By every measure, the Alberta Party had a better name than every other political party in Alberta.
Surely somewhere – Saskatchewan, maybe, where the Saskatchewan Party still rules – there’s a political science PhD thesis that proves this to be the case.
But even without a learned dissertation to quote, it’s obvious! We all know in our bones that the Alberta Party was the best political party name ever – here in Wild Rose Country, anyway – and no one was ever going to come up with a better one. Certainly not the Wildrose Party, known nowadays as the United Conservative Party.
Now, Leader Peter Guthrie has announced in a tweet, the Alberta Party has decided to become the “Progressive Tory Party of Alberta,” which is, like, totally lame.
So that probably means it’ll be a huge success in the topsy-turvy world of Alberta politics.
Despite having the best name ever, for some reason the Alberta Party could never got on this province’s political radar no matter how hard it tried, and at times it tried desperately hard indeed.
It was so irrelevant, it would seem, that no scholar ever wasted his or her time trying to figure out why this should be.
It was not for a lack of thoughtful and talented leadership. Among its leaders were: Glenn Taylor, once mayor of Hinton; Sue Huff, a former Edmonton school trustee; Greg Clark, elected as an Alberta Party candidate and a popular and hardworking MLA for Calgary-Elbow; Stephen Mandel, late of the PC Cabinet and the mayor’s office in Edmonton; and Barry Morishita, once mayor of Brooks. All of them substantial people with good minds. A tip o’ the hat to former Alberta Liberal Dave Taylor, too, the party’s first MLA, of whom the same thing could be said.
So I have a theory: Alberta Party acolytes wouldn’t like this characterization, but their party was too much in concept like the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta – which we all used to call the Tories, especially those of us who wrote headlines for a living – in that it didn’t really have a political philosophy other than existing for the sole purpose of being in power.
The Alberta Party was supposed to be the Platonic ideal of the perfect Alberta political party. Only better. But the PC’s were also the Platonic ideal of the Alberta political party, except for the name, of course.
And the PCs were in power. And by the time they weren’t, the NDP under Rachel Notley was working as hard as it could to become the same thing.
So the Alberta Party, which started out as a weirdo far-right coalition with the all-but-defunct Social Credit Party, over the years went through phases as the perfect vehicle for disgruntled Alberta Liberals, disgruntled Alberta Red Tories, and even disgruntled New Democrats. Whatever it tried, it was so perfect, it was always a flop.
And now we have a Conservative government in Alberta that is not remotely conservative and an NDP Opposition that doesn’t appear to be engaged by the idea of being the government, and the planets are apparently all in alignment for the Alberta Party to step onto the stage. So what do they do? They change their perfect name!
Well, like I said, maybe it’ll work. This is, after all, Alberta.
Anyway, now that Mr. Guthrie, a former United Conservative Party cabinet minister and still the MLA for Airdrie-Cochrane, has decided he wants to lead the Alberta Party out of the wilderness, and has been named the leader by the nearly moribund party’s board without a vote of the party’s members, his plan was to change the name to the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.
When the UCP passed sneaky and possibly unconstitutional legislation to prevent that, the great minds he’s been consulting came up with the Progressive Tory Party of Alberta.
To give them their due, this will work for hard-pressed headline writers, although it won’t matter as much as it would have back in the day when the only headlines were on paper.
The UCP, Mr. Guthrie told The Canadian Press, “had just about every abbreviation and acronym covered, but they missed nicknames and synonyms, and ‘Tory’ was just a natural fit for us.”
I give the credit for this development to University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley, who back in April 2024 lamented in his Decoding Politics Substack the lack of old-timey Tories in Alberta.
“At its core,” he wrote, “toryism is a political philosophy that blends traditional values with a progressive belief in the state’s role in promoting social welfare and economic equality. It emphasizes community and diversity over individualism and universalism, and a balanced approach to governance that upholds tradition while addressing contemporary needs through incremental change.”
This is actually a pretty good definition of modern Progressive Conservatism as practised in Ottawa up until Brian Mulroney, anyway, and in Alberta off and on (Ralph Klein no; Ed Stelmach yes; Alison Redford sometimes) until the election of Ms. Notley and the NDP in 2015.
