Former leader of the Alberta Wildrose Party Danielle Smith said that it was always planned that the Alberta conservatives would unite. So when did the scam commence? Were the lake-of-fire comments and equality vote defeats just planned leaks building up to this mass defection?
Wildrose was connected to and heavily reliant on federal Conservatives, Preston Manning, and Stephen Harper’s team. It was a given that the Alberta Conservative MPs were supporting Wildrose candidates during the last elections. Premiers Stelmach and Redford were not highly regarded by the federal Conservatives.
Enter Jim Prentice. A former federal minister, well regarded by federal Conservatives, and thus no need for the Wildrose. So when she said that Alberta conservatives would unite, did she actually mean provincial conservatives would unite with the federal conservatives?
When Stelmach and Redford were premiers, Wildrose was an effective Opposition, and you wonder if they had help not only from their former Conservative caucus members, who knew where the skeletons were, but from the feds who knew how to use the information more effectively, and raise money?
Was the Wildrose created to undermine Albertans’ elected premiers to eventually bring in a Harper protégé?
Stelmach and Harper came into power about the same time (2006) and Wildrose was created shortly afterwards (2008). Harper and Manning’s friend Danielle Smith became leader in 2009. Some high-profile provincial Conservative MLAs crossed the floor, closet doors opened, and Wildrose became a force to be reckoned with.
So when Prentice, a Harper protégé, becomes leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, the federal Conservatives find themselves in a position of not being able to also support the opposition conservatives in Alberta. The only answer to is to have Harper’s friend become a cabinet minister under Harper’s protégé, and to do that would require a defection.
Was the original intent simply to make the Wildrose the governing party and have the Alberta Conservatives dissolve into the Wildrose, eliminating any effective opposition from the centre and left of the political spectrum? Was the original intent the only intent and that was to undermine Conservative premiers until there was a fed-friendly premier?
I believe that the Wildrose saga was a long con started by influential conservatives in 2007.
What is best for conservatives seems to be the overriding factor these days, wouldn’t you agree?
Garfield Marks
Red Deer