Jason Kenney’s landslide PC leadership win last weekend has bolstered the unity movement and is the first step toward the formation of a new Conservative Party and dissolution of the existing PCs and Wildrose.
Owen Neal, captain of the unity-supporting grassroots group Alberta Can’t Wait Banff-Cochrane chapter, said his team was “thrilled” about the victory but that it is only the beginning.
“The reality is there’s a lot of work and many steps to take place in order to have a unified, free enterprise party,” explained Neal.
“Jason Kenney has always said that he’s not calling himself the king – it’s absolutely necessary that there be a fair competition for leadership (of the new party).”
An estimated timeline includes a memorandum of understanding by next month, to be signed by PC and Wildrose members, followed by a referendum later this year.
The goal is to have a new party legislated before the end of the year and to ring in 2018 with a leadership race.
Wildrose leader Brian Jean remains Kenney’s top contender to take the reins of a unified party, but more candidates will likely enter the race.
Town Councillor Morgan Nagel was a passenger on the Kenney leadership bus – serving as digital outreach co-ordinator on Kenney’s campaign team.
For several years, Nagel has been attending leadership conventions of all party stripes. His faith in the conservative future of Alberta was renewed last weekend by an energy among PC supporters he hasn’t seen since the party was defeated in the 2015 election.
Kenney won roughly 75 per cent of the 1,473 ballots against candidates Byron Nelson and Richard Starke.
For months, Jean has remarked that the Wildrose is waiting for the PCs to “put their dancing shoes on” and has been emphatic about the formation of a new party under the Wildrose’s legal framework, while Kenney is advocating for an entirely new party.
The two leaders met this week to talk about putting together a discussion committee to move the unity process forward by next month.