It certainly is nothing like the “conservatism” of Jason Kenney and particularly Danielle Smith, who practises MAGA lunacy and leans hard toward Trump-style authoritarianism and outright separatism.
Maybe Mr. Guthrie read Dr. Wesley’s post. Or maybe nostalgia for the relative sanity of the old PCs was becoming enough of a phenomenon that they both just picked up on the Tory trope.
Me, I have some problems with modern neoliberals – and that’s a category that it would be fair to say likely includes Mr. Guthrie – calling themselves Tories.
As I wrote on Independence Day 2015, while notion of Tories had its beginnings among the royalist faction in the English Civil War of 1639 to 1651, in North America it normally refers to the Loyalists of British North America who opposed American secession in the 1770s.
The treasonous and newly confident American revolutionaries weaponized the term to hurl at their patriotic fellow-Americans as political invective. Those Tories who were not murdered for their loyalty to the Crown were robbed and driven from their homes. They landed in British North America, that part of the continent we now call Canada, as what would today be called political refugees.
So in this country “Tory” became honourable shorthand for the Conservative Party of John A. Macdonald, fiercely protectionist builders of Canada, and by near-apostolic succession a long line of Conservatives prime ministers up to and including Joe Clark. After Joe, though, not so much.
That really ended with Stephen Harper, of whom I wrote in 2015: “The theft of the grand old Canadian political designation Tory by Harper and what should properly be called ‘the American Party of Canada,’ done with the connivance of a cadre of lazy newspaper headline writers, must have Mr. Macdonald, our first prime minister of any political persuasion, spinning like a top in his grave! The site of his grave, readers will note, is in Kingston.”
So we’ll need to reserve judgment about whether these new Alberta “Tories” are really Tories, in the Canadian sense of the word. Mr. Guthrie started out, after all, as a United Conservative Party MLA and cabinet minister.
In the meantime, though, it is axiomatic that Alberta can never have too many Conservative parties, as long as there’s a viable alternative somewhere to their left.
Yes, for whatever reasons the Alberta Party name seemed great on paper but in reality never caught on.
First of all, we are not Sask. and while we were tired of the PCs and they were tired too, they did not reach the same level of disgrace here as they did in Saskatchewan. In fact we now seem to look back fondly at them after their being out of power for over a decade.
Secondly, the Alberta Party name is generic and its constant reinvention made it even harder for Albertan to figure out what it stood for. Yes even the PCs actually stood for something, although their desire to stay in power often led to a lot of flexibility, which surprisingly voters were also often fine with. It seems we really do want politicians with ideologies, but we also want them to be somewhat flexible.
So I feel the Progressive Tories, (maybe they should call themselves the Progressive Centrist Tories for more clarity and in case they can ever use the PC label) name may do better.
A last important point here is the failure yet again of the UCP’s micromanagement and control. They made up a list of names that could not be used, but the PT’s or the PCT’s have found a name not on the list that could still work. There is already a practicality or flexibility there that echoes their predecessor.
In paragraph 3 “We all know in in our bones that the Alberta Party” there is a double “in”. Perhaps one of them should be deleted?
When Peter Guthrie joined the political fray, there was no Wildrose or PC to choose from just UCP. I must say though Guthrie and Sinclair are the only two from the UCP that in my view have any morals or values. All the others are little ducks blindly following Ditzy Dani.
Thanks, OA. Late-night speed writing again, followed by blindness to my own typos. DJC
Based on Jared Wesley’s definition of Tory, “Progressive” is redundant. Alberta Tories or even Alberta Tory Party, IMHO, would be simpler and better for headlines…
Jorobb: I agree. Thought the same thought struck me when I saw it, which is why I characterized it as awkward. They hope to be called the Tories, just like the Blue Jays, apparently, hoped to be called the Blues (after the beer of the same name). Instead, they may end up in headlines and Elections Alberta charts as the PTs, just as the Jays are known as, well, the Jays. DJC
The Petite Party?
The “Progressive” in the old federal Progressive Congressional Party’s name was the result of a merger — or perhaps takeover — between the original Conservative Party and the Progressive Party in 1942: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/progressive-party.
