The plan to resurrect the Progressive Conservative Party by former UCP MLAs Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair has the potential to have a dramatic impact on Alberta politics.
The key word in the previous sentence, though, is “potential.”
Some Albertans, deeply troubled by the extremist and separatist policies pursued by the United Conservative Party Government led by Premier Danielle Smith, greeted the announcement Thursday by Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Scott with enthusiasm and relief.
“A PC Party is exactly what Alberta needs,” wrote Dierdre Mitchell-MacLean on her always thoughtful Women of AB Poli Substack the same day. “I wouldn’t even try to pretend I’m not ridiculously excited about the potential resurgence of a progressive conservative party in Alberta.”
A revived PC party, she argued, would have the ability to reach conservative voters in ways the NDP never could.
This could very well be true, of course, if the two Independent MLAs’ aspirations can be realized. That will not necessarily be easy to do, however.
Nevertheless, while Premier Danielle Smith tried to play it cool when asked about it at a news conference, the UCP is obviously worried. Their most simpatico Postmedia commentator, the Calgary Sun’s Rick Bell, quickly pumped out a column warning that the return of the PCs could hand an election victory to the NDP – quelle horreur!
“Nenshi sees two former UCP politicians wanting to exhume the PC corpse as ‘a clear sign’ Albertans are unhappy with Smith,” Mr. Bell grumbled in his July 3 column. “Of course, Nenshi can count. He can see if some of Smith’s UCP vote ever went to a PC party it would be his dream come true. There would be better odds of Nenshi becoming Alberta’s next premier.”
At the moment, there are too many unknowns for me to venture too strong an opinion about how significant this may turn out to be.
So let’s talk about what we know, and what we don’t, about a PC revival, and what it might mean:
What we know
We know that Danielle Smith and the UCP are starting to worry a lot of Alberta Conservatives with their openly separatist agenda, and to frighten quite a few.
It’s all very well for Alberta premiers to pick jurisdictional fights with Ottawa and other provinces. It’s the way politics has been practiced in this province for generations, including while the NDP was in power.
We also know from polling that separatist sentiment in Alberta is almost totally concentrated among supporters of the UCP while NDP voters almost entirely support remaining in Confederation.
But the number voters in the UCP universe who range from uncomfortable with separatism to outright hostility to the idea is very significant. Like the proverbial iceberg, it’s much bigger than the portion that is visible right now.
So the first conclusion we can safely make is that there are a lot of Conservative voters who would seriously consider voting for a revived federalist Alberta Progressive Conservative Party if it had a realistic chance of getting rid of Ms. Smith and the UCP.
We also know that a lot about the very high percentage of NDP members who signed up to vote for the leadership Naheed Nenshi in June 2024 did not remain members when it was time to renew their memberships.
This is quite normal after an Alberta-style public leadership race. But many of them, and many traditional NDP voters from the time before Mr. Nenshi appeared in the scene, have grown disillusioned with his passive leadership style over the past year.
While lots of these voters will never vote for a party with the world Conservative in its name, it’s said here that a significant number would.
This would be especially true if a case could be made it would be the only way to get rid of Ms. Smith and her MAGA UCP, who in light of what is taking place before our eyes in the United States, are now perceived by many Albertans as a clear and present danger.
The recent Canadian federal election is an example of what could happen if large numbers of Alberta New Democrats decided to hold their noses and vote PC to stop a UCP re-election, just as many federal NDP voters held their noses and voted for Mark Carney’s Liberals to block Pierre Poilievre from office.
We also know there is a considerable nostalgia nowadays in Alberta for the PC era – warts and all.
Who hasn’t heard a progressive friend or neighbour say they never supported PC policy, but at least the PCs mostly weren’t crazy? Even premier Jason Kenney, who arguably in his arrogance started the ball rolling on this separatist nonsense, doesn’t look as bad has he once did to a lot of progressive Albertans.
For these reasons, there is a considerable pool of voters who could be persuaded to support a renewed Progressive Conservative Party.
