Stay informed with the LNN Daily Newsletter

Alberta’s new United Conservative Party – in a nutshell, moderate, and reasonably centrist: Faron Ellis

May 20, 2017 | 12:39 PM

LETHBRIDGE – The Wildrose-Conservative announcement on Thursday (May 18) of a signed agreement to unite the two parties gets a positive nod from a local Political Scientist, who’s been bombarded by media for insight on the document.

Dr. Faron Ellis, Research Chair at the Citizens Society Research Lab at the Lethbridge College says, “So far, they’ve been very successful, given the constrained time lines they’re working with.”

But, he notes it is one step in an intricate process.

“It was about a year ago when Jason Kenney announced his quest for the PC leadership and immediately, people were saying there wasn’t enough time but, if you build enough momentum early, then these things have a way of taking on their own momentum, and you get to the deadlines one way or the other.”

“There have been time constraints – they missed their self-imposed deadline by a couple of weeks, in putting the agreement together but, it looks like the time was well spent, in that they have a pretty comprehensive agreement that covers off most of the political, and more importantly, the legal and financial matters, as far as Alberta Elections is concerned.”

Ellis has no doubt that there will be one, single, united right-wing party that the electorate will be presented with come the next election. He concedes that the most contentious part will be in the ratification by the two legacy parties but, he isn’t expecting a large number of either of those parties to dissent. 

“It only takes 25 per cent plus one, in Wildrose, to dissent but I don’t think there will be even that much dissention amongst the grassroots members – all the evidence we have – both the polling evidence as well as the actions of the politicians, tell us that there is so much momentum and so much support amongst conservative – small-C Conservatives of various partisan stripes – to make this happen.”

Ellis referenced a poll his lab completed in October of 2016, showing that the NDP had fallen to third place in voter intention, after the election victory in 2015.

He says there are external forces which may play in favour of a united right.

“When you add to that, the fact that there appears to a lot of ‘buyers remorse’ after the last election and the way this [NDP] government has proceeded, that is, as though they know they’re only going to get one four year term in office, so they are going to bring everything they believe before the legislature and try and put it into law in one term, so the pace of change is much more than most Albertans were expecting.”

“There’s no doubt that many Albertans voted NDP because they had had enough of the Conservatives, and they were aware that they were making a pretty radical change.”

“When the passion of teaching the PCs a lesson in the election runs out and you have to start to deal with, for most Albertans, the level of radical change the New Democrat government has brought in, that starts to make people rethink their decisions and whether the over-the-top reaction to the PCs was warranted.”

“There’s no doubt that’s what is was and the PCs, for the most part, as Albertans said, ‘had it coming’ and several leadership changes didn’t teach them the lessons that Albertans wanted them to be taught.”

At the same time, Ellis says the two remaining years of the NDP is a long time and there could be a turn around in the economy and there could be missteps by the new party and the new leader of the party. He points to the fact that it looked like Danielle Smith was going to be the new premier of the province in 2012 and history recorded and replayed how that all fell apart.

“A lot can happen it two years but, it’s clear in all that we’ve seen, with the PC leadership contest, the reaction of the Wildrose leader and polling information that has been released, that there is so much support built up from the small-C Conservative population that they will get it done and then it will be up to the normal election dynamics to determine if they ultimately successful in removing the government”.

The October college poll is backed up by another released on Friday (May 19) from Trend Research.  The poll, conducted between April 18 and 30 of this year, shows almost 60 per cent of those surveyed believe a united conservative party to be a positive move.

On the financial side of the question, Ellis explains that Alberta election laws stipulate that two parties can’t merge and pool their resources but, the parties have dealt with this.  All three parties will exist throughout the amalgamation process, until the two legacy parties exhaust their current funds.  It isn’t much of an issue with the PCs, which have a debt of more than $500,000 which will need to be paid off, however, Wildrose funds will not be used for this purpose.  It will likely be PC constituency associations which funnel money to their party to pick up the tab and wind things down. The Wildrose party and its various constituency associations have money in the bank but, Ellis doesn’t see them having any problem spending that money on their current operations and promoting the unification of the two parties.  The document signed on Thursday was very clear that one party would not be paying off another party’s debt.