The Progressive Party, which arose out of the United Farmers movement of the 1920s, wasn’t a typical leftist party, despite its name. It favoured free trade and direct democracy, which today are policies put forth by the right, but also advocated nationalization of railways, which is a lefty idea, and also resisted typical party structure and discipline, which is a populist position.
The Progressive Party was a short-lived phenomenon. It contested its first federal election in 1921, electing 65 MPs. But its support dwindled in the 1925 & 1926 elections, and in 1932 it splintered as some members went to the CCF and others to Social Credit. The remainder joined the Conservatives in 1942.
The Progressive Party Premier of Manitoba, John Bracken, successfully ran for the Conservative Party leadership that year, and the party changed its name to Progressive Conservative.
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/conservative-party
So, just as many misinterpret the “New” in the name of the New Democratic Party — it’s not about a “new” party, but a “new” form of economic democracy (that has yet to be realized, and in fact which IMHO the NDP has itself abandoned) — we often misinterpret the “Progressive” in Progressive Conservative.
My gosh, another typo. Sorry folks. My first sentence should read, “…the old federal Progressive Conservative Party’s name was the result of a merger…”
I always thought the name Alberta Party was kind of “blah”. It didn’t really mean anything and didn’t give any clues to what they stood for, other than maybe some vague notion of Albertan values reinforced by old stereotypes. When I read the line about their “weirdo far-right coalition” origins I laughed (I remember those early days and appropriately writing them off) and my first thought was their communication was so poor that most people didn’t realize that they eventually moved more towards the centre. So their demise could be broken down to 2 points (though I’m sure their are more). First, voters couldn’t figure out who they were, what they stood for, if they were far-right/centre etc so they parked their votes with their traditional parties. Second, financial backing or perhaps lack thereof. Why would the oil companies and American interests throw vast sums of their sweet sweet cash at a right wing party when they already backed a completely compliant right wing party that already had a majority government? So friends, as has been said here before, likely our only hope is that this “new” party splits the right wing vote and allows the NDP to come up the middle, though you can be sure that Fraulein Schmidt will do everything in her power (with the help of those dark interests) to make sure that doesn’t happen.
FoF: “It didn’t really mean anything…” That’s why I always thought it was so brilliant!” DJC
David: An excellent summary of Tory roots and philosophy. Gawd help me, I may be a Tory.
But wait! Speaking of meaningless phrases, what about that “promoting diversity” business? If Alberta is divisible from Canada, why not divide Alberta north to south along the 5th Meridian? West of the Fifth we have pretty much all the remaining light sweet crude oil, lots of natural gas and the best farm land. We also have the Rocky Mountains and the remaining glaciers with the headwaters of all the prairie rivers.
The guys east of the 5th. can keep Ft. Mac, its heavy sour crude, and Edmonton. We get the “better” halves of Calgary and Stony Plain, perhaps including one D. Climenhaga. They can have Lethbridge and Medicine Hat which are both too dry to live through the climate catastrophe anyway. The eastern Albertans get Red Deer too. It was once Alberta’s “garden city” but now is mostly a series of mismanaged freeways.
The fifth meridian terminates at the border near Waterton National Park – so, only 6 miles or so of US Border to bother patrolling and I bet your pension BC would be happy to have us. Then we could truly have a Firth of the Fifth.
Now if I could just afford a private doctor to remove my tongue from my cheek, I could go back to being serious.
Kang: A corridor to Edmonton would be required to accommodate all the New Democrats there and the generally progressive sentiments of the vast majority of residents within city limits. Your blogger lives in a suburban riding nearby, almost represented by a New Democrat. DJC
Ah! I can see we have to make exceptions sullying the purity of this West of the Fifth Platonic vision. Oh well, back to my cave.
“here Wild Rose Country, anyway…”
A missing “in”?
Mike: Fixed. Speed typing. Thanks. DJC
“At its core,” he wrote, “toryism is a political philosophy that blends traditional values with a progressive belief in the state’s role in promoting social welfare and economic equality. It emphasizes community and diversity over individualism and universalism, and a balanced approach to governance that upholds tradition while addressing contemporary needs through incremental change.”
