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PrintPM and Tories keep close eye on Alberta's Wildrose Alliance movement
The ultra-conservative Alberta-first party could ironically be strong enough someday to test not only Canadian unity, but also Prime Minister Harper's loyalty to Alberta.
The Wildrose Alliance movement has some of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's closest allies nursing it along and it literally blooms on his front lawn.
But the ultra-conservative Alberta-first party could ironically be strong enough someday to test not only Canadian unity, but also Prime Minister Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) loyalty to Alberta and his competing ambition to form a majority government to lead the entire country and keep it united.
Political scientist Tom Flanagan is among several current and former mentors of Prime Minister Harper who are advising Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith. Others include Rainer Knopff, a political scientist who signed Prime Minister's infamous "Firewall" letter promoting Alberta's autonomy in 2,000, and Frank Atkins, another political scientist who advised Prime Minister Harper on his University of Calgary master's thesis.
Paul Hindman, the only Wildrose Alliance member of the Alberta Legislative Assembly who has so far won a provincial seat in Mr. Harper's federal riding in Calgary, has his constituency office located across the hall in the same building as Mr. Harper's riding office. Local political organizers for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) were top strategists in Ms. Smith's leadership campaign last year. Mr. Hindman's campaign manager, Richard Dur, was once a staffer for Calgary MP Rob Anders (Calgary West, Alta.), one of Prime Minister Harper's favourites in caucus.
Despite the links, Ms. Smith insists that Mr. Harper has not intervened in the internal Alberta battle between conservatives and has actually warned MPs not to get involved.
"He doesn't want to, obviously, see any of those divisions erupt in his own caucus," she told The Hill Times. "I think that his marching orders to his MPs have been to essentially stay away from this brewing political battle in Alberta and not let it spill over into any caucus divisions."
The political tension that is only beginning to build between the Alliance, its member and supporters, and the rest of the country is based in part on the quiet, but deep offence Albertans have taken against the Quebec government's extraordinary attack on the oil sands and the petroleum industry during the Copenhagen climate change summit last December, with similar assaults from Ontario. The party has also adopted key components of Mr. Harper's famous 2000 "firewall letter" including income tax collection by the province and an Alberta pension plan.
The Alliance, which strongly criticized the Alberta Progressive Conservative government's record-deficit budget last week, intends also to confront Ottawa over a $20-billion gap between the federal taxes Ottawa gathers in the province and the federal benefits that are returned.
Ms. Smith admits that even though Wildrose has close connections with federal Conservatives in Alberta, Prime Minister Harper, or any prime minister, will face a challenging job if Wildrose Alliance continues its growth to the point it wins the next Alberta election in 2012.
"There is absolutely no question," Ms. Smith told The Hill Times. "People here are very uneasy here when they start hearing Ontario and Quebec dog-piling on our industry. It raises spectres of the NEP and the economic pain we went through as a result of that program in the 80s."
The prospect of provincial feuding over wealth transfers and climate-change costs is only one aspect of potential difficulties for Prime Minister Harper, even in the period leading to the next Alberta election, say observers.
Pollsters Nik Nanos and Frank Graves say the Alberta conservative cauldron could bring pressure on Prime Minister Harper to steer his government closer to the right, in opposition to the drift to the centre he has navigated over the past four years in an attempt to woo moderate voters in Ontario and Quebec.
"I can see the Wildrose as a bit of an ideological proxy fight within the conservative movement in Canada," said Mr. Nanos. "It's kind of like the fight between pragmatic conservatives, from a governing point of view, and ideologically-driven conservatives, and how those two groups reconcile themselves to stay within one conservative movement."
In the long term, should the Wildrose plan to realign wealth-sharing in Canada and divert national climate-change attention away from Alberta's petroleum industry, the party's supporters might one day decide they want to send like-minded representatives to Ottawa, as sovereigntists did in Quebec, says Mr. Graves.
"Guess what, if Wildrose decides it wants to run federally, then he has a pantload of trouble and probably immediately. He's going to lose seats, immediately. Harper might be thinking of that, it sounds to me like their aspirations are at least partly based on an aspiration to have Alberta autonomy, if not sovereignty," said Mr. Graves.
He said Albertans may believe success for the Wildrose Alliance would be a positive development, since their economic and political preferences have long been at odds with those of the central Canadian majority, but it could present a unity challenge for any prime minister.
PM and Tories keep close eye on Alberta's Wildrose Alliance movement
The ultra-conservative Alberta-first party could ironically be strong enough someday to test not only Canadian unity, but also Prime Minister Harper's loyalty to Alberta.
The Wildrose Alliance movement has some of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's closest allies nursing it along and it literally blooms on his front lawn.
But the ultra-conservative Alberta-first party could ironically be strong enough someday to test not only Canadian unity, but also Prime Minister Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) loyalty to Alberta and his competing ambition to form a majority government to lead the entire country and keep it united.
