PHOTOS: Joe Anglin, speaking on the steps of the Alberta Legislature in his heyday as the Wildrose Party MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre. Below: Mr. Anglin in November 2015, after his election loss as an Independent to Jason Nixon, his former constituency association president, who won the Wildrose nomination in 2014; Mr. Nixon himself.

Former MLA Joe Anglin says he will be back in court in Edmonton today to pursue a civil lawsuit against Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer and others, alleging abuse of process.

The former Wildrose MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre said yesterday he served a statement of claim on Elections Alberta Chief Electoral Officer Glen Resler on Friday, and since then has served papers in the same case on two workers on the 2015 campaign of Jason Nixon, who is now the MLA for the riding and the United Conservative Party House Leader.

“I plan to serve more people as soon as they are identified,” said Mr. Anglin, who revealed that since he lost in the May 2015 general election he has been studying law through a U.S. university and expects to complete his studies this year.

The statement of claim alleges Elections Alberta, among other things, carried out unfounded investigations of Mr. Anglin’s activities in the election and prosecuted him improperly for violations of election laws, in the process damaging his reputation and destroying his chances of election, causing loss of future employment. He is seeking $2 million in damages. None of the assertions in the document has been proved in a court of law.

Mr. Anglin said he will attend the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench today to file a motion to submit new evidence and other documents related to his case.

The U.S.-born Mr. Anglin, a colourful veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and former leader of the Alberta Green Party, was elected as Wildrose MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre in the 2012 election.

In June 2014, he faced a challenge for the Wildrose nomination from Mr. Nixon, who just days before had been his constituency association president. Mr. Anglin challenged the legality of Mr. Nixon’s nomination under the party’s rules, but was not successful.

That fall, after Mr. Nixon won the Wildrose nomination, Mr. Anglin left the party to sit as an Independent.

In early 2015, he talked about seeking the Progressive Conservative nomination in the riding and says both sides came to the conclusion it would never work. He disputes the PC Party’s claim it rejected his candidacy.

He ran for the seat as an Independent in the May 2015 general election and came last after Mr. Nixon and the PC and NDP candidates.

Mr. Anglin’s dispute with Elections Alberta over the wording of his election signs, and removal of some of those signs, began during the election campaign and has continued ever since.

In a separate legal action, Mr. Anglin received leave from the Alberta Court of Appeal on Nov. 30 last year to challenge a $250 fine leveled against him by Elections Alberta for the wording and the size of the lettering on some of the signs he used during his run as an Independent.

Mr. Anglin is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. He said he enrolled in the law school of Purdue University in Indiana after the 2015 election. He expects to graduate at the end of this year and hopes to qualify for the Bar in California, and later in Canada.

Mr. Anglin, 62, said he recalls as a Wildrose MLA how members of the PC government would heckle him in the Legislature with cries of “why don’t you go to law school?” So, he said, he did.

Join the Conversation

4 Comments

  1. https://youtu.be/QFu0o8NB5Io This is what is at stake now. Like the frog who starts out in warm water, we are about to be boiled! Toy with your pleasant provincial concerns. Let them distract you from what are now our small planet signals. It’s you who have to up your game, because the game is us, win or lose!.

  2. Jeesh, he went through all this trouble to get a law degree just because some Wildrosers taunted him. If they told him to jump off a cliff, would he do it?

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.