The problem with this of course is that it’s rubbish. The conservative party in Alberta has always been the political arm of the oil industry. That is the role of the UCP now, especially as oil comes under attack, and that might change if it begins to look like the UCP might lose an election. The fact that it is splintering is a sign. Capitalists understand hedging. I am pretty certain that Alberta’s next government will be at least sympathetic to the oil industry, which is still far more popular in Alberta than in the rest of the world.
The oil industry is under attack only insofar as one faction of plutocrats determined that the way forward was a war economy to fight climate change, which would ease the implementation of the post-work digital fiefdom and another faction of plutocrats determined to maintain the old control mechanism of coups and wars to manage hydrocarbon flows. It ain’t over til the fat lady gets her social credit score reduced in her digital universal basic income wallet to ensure she stops ordering eclairs with Door Dash.
Murphy: Jerry was just slapping my wrist for forgetting where the Progressive in Progressive Conservative came from. He also offered a theory, which I’m not sure I am willing to accept, about the New in New Democratic Party. Be that as it may, I don’t know that I’m ready to think of Social Credit in terms that have nothing to do with Major Douglas. Regular readers of this blog are expected to understand what all of this means. DJC
@DJC
shhhhhh it’s super sekrit Canadian code so the Murkans don’t know what we’re saying
I believe Danielle Smith is afraid of being challenged, and this is why she is trying to stop the Conservative name from being used by other political parties in Alberta. The thing is that the UCP are Conservative in name only, but beyond that, they aren’t.
According to the UCP bots, the Progressive Tories are really Liberals in disguise. Federal Liberals. Insinuating that somehow this is all Trudeau’s fault. I’ll say this about the UCP propaganda folks, they’re not much good but they definitely consistent.
Yups that’s just bound to die…try pronouncing TPTA three times fast then imagine newscasters trying to say it on nightly news and podcasters trying to explain it.
Too bad they ain’t got the brains Gawd gave a Christmas tree bulb and just called themselves “Proper Conservatives” aka PC or the like.
Tory is old English meaning bog robber, or highwayman. So what in the world is a progressive bog robber? Just asking.
Toilet cleaner wearing gloves?
Stephen Harper misappropriated the nickname “Tory” for his decidedly non-Tory, or nominally “Conservative Party of Canada” just about the same time he redefined the huge Athabasca bitumen deposit—what was colloquially called “tar-sands” — into “oil-sands,” and started to diminish the Crown—at the time embodied by Queen Elizabeth, Canada’s Head of State—by, among other things, undermining Canada’s sovereignty by shady “trade deals” with China, by galling disrespect for her representative, Governor General Michelle Jean, when he bullied her into granting prorogation of parliament whilst an already-tabled CPC bill had yet to be voted on—a vote his CPC minority would have lost (otherwise Her Excellency would have—and should have— refused the request, allowed the confidence vote to proceed and, only then, if the government lost confidence, decide how committed the proffered NDP-BQ-Liberal alliance was to voting en bloc to pass bills: either give them a shot at passing legislation, the ultimate test of confidence or, if she was not so convinced of the alliance’s commitment, dissolve Parliament and call an election), and by removing the Queen’s portrait from federal buildings and vessels (I even saw this at the hockey arena beside CFB Comox: when some lummox in the stands behind me ordered me to stand and remove my cap for the anthem, I responded: “when they put the Sovereign’s portrait back up where it should be, then I’ll stand for the anthem.” I often use a cane in crowds so as the area guys cooled off Mr Asshole, my darling convinced me to put my burl-handled shillelagh back down on the floor while spectators muttered that they’d never noticed Her Majesty’s missing portrait before. Mr Arena assured me he’d take care of it.
I telephoned BC Ferries — after it was “privatized” as BC Ferries Services Inc, the 100% publicly owned “private service contractor” imposed by the BC Liberal government — when I inquired why the portrait of the Queen had suddenly gone missing in BC Ferry vessels and terminals. An extremely snotty “lady” told me, “We’re not part of government anymore so we don’t have to display her portrait anymore — it’s the same for all our vessels and terminals…” —as if that was supposed to make me feel better that it wasn’t only the ferry to my own Island . I convinced her to have that decision reconsidered or meet some waves much bigger than any on the Salish Sea. (I confess I’d already been in touch with Transport Canada which actually licences BC Ferry vessels.) The portraits were returned forthwith. I even got a phone call from the federal government official to assure me they were. A “squeaky wheel” kinda thing. When we went to see our grandson tend goal in the peewee playoffs, the Queen’s portrait was back above the scoreboard at the Comox Arena — and we stood for the anthem, caps in hand (my darling gave me a kick for singing “God Save The Queen” instead).