The statement of principles is where most of the attention will be cast until the party’s reach ratification and a leadership process.

Ellis noted the more conservative statements included equality of all before the law, and protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, economic freedom, free enterprise, property rights, voluntary associations, limited government, including low levels of taxation, balanced budgets, debt reduction, and respect for taxpayers’ money.

The more progressive elements of the statement referenced social policies that help people to become self-reliant, universal access to publicly-funded health care and education.  There was also a statement committing to environmental responsibility, with protection and conservation for future generations.

Overall, Ellis sees it [United Conservative Party] as a fiscally conservative party that’s entrepreneurial and individual rights oriented but, with significant progressive leanings. The Wildrose will have to smooth out its hard-edged social conservativism and compromise on those aspects of their party while the Progressive Conservatives will have to compromise on the fiscal conservative end, because they are trying to distance themselves from the Stelmach-Redford years, where the party lost its ‘fiscal’ way. 

“Brian Jean has shown good leadership in recognizing ‘the writing on the wall’ and his Wildrose MLAs have heard the same message from their constituents and the same message that Jason Kenney campaigned on, which is that they’re fighting over entrenched positions on what are relatively minor matters in the context of allowing a second NDP term.”

“I don’t want to minimize Brian Jean’s persuasive capabilities, because they are considerable but, when you have the leader saying he has had to concede that we need to move to unity to stop the NDP, your voters are telling you that and it makes it easier for [Wildrose] MLAs to say that they can see the wisdom in this, and he is willing to compromise, as long as it is not a complete collapse [of the party]”.

On Friday, Little Bow Wildrose MLA, David Schneider, issued a statement outlining the agreement framework to his constituents and throwing his support behind the new path.

Ellis points out that neither of the legacy parties conceded everything and both made concessions that are not likely to alienate the vast majority of either set of voters, given the level of support among the voting population to get a deal done and stop the vote splitting in the next election.

As for picking a leadership race winner, Ellis was circumspect. However, he says he would never underestimate Jason Kenney’s organizational skills, which he demonstrated in the PC leadership contest.

“Organization has been Kenney’s claim to fame ever since he was an MP and you have to remember that he’s the guy who organized ethnic groups and different cultural groups and new Canadians into the Conservative party, at a time when they were sorely absent, and for ten years, he was almost solely responsible for organizing hundreds of thousands of voters into the Conservative party, from groups that normally did not support the party”

“Kenney works non-stop and gathers people around him and he has the ability to sense political change and the direction people are headed and that showed when he got some 80 per cent of the vote in the Progressive Conservative leadership contest, based on a mandate to dismantle the party.”

On the other hand, Ellis concedes Brian Jean is no light-weight either.

“He came out of nowhere, to take-over what people thought was a moribund, if not dead party, and rebuilt it – he has more MLAs on his side, he has a much larger base to work with in the existing Wildrose.”

According to Ellis, it appears from the agreement that the leadership vote will be a ‘one person, one vote’ membership contest, which is a concession from the PCs to the Wildrose system.  That means that either candidate, or an outside candidate, could out-organize other candidates by way of mass membership sales.

Ellis also notes, “Nothing, including the leadership selection process can begin until ratification by the two legacy parties. While no specific deadlines are cited in the agreement, given other deadlines occur as soon as September 1, and can’t begin until ratification has been achieved, we can assume ratification will take place sooner rather than later.”

The leadership election is set for October 28, 2017. It should also be noted, with all the snickering about the acronym for the United Conservative Party, Ellis says it is still possible to change that name, although he predicts the words “United” and “Conservative” are likely to figure prominently.