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Unite-the-Right group hopes for high turnout at April 30 event

A group of people has been busy criss-crossing Alberta trying to drum up support for an upcoming meeting in Red Deer intended to lead to unification of the “tarnished” Wild Rose and Progressive Conservative parties.

A group of people has been busy criss-crossing Alberta trying to drum up support for an upcoming meeting in Red Deer intended to lead to unification of the “tarnished” Wild Rose and Progressive Conservative parties.

“The No. 1 goal is for us to come together as conservatives in Alberta,” said Prem Singh, a member of the group called Alberta Can’t Wait.

But at least one Central Alberta Wild Rose MLA — Don MacIntyre, Innisfail-Sylvan Lake — has no intention of attending, even as an observer. As far as he’s concerned, unification is already underway with more people joining Wild Rose.

Singh who is from Calgary, said that all those involved in the group are volunteers who she referred to as “ambassadors.” She had just returned from Northern Alberta on Thursday where she attended meetings in Grande Prairie and La Crete.

One of the people in the group is Preston Manning, who began to bring his federal Reform social conservative brand of politics to Central Alberta, and ultimately the rest of Canada, 30 years ago.

The Reform Party eventually became the Canadian Alliance, which in 2003 merged with the Progressive Conservative Party, becoming today’s Conservative Party of Canada.

Singh confirmed that Manning will be attending the Red Deer meeting, April 30 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Red Deer College. She is hoping to see 500 people at the meeting.

“It’s time that we put aside our egos and emotions and work together because we truly aren’t that different.”

“There’s a lot of work to do. And right now I think the PC and Wild Rose brands are both tarnished,” Singh said.

She said Alberta Can’t Wait has joined with other similar groups that were also trying to bring together conservatives. “We’ve already consolidated three groups, with more pending.”

They are not trying to be “a political action committee,” Singh said. “This is truly a grassroots movement where we want to sit down in Red Deer and discuss the future of Alberta.”

Singh, whose is an advisor to Canadian energy companies on foreign investments and partnerships, said after the Alberta NDP was elected last May, and then the Liberals federally last October, “That’s when there was major panic, essentially.”

“Both of these governments aren’t necessarily friendly towards Alberta and so … we realized as a family, conservatives in Alberta need to come together.

“We don’t want to create a third party to split the vote further.”

“It’s interesting that as the Progressive Conservative party continues to decay we’re seeing these other groups pop up who all have as their stated mission statement to unite the right,” MLA MacIntyre said.

“They fail to realize the reason the Wild Rose party exists is because the Progressive Conservative party was ceasing to be conservative, and was being, really, taken over by what they self-term themselves as progressives, which is code for liberal.”

Wild Rose has made it clear its doors are open to any small-c conservative person that subscribes to similar or same principles, said MacIntyre, adding that five recent members of his constituency association board of directors are former PC supporters.

MacIntyre said it would require a 75-per-cent majority vote by Wild Rose members for any merger to ever take place.

barr@www.reddeeradvocate.com