Harper had thus besmirched our Sovereign and our sovereignty — two defining qualities of Tory conservatism, and I always suspected that it helped sour a relationship conservative parties had long enjoyed with our military forces and personnel. I was flummoxed when the HarperCons were busted for shorting injured veterans their disability pensions and by the increasingly nasty official responses from Julian Fantino, minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of Defence, which unsurprisingly resulted in vets organizing ABC movements — “Anybody But Conservatives” — in each province leading up to the 2015 election which doubtlessly contributed to the defeat of the CPC’s first and last majority.
So, just like bitumen ain’t oil, Harper’s CPC wasn’t Tory — and so the party remains under the four leaders it’s had since the 2015 Liberal victory (I count Ronna Ambrose even though she was officially an “interim” leader—but a level-headed one who led the party for over half the 2015-19 term before the party had cooled off enough to have a leadership convention that didn’t devolve into embarrassing extremism and radical infighting—which it did anyway).
How today’s nominal “conservative parties” became led by globalizing neoliberals and elected by radicalized far-right libertarians might be as twisted a tale as how we got the name “Tory” itself. It derives from the Irish-Gaelic “tóir”, meaning ‘fugitive’ or ‘pursued,’ thence to “toraidhe”, meaning ‘outlaw’ or ‘robber.’ The word likely described native Irish who were dispossessed from their traditional land by Scots “liberated” from land shortage in Scotland where the Highlands were being cleared of traditional crofts and devoted to sheep farming by Whigish investors; the displaced Irish farmers were thus deprived of a way of living except for highway robbery—or so the theory goes. Not sure if it evolved into a political moniker quite like Alberta’s Soldiers of Odin, but the name ‘Tory’ was eventually adopted by traditionalists’ opposed to the Exclusion Acts of the 17th century (imposed to disqualify the heir presumptive of King Charles II, James Stuart, Duke of York, from inheriting the thrones of England, Scotland , and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic). Political Tories eventually became the counter to Whigs — that is, conservatives counter to liberals, conservers of tradition versus liberators from tradition.
The concept of social contract replaced divine right presumed by the Stuart Kings: the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (whence the English Bill of Rights that requires the Crown tax and spend only what the popularly elected parliament approves); preservers of tradition naturally populated the upper chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords of landed peerage which for centuries comprised agrarian enterprise — the era’s version of ‘Big Business’, and the promoters of progress and modernization — the merchants class and entrepreneurs — naturally populated the more-activist legislative House of Commons. Until about 40 years ago the dichotomy of the traditional, communitarian polity (which included lords, right down to peasants) versus those who would be liberated from that spectrum persisted. That is, ‘liberals’ espoused individual rights and thus were not situated on any particular part of the communitarian spectrum (often confused today with the moniker “Liberal” which in Canada refers to a party intersecting the spectrum somewhere near the centre and is as communitarian as it needs to be to get elected. But liberalism also intersects the spectrum on the far-right as libertarianism).
Take a city bus, look at all the people with ear-buds staring into their cellphones. This is the modern, individualistic society of too-much-info, personal entertainment, and furious, entrepreneurial money grubbing in the middle class (the most deluded class). The staid, God-King-and-Country class is an anachronism replaced by neoliberalism, with its most non-Tory attribute: globalization, the six century-old anti-national-sovereignty movement towards stateless corporatocracy as facilitated by instantaneous electronic money-moving. Moribund Tory conservatism was low-hanging fruit for neoliberal usurpers. By the time transitional neo-conservatism had petered out ( the Soviet Collapse in ‘92), virtually all traditional conservative parties had been usurped by globalizing neoliberals who used proxy pseudoCon governments and gullible rural Tories to foster the greatest misappropriations of wealth and worst despoliation of the natural ecosystem in history, to the extent people wish things were like they used to be—decent wages and a cleaner, less-damaged environment—they pine for Toryism — even pathetically for anything that’s called “conservative” even if it really isn’t.
