Look who’s running in the UCP AGM Board elections

What to make of Take Back Alberta, the Unity Slate, and everybody else on the ballot.

With the United Conservative Party’s November 3 and 4 Annual General Meeting fast approaching, the party’s Board of Director elections are a major focus of attention.

The UCP board is the governing body of the organization and is made up of seventeen elected directors, party leader Premier Danielle Smith, and two non-voting MLAs who serve as Caucus liaisons. The two MLA spots, which are chosen through a vote of UCP MLAs, are currently filled by Camrose MLA Jackie Lovely and Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland MLA Shane Getson.

Half of the UCP director positions are up for election this year and the sweeping success of the slate of candidates backed by the social conservative Take Back Alberta group at last year’s AGM has fuelled a lot of speculation about what might happen in this election.

The tension on the board between the new TBA-backed members and the Jason Kenney-era members spilled out into the public over the summer during an internal dispute about registration fees for AGM delegates who will vote in the board elections.

The party has reported that more than 3,000 delegates have registered to attend the AGM, which has moved venues from the Grey Eagle Resort and Casino on Calgary’s western edge to the newly renovated BMO Centre in downtown Calgary.

Their success in last year’s board elections has led Take Back Alberta and its executive director, David Parker, to only become more vocal and boastful about the group’s influence on the UCP and Alberta politics. Parker was a leading voice in the anti-LGBTQ rallies held across the province last month and has threatened to take over school boards and fire principals who don’t conform to his beliefs of what the education system should be.

No TBA-endorsed slate of candidates has officially emerged (yet), but another group of candidates led by 1980’s cabinet minister Rick Orman is calling itself the Unity Slate. Orman has attended TBA-organized meet-the-candidates events across the province with other presidential candidates.

Unity is going to be an appealing message for some of the UCP members tired of the infighting, but with political momentum on their side there’s no sign TBA is planning to slow down. And with the next provincial election four years away, any argument that internal division might lead to an NDP win will probably fall on deaf ears.

Interestingly, the address listed on the Unity Slate’s publicly accessible demo website and Facebook page is also the address of Guardian Law Group, a law firm run by former justice minister Jonathan Denis.

Here is quick look at the candidates running for the executive positions at next month’s UCP AGM.

President

Current UCP President Cynthia Moore, who has been a frequent target of TBA criticism, is not running for re-election. There are four people running to replace her.

Rick Orman

Rick Orman announces the results of the 2022 UCP Leadership Review (Source: United Conservative Party / Facebook)

Rick Orman is leader of the Unity Slate. Orman is most recently known to UCP supporters as the returning officer in the party’s 2022 leadership review and leadership race, and an early supporter of the merger of the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose parties. But he has been around Alberta politics for a lot longer than that.