Alberta Party "Listening to Some Albertans"

Much to my amazement today I read on the merger of the Alberta Party and Renew AB.

This is quite an odd merger in the fact that it involves a right wing fringe party, as well as a left of center political movement in Renew. What I found most entertaining was this from the website " Today begins an exciting new era in Alberta politics. Our efforts to build a new political party have taken a giant leap forward: we are pleased to announce that that Renew Alberta has become part of the new Alberta Party." What? Their efforts to build a NEW political party, ha ha, Sorry guys but the Alberta Party has been around a while, and has run along with almost every right wing fringe including the Alberta Alliance, who they would have merged with if it didn't have to delist from Elections AB. Here's what they stood for:

Alberta Party Political Association
The Alberta Party was formed in 1985, initially calling itself the Alberta Alliance Political Association and running candidates in the 1993 election. It changed its name to the Alberta Party in 1998.
With a mandate to "protect Albertans from negative federal policies," many of the party's founders found a home with the newly formed Reform Party and put their provincial interests on hold.
The party has been revived over concerns about the merging of Reform's successor, the Canadian Alliance, with the federal Progressive Conservatives. According to the Alberta Party's website, "The only way that Alberta is going to change federal political institutions is through a determined push by a provincial government that understands its first responsibility to be the protection of its people and the promotion of their interests."

Now when I go to the right wing fringe website here, they claim they are listening to Albertans. Here is the background text:

The joining of these two parties demonstrated the power of conversation. Over one weekend, two very different groups of people met to explore the vision we have for our province. We started by listening to each other, and in doing so we found remarkable commonality and we overcame our doubts. This is how the future of Alberta politics will be written.
Albertans – whether young or old, urban or rural, labourers or professionals – have more in common than our current politicians give us credit for. While they would divide us along the political spectrum and pit us against one another, we refuse to ignore our shared history and our mutual values.
So where are our policies? As of today we have none. Unanimously our Board has decided to suspend our old policies and has committed to building new ones through face-to-face conversations, around the province, starting March 1st. The Alberta Party’s Big Listen is an Alberta-wide convention, with your kitchen table as its venue. By the time the next provincial election is announced, our party will reflect what your friends, your family – and you –have told us you’re looking for.
The Alberta Party has a strong legacy in Alberta and its roots run deep and wide. But we’ve never been more excited than we are today. We’re thrilled to join with the Renew Alberta movement, and we look forward to your help in getting all Albertans a better government.
We’re listening.
Edwin EricksonLeader Alberta Party Chima NkemdirimCo-Chair of Renew Alberta

Nicely put, and who wouldn't want this for Alberta? Even Daveberta is blogging on it. Now I have a few friends that are members in the Alberta Party, so I called one up to get his take on it. Big surprise no one had discussed this move with him, and was he pissed. As he has a copy of the Alberta Party constitution he has not been able to find where executive gets to set the policy. In Janes Blog her contact notes the same. Difference is the right leaning gentleman I talked to is going to pursue it and challenge their right to do so. Which brings me to the next question of what is in their constitution that the new members don't know about? Is this suspension of policies legal? I guess we will find out fairly soon, as no one will support a party that stands for nothing at all outside of talking. We do that at the coffee shop.

In the end the Alberta Party is claiming to be a party listening to Albertans, and claiming they have wiped the policy slate clean. Where will they leave their right wing supporters? How is it communicating with them and listening? Nearest I can see they must be listening to someone, and it will be interesting to see where the current members take the violation in the constitution, and try to merge in with their political opposites. Yeah a real big change from the normal..yawn. Will they end up splitting the vote on the left and center, forcing in a Wildrose majority or simply fizzle out with the infighting? Time will tell, but I am sure I have heard these lines before.