Thus I think calling the Alberta party “Tory” is a fuzzy prospect with a long, train of wooly-bears trailing behind, arcane and archaic, unsure and possibly “unready” (a real nickname they used to give kings). It’s also a compromised position, a ‘second-best’ that’s best not risked, in my humble opinion. Couldn’t they do better?
Why not New Conservative Party, or NCP? Is that really a contradiction in terms? Not if the tradition to be preserved is a clean environment and a fair, communitarian society. What’s the matter with conservatives — Tory conservatives—espousing environmentalism and social justice? The late, former Senator and Chief of Staff to Ontario and federal government leaders, Hugh Segal, self-described Red Tory, titled his book, Boot Straps Need Boots—One Tory’s Lonely Fight to End Poverty in Canada. Green Party leader Elizabeth May — also lonely in her caucus of one—used to be environmental advisor to ProgCon PM Brian Mulroney. With climate disasters getting more severe and frequent, and the inequity of wealth illustrated in “tent cities” of homeless citizens in every metropolis, that seems something we really need right now. Or anything to counter the perverse irony of neoliberal globalization reducing the world to stone-age barbarity after transitioning by way of fascism.
Yeah: “NCP.” Sounds simple enough to me. “Progressive Tory Party” is too hay-wired together, too binder-twined. Just say it three times: it grows on you. NCP. NCP. NCP.
See?
DJC, so what happens if Trash Can Dan gets her way and Alberta votes for separation? By the way, who is going to count the votes? Will Duplicitous Dani pass a law saying only the UCP can count them? But let’s say it passes. Then what? Lawsuits? Supreme Court challenges by Alberta’s Indigenous people whose treaty rights are being ignored? I know I’ve asked this before, but with the separatists going to Washington to drum up foreign interference and Dani clearly showing her separatist bent, when, oh when does the RCMP, CSIS, Carney etc step in and call an end to this bullshit? Now she’s negated the petition that 450,000 Albertans signed and she’s letting the separatists have theirs instead. When are federal authorities going to step in? When is Carney going to tell her to cut out the crap or her pipeline gets flushed down the toilet? Are they all afraid of her, or what?
Michelle: History suggests that what happens would be ugly and most likely violent. Proponents of separation are bound to cite the amicable dissolution of Sweden and Norway in 1905 and of of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992. These are exceptions to the normal pattern, however. Swedes and Norwegians spoke different languages and support for independence was almost unanimous in Norway. Czechs and Slovaks spoke different, although related, languages, although a minority of citizens in both parts of Czechoslovakia opposed the breakup. For similar reasons, an amicable breakup of Canada and Quebec with a functioning relationship afterward is possible. But there is no such unanimity or cultural justification in Alberta and a large percentage of the population, especially in urban areas can be expected to be extremely hostile to the breakup and to resist it bitterly. Since advocates of separatism are making an issue of immigration one can expect a successful separation referendum to result in efforts to deport a significant portion of the population. As in the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the breakup of Yugoslavia, I think the potential for outright civil war would be real and for longstanding unrest and violent opposition to be extremely high, with consequent economic impacts throughout Canada but especially in Alberta. Almost every day I hear Albertans who want to remain part of Canada say that if Canada is divisible, Alberta is divisible. Moreover, given the UCP propensity for cheating and gaming election rules, which we have seen vividly illustrated in the past few days, I think you can count on it that no one would believe the result of a pro-separation referendum. It is my belief that virttually all Alberta separatists are 51st staters at heart, so that introduces a new level of complexity and potential chaos into the matter. No one should imagine that such a change can happen without bitterness and probably physical violence. DJC
Putpa and the Schmenge Brothers live at Alberta Polkapalooza 2026. Be there or be square. One free faloopnic for every happy wanderer from Leutonia. Cabbage rolls and coffee available in the food tent.
Segway on name changes….
Thomas Lukaszuk’s petition was
” Forever-Canadian ” …not Canada.
It’s become a burr lately; news headlines, southern theme park ads etc that use the wrong word. I know I ‘write’ like a butterfly, but reading has been a mainstay in my life. So whether it’s another level of incompetence, lack of education or just laziness using the “less than perfect” AI . One is a country, the other is the people of that country: why is that so hard to understand?