Political scientist Tom Flanagan is among several current and former mentors of Prime Minister Harper who are advising Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith. Others include Rainer Knopff, a political scientist who signed Prime Minister's infamous "Firewall" letter promoting Alberta's autonomy in 2,000, and Frank Atkins, another political scientist who advised Prime Minister Harper on his University of Calgary master's thesis.
Paul Hindman, the only Wildrose Alliance member of the Alberta Legislative Assembly who has so far won a provincial seat in Mr. Harper's federal riding in Calgary, has his constituency office located across the hall in the same building as Mr. Harper's riding office. Local political organizers for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) were top strategists in Ms. Smith's leadership campaign last year. Mr. Hindman's campaign manager, Richard Dur, was once a staffer for Calgary MP Rob Anders (Calgary West, Alta.), one of Prime Minister Harper's favourites in caucus.
Despite the links, Ms. Smith insists that Mr. Harper has not intervened in the internal Alberta battle between conservatives and has actually warned MPs not to get involved.
"He doesn't want to, obviously, see any of those divisions erupt in his own caucus," she told The Hill Times. "I think that his marching orders to his MPs have been to essentially stay away from this brewing political battle in Alberta and not let it spill over into any caucus divisions."
The political tension that is only beginning to build between the Alliance, its member and supporters, and the rest of the country is based in part on the quiet, but deep offence Albertans have taken against the Quebec government's extraordinary attack on the oil sands and the petroleum industry during the Copenhagen climate change summit last December, with similar assaults from Ontario. The party has also adopted key components of Mr. Harper's famous 2000 "firewall letter" including income tax collection by the province and an Alberta pension plan.
The Alliance, which strongly criticized the Alberta Progressive Conservative government's record-deficit budget last week, intends also to confront Ottawa over a $20-billion gap between the federal taxes Ottawa gathers in the province and the federal benefits that are returned.
Ms. Smith admits that even though Wildrose has close connections with federal Conservatives in Alberta, Prime Minister Harper, or any prime minister, will face a challenging job if Wildrose Alliance continues its growth to the point it wins the next Alberta election in 2012.
"There is absolutely no question," Ms. Smith told The Hill Times. "People here are very uneasy here when they start hearing Ontario and Quebec dog-piling on our industry. It raises spectres of the NEP and the economic pain we went through as a result of that program in the 80s."
The prospect of provincial feuding over wealth transfers and climate-change costs is only one aspect of potential difficulties for Prime Minister Harper, even in the period leading to the next Alberta election, say observers.
Pollsters Nik Nanos and Frank Graves say the Alberta conservative cauldron could bring pressure on Prime Minister Harper to steer his government closer to the right, in opposition to the drift to the centre he has navigated over the past four years in an attempt to woo moderate voters in Ontario and Quebec.
"I can see the Wildrose as a bit of an ideological proxy fight within the conservative movement in Canada," said Mr. Nanos. "It's kind of like the fight between pragmatic conservatives, from a governing point of view, and ideologically-driven conservatives, and how those two groups reconcile themselves to stay within one conservative movement."
In the long term, should the Wildrose plan to realign wealth-sharing in Canada and divert national climate-change attention away from Alberta's petroleum industry, the party's supporters might one day decide they want to send like-minded representatives to Ottawa, as sovereigntists did in Quebec, says Mr. Graves.
"Guess what, if Wildrose decides it wants to run federally, then he has a pantload of trouble and probably immediately. He's going to lose seats, immediately. Harper might be thinking of that, it sounds to me like their aspirations are at least partly based on an aspiration to have Alberta autonomy, if not sovereignty," said Mr. Graves.
He said Albertans may believe success for the Wildrose Alliance would be a positive development, since their economic and political preferences have long been at odds with those of the central Canadian majority, but it could present a unity challenge for any prime minister.
"People don't want to talk about national unity, but I don't believe the integrity of the country is particularly strong at this moment," he said. "Superficially, everything looks fine, but I believe a lot of the basic glue that keeps the country together, the economic glue, the values glue, is pretty weak."
Conservative MP Blake Richards, who succeeded former Conservative MP Myron Thompson in Alberta's Wild Rose riding, said Prime Minister Harper, like any federal leader, will have to pay attention to the change sweeping Alberta. Mr. Richards also has the Wildrose party in his front yard. Rob Anderson, one of two former Progressive Conservative members of the Alberta legislature who crossed the assembly floor to join Mr. Hindman with the Alliance, represents a provincial riding within Mr. Richards' federal riding.
"You always want to pay attention to what's going on in all the provinces," he says. "This is obviously a factor in Alberta right now, without a doubt. It's creating an interesting situation in Alberta politics, probably for the first time in a long time. I don't know that I see it changing the federal landscape to any degree. The federal government, being as we work together with the provinces so closely, we have to pay attention in all the provinces, and Alberta is no exception to that."
The Hill Times
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