alberta. More people I talk to within PC Party circles are starting to see Jason Kenney as a hungry mad power dog. I predict it will come down to two ballots with one of the three renewal candidates coming out on top.

  2. How will Alberta Liberals get Alberta back to “the common-sense centre” (hello Mike Harris!)–by repealing farm and ranch workplace protection, gutting environmental measures, getting rid of increased regulation of payday loan companies? There’s a surprisingly long list of common-sense, decent legislation they can repeal to get us back to a more moderate place.

  3. One further comment. It must boggle the minds of genuine Alberta PCs that the front-runner for the party leadership is a guy who wants to shut the party down. That used to be the opposition plan. Imagine a Republican president in the U.S. who sided with the Russians on everything and attacked Nato and even his own intelligence agencies. Wait, what?

  4. I do not see any place for the Alberta Liberals.

    My perspective is that the Notley NDP party has successfully taken that ground and proven that they can keep it.

    If the Conservatives or WRP have any hope of increasing their standings they will need to move to where the puck is, and is going. Not to where it was a few games ago. They need to move off their far right positions toward the center. Alberta demographics have changed forever.

    1. Brett, you see what I see. The Alberta Liberal is slowly disappearing. A majority of Liberal voters have moved to the NDP, some will go to the Alberta Party, a sliver to the PC Party without Jason Kenney as leader. As for the Wildrose, they are Social Credit in panty hose. They try to look pretty but their make up is horribly and hastily applied. The Wildrose party is based in rural Alberta and that is were it will stay as its support stops at the suburban/urban doorstep.

      1. I would disagree. According to threehundredeight.com, the WR have 34.6% support in Calgary (27.6% for the NDP), 25.5% in Edmonton (36.4% NDP), and 40.5% in the rest of Alberta (27.6%). It would be fairer to say that the NDP is a regional party, concentrated in Edmonton.

  5. If the Liberals and the PC’s choose certain candidates as leaders, the slogan for the next election could be “The wrath of Khans”. However, I suppose it would be somewhat confusing if both had leaders with the same last name.

    The Liberals face the hurdle of not having any elected MLA to run as leader, although I suppose their only MLA could resign and the candidate chosen as leader could run in that seat. Given their polling numbers, that might be a bit of a risky strategy, especially if the leader chosen was not from an area in close proximity. The PC’s at least have an elected MLA running and a few more seats to choose from, if need be.

    Brian Jean may have his hands full with an independent minded and sometimes rebellious caucus, but I expect the real fun there will not start until after the PC race is decided. After all, what would be the point of turmoil now in Wildrose if the PC’s choose a leader not interested in merger. Too much turmoil now in Wildrose might also reinforce anti merger PC’s second thoughts about Wildrose, so merger minded Wildrose members may be keeping a lit on it for now.

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