Q. Where are you from?
A. The USA
” Oh, you’re an America or an USAer ”
Okay, that’s my little rant for the day, sorry.
And for anyone who needs a good dose of proud Canadian, may I suggest Tod Maffin bluesky. Tears, Kleenex and a warm glow; a wee present of uplifting. Cheers!
A complete counter to Stormy Dani and the Misfits.
One thing you didn’t mention in your piece was the Alberta Party’s “Big Listen” in 2010. Wasn’t your fellow #ABPoli blogger Daveberta involved in that?
https://blog.mastermaq.ca/2010/11/15/the-alberta-partys-big-listen/
Jerry: I can’t speak for Dave. Better ask him. I personally have mocked The Big Listen for years – it was awfully noisy for what supposedly was a listening exercise and, as far as I can see, accomplished exactly nothing. Regardless, I didn’t think it was strictly relevant to the point I was trying to make, and my posts tend to be too long anyway, so not mentioning it was a considered decision. DJC
It was funny, but for some reason I couldn’t think of Peter Guthrie’s name this morning! I thought I would make a comment on your blog about the Alberta Party becoming the Tory Party, but Guthrie’s name had just wandered off somewhere. I had to look up your blog again to “renew” it! It made me wonder if all Alberta conservatives who spin off in that direction tend to disappear into the ether. They seem to neutralize themselves, or something. It’s spooky, like an episode of the old television series, the “Twilight Zone”. What seems like eons ago I was invited by friends to a couple political-type “meetings” to discuss where Alberta should be going, or something vague like that. Unbeknownst to me it was specifically about birthing the Alberta Party. I’ve always felt piqued about that subterfuge, and was pretty leery about engaging with their subsequent “Big Listen” campaign where they went around the province getting people to tell them what they should be saying and what their policies should look like. It seemed bass-ackwards to me, like YOU tell ME what you believe and what YOU stand for. Then after I met their leader (nice guy but, again, can’t remember his name) and drilled down about health care policies, universality, and so on, I realized he was just another Conservative. I’m about as conservative as the neighbour’s cat, so that fizzled out quickly. Leopards and their spots. Which brings me back to what’s-his-name. Even though I was struggling with his name, I seemed to have a memory of him being the first UCP MLA to endorse Danielle Smith for the leadership of their party. With bells and whistles, yet! Sure enough, there it was in the Cochrane newspaper in July, 2022: “With Danielle’s experience and positive mindset, I feel she will be a real difference-maker to inspire change within our party.” The article goes on to say, “Guthrie introduced and endorsed Smith at a rally in Edmonton last night (July 4) and today released a video explaining his decision.
“He says with that public endorsement, he will be assisting Smith in her campaign in any way possible.” The photo that headlines the article shows him and Smith and his constituency president at the “social”he hosted the previous December, that she attended. As we know, she won the UCP leadership, beat Rachel Notley’s NDP in the provincial election, became the Premier of Alberta, and Peter Guthrie became one of her Cabinet Ministers. And then, he left- all fire and brimstone. Why? What the hell happened? He said ostensibly it was over the health care contracting- the Sam Mraiche business, and so on. But he knew who he was supporting, and the intentions of the UCP and the privatization of the health care system. The timing of Guthrie’s departure from the UCP coincided with the news that recently-fired AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos was told by some board members (who also got fired) to go to the RCMP. Do you think maybe that’s what freaked him out? I don’t know. But I do know his exuberant endorsement of Danielle Smith, not very long ago doesn’t jibe with his holier-than-thou stance now. Maybe that’s why I’ve written him off, and his new party.
You have to wonder how stupid Peter Guthrie is? Why would you try to take over a party that’s been in power for 40 years, has had 16 different leaders and got less than 1% of the vote in the last election? Changing names means nothing as we have seen in the past and splitting the vote is a stupid idea. Joining the NDP and really pissing off Smith would have been a lot smarter like we are seeing at the federal level with conservatives joining the Liberals and pissing off her Reform Party pal Poilievre.
We see Guthrie as just another power freak wanting total control, don’t you?