#pcaa

Jason Kenney is the new leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives. He won ~75% of the vote.

Social democracy in Alberta? Pretty much the same as the Russian Revolution!

Really! I’m not making this up!

Just ask Richard Gotfried, Progressive Conservative MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek.

Mr. Gotfried should know. After all, he talked to his dad about this. His late father quit Russia in 1917, which, as historically alert readers will recall, was a big year for revolution in that part of the world.

So if you thought it’s only Wildrose infiltrators voting for Jason Kenney in the recent Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership election that worry about this kind of thing, guess again. Mr. Gotfried was up on his hind legs in the Alberta Legislature Monday afternoon to prove you wrong.

According to Mr. Gotfried’s rambling commentary during Monday’s members’ statements, his pop just was 10 years old when he shook the dust of revolutionary Russia off his boots and headed for Shanghai in the company of his mother and siblings, “a refugee with little more than the clothes on his back.”

So far, this sounds like a ripping yarn, and I would sincerely like to hear more – but perhaps not in the context of trying to prove Alberta’s thoroughly democratically domesticated New Democrats are a bunch of Bolsheviks. (Or maybe just Mensheviks, if Mr. Gotfried was feeling kind-hearted on Monday, or if there’s any uncertainty about which month in 1917 we happen to be talking about.)

But Rachel Notley as Leon Trotsky? Sorry, I don’t see it.

Voting is now underway in Calgary to elect the next leader, and possibly last, leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party.

Former MP and federal Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney, Alberta PC MLA Richard Starke and Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson are vying to replace the late Jim Prentice as the party's permanent leader.

Results of the first ballot are expected around 4:30 p.m. local time.

Kenney is running on a platform to unite Alberta conservatives by dissolving the PCs and creating a single right-wing party, so if he wins, this could be the last leadership race for the party as it now stands. Starke and Nelson want the party to continue under the PC banner.

The three candidates made their final pitches to the crowd of approximately 2,000 at the Telus Convention Centre.

A former organizer with Jason Kenney's campaign has been charged with common assault at the Alberta PC party's leadership convention.

Calgary police confirm Alan Hallman was charged after a disturbance was reported late Friday night at the party's convention hall in the city's downtown.

Police say Hallman had been detained by security by that time.

He was released on a promise to appear and no court date has been set.

Hallman says in a statement he regrets any inconvenience resulting from the incident and will work to resolve it quickly.

Uniting Alberta’s two right-wing parties has been the dominant talk of the PC leadership race and even the leader of the Wildrose has said the idea is a possibility. But Elections Alberta said Thursday, it’s not that easy.

Drew Westwater, deputy chief electoral officer with Elections Alberta, said if the Wildrose and PCs want to be one, they would have to start from scratch because there’s no provision in the legislation that will allow parties to merge.

“What they can do is de-register from their existing party, and their existing party banners, form a new party and then register under that banner and form the new party and move forward from there.”

Westwater says the Election Finances and Contributions disclosure Act states that if a new party is formed, point-three per cent of the electorate across the province would have to sign a petition to allow them to register.

Another issue with merging is that all the donations they’ve raised as PCs or Wildrose members won’t follow them.

“Once they became registered they could raise funds, issue tax credit receipts and things like that and do fundraising,” Westwater remarked. “They can’t raise money or spend money, other than the $5,000 startup money, until they are registered as a party and the assets they currently have they can’t use or transfer to them.”

If the two parties decide to dissolve and start a new party, they would have pay off all debts as well, and any leftover funds would go to Elections Alberta.

Westwater said this situation is unique to our province. Parties are born in Alberta quite often, but the province has never seen two parties dissolve to form a new party.

With Jason Kenney as the presumptive front runner to become Alberta's next Progressive Conservative leader, one longtime party member is openly talking about needing a new political home.

Former PC MLA and senator Ron Ghitter says Kenney's plan to dismantle the PCs has rendered him and others political orphans.

"It's illogical to vote for a person who wants to disband the party," Ghitter said.

"Philosophically, he doesn't live where a lot of we Progressive Conservatives live. He's an ideologue, more on the right, and that's not where you win elections in the longterm in Alberta."

Ghitter says he's theoretically ripped up his membership card and stopped his donations to the party because he's uncomfortable with Kenney's platform to merge with the Wildrose Party.

Jason Kenney could once again face disqualification from the Progressive Conservative leadership race as a party vice-president has called an emergency meeting of the PC board to hear a complaint against the former MP and his campaign.

On Sunday, the party’s leadership election committee (LEC) dismissed a complaint filed by Calgary lawyer Jeff Rath seeking to have Kenney punted from the leadership race for damaging the PC brand.

But Darcy Schumann, the party’s vice-president for Calgary, said in an email to board members that while the committee ruled that Kenney had not violated the code of conduct for candidates, it is up to the board to determine whether there has been damage to the PC brand and breaches of the constitution.

While party president Katherine O’Neill, a member of the LEC, refused to have a meeting of the board to hear the complaint, Schumann used a provision of the party constitution to call a meeting to be held on Feb. 24.

“We will invite Mr Rath to appear in person to present his concerns, and we will invite Mr Kenney’s campaign to appear, immediately following Mr Rath, to respond to the allegations contained in the complaint,” Schumann said in his email. He could not be immediately reached for comment.