Dear editor,
Re: Uniting the Right
Ever since Brian Jean made his intentions known, I have been thinking about how it would be possible to make his plan work and I have not come up with a solution that works.
First of all you have to get the PC’s to agree to a merger of the two parties, which I don’t think is possible. In order for that to happen the Wildrose party will have to change our bylaws to suit the PC party or they won’t join with us.
The second thing is that there is not enough time before the next election to get all the things that would have to be changed in order for a merger to happen. The NDP are just waiting for us to get into a vulnerable position and they will call a snap election.
The PC party tried to get rid of the Wildrose party once and I think this is on the minds of some of the people behind this movement now. After working for the Wildrose party for the last 10 years and seeing it grow as it has I would hate to see it swept under the carpet by two federal Conservatives.
I have also noticed that Preston Manning and Stephan Harper seem to be trying to back Jason Kenny’s platform so this also is a red flag as far as the reasoning for uniting the right. If Jason Kenny is elected leader of the PC party and he goes ahead with his plan to join the two parties it will be the end of the Wildrose party and it might be end of Brian Jean being the leader. Jason Kenny is not doing this for nothing, he wants to be the leader.
Let’s not forget why we have a NDP government in power in Alberta, it’s because the PC party didn’t listen to the people. If you want to go back to that way of running our province then go ahead with unite the right.
The PC party has always been run from the top down and the Wildrose party is trying to be run by the people but I see signs of this being lost. The more “old PCs that are involved in our party the harder it will be to a grassroots party.
The only reason that I joined the Wildrose party is that I was mad at the way the PC party was being run and now I am asked to join up with them again. I do not forget that easy and I think that there are a lot of people in Alberta that agree with me.
Not all the people that voted NDP will vote the same in the next election. I lived in B.C. when the NDP got in there and they couldn’t get rid of them fast enough and that will happen here too. We now have the most votes in rural areas, we just have to work harder to get the city votes. Instead of worrying about uniting the right we should be working on getting more members for our party.
I am getting the age now that as long as I get my old age pension check not much else matters to me but I am thinking of my grandchildren when I express my opinion on these matters and I do it respecting all other views.
James A. Cook, Westerose
Director at Large Drayton Valley Devon constituency