My conclusion, based on what we know, is that if the planets lined up the right way for Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Sinclair, their aspirational party could be a threat to both the UCP and the NDP.
What we don’t know
The first thing that we don’t know is if the nascent PC Party, whether or not it ends up being able to call itself Progressive Conservative on a legal Alberta ballot, has any potential for growth inside the Legislature.
I’m not talking about the potential for attracting voters if voters could be made to believe it has a chance to form a government or even opposition.
Mr. Guthrie, the MLA for Airdrie-Cochrane and a former minister in Ms. Smith’s cabinet, and Mr. Sinclair, the MLA for Lesser Slave Lake, are both well spoken, small-c conservatives who appear sincere in their public commitment to Canadian Confederation and honourable in their intentions.
Both took a principled stand against policies of Ms. Smith’s government and were tossed out of caucus for it – a fate that usually results in a political death sentence.
But are they good enough organizers to attract even one or two MLAs now in the House? There must be three for them to achieve party status under the present rules, and they would need more to ensure the UCP didn’t try to change the rules.
Mr. Guthrie has said he believes about a third of the UCP Caucus are committed separatists. So are any of the other two thirds brave enough to cross the floor and join them? That would be a significant development. At the moment, it is another unknown. Count on it, though, the UCP will do whatever it can to prevent a defection.
Are they good enough organizers to attract a minimum of 45 volunteers willing to be nominated to run, or to get the 8,819 verified signatures they’d need by late November? Those would be other ways to get official party status.
They told the CBC Saturday they’ve already started to work on that. But they offered few actual details of what they’re doing other than holding a “relaunch” of the party in Calgary.
Could they cobble together a sufficient party organization to vet candidates and set up constituency associations – especially if the UCP decided to call an early election to nip their rebellion in the bud? That would be a high bar to overcome.
Face it, if only the two of them run in the next general election as “Progressive Conservatives,” with or without that affiliation on the ballot beside their names, little is likely to come of their effort.
Would Mr. Guthrie or Mr. Sinclair be willing to settle for slightly more moderate rhetoric from Ms. Smith and the UCP, and a welcome back to the bosom of the governing party? Unknown. But if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s possible.
And how will the bagmen who help finance the Conservative movement, direct its allied think tanks, and motivate the party’s many friends in media react? What about individual donors? Without funds – like the Wildrose Party got from small oil and gas companies in its formative years – a new PC Party will not prosper.
Without political oxygen – like that now being supplied to Alberta’s separatist fringe by mainstream media, including the CBC – the PC revival is also likely to quickly peter out. Right now the two are getting attention – will that last?
And what will the Alberta wing of the federal Conservative Party do? It is the creation of a reverse hostile takeover of the federal Progressive Conservatives by Preston Manning’s Reform Party in 2003.
The ranks of the Alberta Caucus of the Conservative Party of Canada include MAGA MPs cut from the same cloth as Ms. Smith’s most radical MLAs. And the Conservative plan to govern Canada depends on a happy and united Alberta Caucus and a supportive provincial government in this province.
It’s hard to believe the federal party would be favourable to the creation of a new, more progressive, conservative political entity that didn’t always toe the federal Conservative line – just as the Alberta PCs of yore didn’t always salute when their federal brethren run a stupid idea up the flagpole.
Likewise, how many of the professional political operatives who work with the federal party would offer their undeniable talents to the Guthrie-Sinclair PCs in an election? Not many, it’s said here, without a nod from the federal party.
Face it, it’s easier to get a big news hit on a slow summer day than it is to create a political party with the chops to win an election.
So my conclusion based on what we don’t know is that Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Guthrie will have to climb a very steep hill to spin their twosome into a viable party. I doubt it can be done in what’s left of the current election cycle. I’m not sure it can be done at all.
Conclusion
Don’t bet the farm on the PCs 2.0 saving Alberta from either the UCP or the NDP, or both.
This could turn out to be a big deal. It could turn out to be nothing. My money’s on “not much.”
The odds are that the next Alberta election will be a two-horse race between the separatist UCP and the federalist NDP. Change my mind!