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Split by foolish oil industry lobbyists – 95% of Alberta Wild Rose and PC Tories vote to kiss and make up and defeat the NDP. In 2008, Alberta’s PC government decided to increase the oil and gas royalty rates oil companies paid them. Oil company lobbyists withdrew much funding from the PC party and gave it to the right-wing Wildrose Party. What a brilliant move!!! The result was to split Alberta’s well-over-50% business-friendly vote in two and, in the 2015 election, well under 50% of Albertans voted in the NDP. It took Jason Kenney – a highly skilled former federal Conservative cabinet minister to corral the two wings but, finally, on July 24, 2017 both parties agreed to reunite. Says the CBC as part of a story of how it may not be a Tory shoo-in : “The New Democrats are now polling in the mid-20s in support and Notley’s approval is around 30 per cent, half of what it was when she was first elected”
Link = CBC: Merger history suggests Alberta’s United Conservative Party could be less than sum of its parts
Link = News Talk Radio 770: Wildrose and PC MLAs hold joint caucus meeting following unity vote |