Alberta Party aiming to be government in 2019

Hundreds of members of the Alberta Party gathered at the Radisson Hotel on 67 Street in Red Deer on Saturday for the party’s Annual General Meeting and Constitutional Convention.

The event featured guest speakers Karen McPherson, MLA for Calgary-MacKay-Nose Hill and outgoing party leader, Greg Clark, MLA for Calgary-Elbow. Throughout the day, members also heard from the party president and were able to vote on nominees to the Provincial Board.

Leader Greg Clark said he was excited to see the large number of first-time people that came out to the event. “The Alberta Party I think represents the future of Alberta politics.  We reject polarized politics just like Albertans do” explained Clark. “Albertans are not far right and we are not far left, Albertans want to look out for our neighbours and we want fiscal discipline.”

Clark describes the Alberta Party as a centrist party. “We believe in good fiscal discipline. The NDP have let Albertans down with their total lack of fiscal discipline” contends Clark. “The UCP is too far right, especially on social issues, they have no plan beyond devastating cuts.”

Clark also defies the UCP to come up with a ‘real’ plan to expand the Red Deer Regional Hospital and get a Cardiac Catheterization Lab here as well. “They have no answers beyond cuts. The NDP on the other hand, their only plan is to continue borrowing money and saddling future generations with unsustainable levels of debt” added Clark.

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Outlining the Alberta Party’s plan to have both a strong economy and strong society, Clark says they would reign-in operational spending and challenge people in the public service to ‘do more with less’. “That doesn’t mean massive cut backs, it doesn’t mean huge class size increases, what it means is just challenging the public service and there are so many great people, to find ways of doing more” explained Clark. “The NDP have made absolutely no effort to do that, it doesn’t need to be all that difficult to simply constrain the growth of spending in government.”

From a philosophical stand point, Clark feels ‘Today is the end of the beginning for the Alberta Party’, saying there are many people involved that are going to take them to the next level. “There are people here today that are going to run for office for the Alberta Party” said Clark. “There are people who are going to organize constituency associations, help us develop policy, help us fundraise, do all the things we need to do to get our message out to Albertans.”

Clark describes the AGM as the start to the 2019 provincial election for them. “We’ve got such a strong team, I’m so excited about what this means not just for the party but more importantly for the province of Alberta” says Clark. “To give Albertans something to vote ‘for’, not having to vote ’against’ what they don’t like but vote ‘for’ what they do believe in.”

Looking back at his time as leader of the Alberta Party, Clark says he’s happy with what he was able to accomplish in the role but has now thrown the doors open for a new leadership process. “It’s going to bring even more people into this party, get people really engaged, give them a reason to join the party, to get behind a candidate” points out Clark. “I’m really excited about that and I may still run, I haven’t ruled that out.”

However, according to Clark, he’s very much committed to running again in the 2019 provincial election as an MLA. “Whether I run for leader, we’ll make some decisions in consultations with them” explains Clark. He anticipates that process to take place early in the new year, “There’s a new Board of Directors being elected today, it will be up to that Board of Directors to decide when the leadership is.”

Once a new party leader is in place, Clark says the priority will be to continue building the party. “Nominating candidates, developing great policy, travelling the province and communicating that policy widely and of course raising the money that we need to contest the election” points out Clark. “Make no mistake, the Alberta Party is in this to win the 2019 election.”

In central Alberta, Clark says without question, health care is the number one priority right now. “The fact that Red Deer does not have a Cardiac Cath Lab is unacceptable. It has a devastating impact on the lives of people who are suffering from heart problems” explains Clark. “The thing that’s so mind-boggling to me is that the cost of doing so is actually not that high. Not just the NDP but previous governments have let down central Alberta on that issue.”

Clark says the government simply needs to make a Cardiac Catheterization Lab in Red Deer a priority and find the money to do it. “Frankly, if we’re going to spend money on anything, it should be on the health of Albertans. We need to find ways within health care to spend the money that we already have in the system more wisely.”