Preston Manning weighs in on the move to reunite Alberta’s political right

Conservative leader and Albertan Preston Manning appears to be all for a move that would unite the political right parties and bring the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives together.

Speaking to reporters inside the Manning Centre Thursday afternoon, Manning revealed that he had been invited to speak to the Wildrose caucus Tuesday, before their big decision.

“I was asked to share the experience of the Reform Party in the political arena because there were some parallels, we were a new political party and we had gone as far as we could go and we had to broaden out our base,” he said.

“I thought the Wildrose should take pride in what they had accomplished, they forced two changes in the governing party’s leadership, to get more principled leadership and by getting 440,000 votes in the last election they moved the political ground onto more fiscal responsible ground, which is where I think the new Premier wants to move and has to move as well. The second thing I said is to keep in mind the big picture; that Alberta is heading in to some rough waters with the decline in oil prices and now is the time for Albertans to pull together no matter what their politics are and in particular for Albertans to pull together and of course they could interpret that as pulling together within the Wildrose caucus or within government,” he said.

When asked if there was any need for the Wildrose Party to continue, Manning said that is for membership to decide, it should all be subject to a “democratic test.”

“Traditionally in Alberta right of centre parties have done better as opposition parties than left of centre opposition parties,” he said. “The difficulty they face is the same that Reform faced. An old party can afford to lose and kinda go back and there’s always 20 per cent of the public that will support you no matter what, so you can regroup. A new party, if you start falling backwards, it’s very hard to recover and that’s what we were up against, we got 52 seats, 60 seats and then we hit a brick wall. It was that, that forced us to think of something broader and I think that same situation faces the Wildrose.”

Manning says the bigger democratic test will be when constituents or voters can vote on the decision.

He doesn’t anticipate any kind of serious backlash from voters, if both sides can deliver on the shared values statement.

“If you ask those voters why did you support Wildrose, most of it was on the fiscal responsibility side, we wanted the government to come to grips with its debts faster than what it was,” said Manning. “If that’s not delivered on, the Wildrose people have a right to be disappointed.”

“I got the feeling there was a sense of urgency among those 9 MLAs who crossed,” he adds.

Manning says he can appreciate the sense of betrayal many voters might be feeling right now and tells reporters, they ran into that with the Reform.

The former federal politician says this isn’t done and it will takes weeks and weeks of talks and discussions of explaining it to both sides and to the voting public.

The only risk he can see to the Progressive Conservatives is if they can’t deliver.

He does however believe Premier Jim Prentice is sincere in his promise to get the fiscal party in order.

He is asking those Wildrose MLAs, members of the executive and party members to keep the big picture in mind.

“If you’re going to stay as the opposition, present constructive alternatives as to how to get this province out of the fiscal hole that it’s in,” he said. “If you just criticize, particularly when you’re in semi-crisis times, the public doesn’t appreciate that, they say sure there are things to criticize but what’s your alternative, what’s your constructive alternative! All the opposition parties should be sticking to that ground right now.”

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