The battle over control of Conservative MP Rob Anders' Calgary riding and support by federal Conservatives for Alberta's fledgling Wildrose Alliance may be signs of a growing divide among conservatives in Alberta.

The feud within Mr. Anders' riding and federal Conservative support for the Wildrose Alliance has drawn attention to a section of the federal party's constitution that prohibits it from establishing provincial parties or opposing existing provincial conservative parties.

It appears MPs and organizers and activists with the federal party in Calgary and other areas of Alberta are ignoring the spirit of the party provision as they campaign and organize for the Wildrose Alliance—a right-of-centre movement that has been likened to the defunct Reform Party—as it attempts to oust the governing Progressive Conservative government in the province.

The strife is currently contained within Alberta, but there is concern within party circles it could spill outside the province's borders or even split federal Conservatives within Alberta.

The fault lines between the Wildrose Alliance and the Progressive Conservative governing party are similar to the divisions that tore apart the former federal Progressive Conservative party when Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning converted discontented Tories to Reform prior to the 1993 federal election.

Mr. Harper, who in 2003 stitched together part of the federal Conservative Party he helped to bring down 10 years earlier, is aware of the dangers the Alberta divisions pose and has urged Alberta members of his federal caucus not to get involved in the provincial fray, Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith recently told The Hill Times.

But political organizers for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.) aided Ms. Smith's leadership campaign last year, and the only member of the Wildrose Alliance so far elected to the Alberta Legislature represents a riding that is entirely within the boundaries of Mr. Harper's federal riding. His riding office is across an office hallway from Mr. Harper's constituency office. Conservatives say it is likely the Wildrose representative, Paul Hindman, was elected with the support of members of the federal party in Mr. Harper's riding.

The confrontation in Mr. Anders' riding of Calgary West—which Mr. Harper represented for three years before he resigned from his first term as an MP—may represent the kind of division that could erupt if battle lines are once again drawn between conservatives on the right side of the political spectrum and those closer to the centre.

Mr. Anders, who openly supports the Wildrose Alliance and describes himself as a friend of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, has been supported by the federal Conservative Party's governing council in a showdown with members of his federal electoral district association who are affiliated with the provincial Progressive Conservative Party and describe themselves as being part of the federal Red Tory wing once led by former prime minister Joe Clark.

The council earlier this month blocked an attempt by the executive board of the Calgary West Conservative association to schedule a candidate nomination meeting in May, at which Mr. Anders' riding opponents were hoping to elect a more moderate candidate to succeed him for the next federal election. The council, basing its order on sweeping powers it has under the party's constitution, also instructed the association's financial agent not to "undertake, incur or commit" the association to any spending other than routine riding expenses before the meeting. The council also denied the riding executive access to the federally-maintained list of association members.

The council last year deflected an earlier attempt by members of the association to schedule a nomination meeting, using a controversial poll of all the party's incumbent ridings. The poll, billed as a new element of the party's policy of shielding Conservative MPs from nomination challenges, asked members to mark mail-out ballots and return them if they wanted a riding nomination.

Members were told that unreturned ballots would be considered votes against nomination meetings and no riding, including Calgary West, met the required threshold of two-thirds support.

The Calgary West rebels say ballots that were sent to a handful of deceased former members and went unreturned were included in the count, a point acknowledged by Anders' supporters.

At least 23 members of the riding association's 30-member executive have resigned since the council takeover earlier this month. They say the party move further undermined democracy within the association.

"For people in this riding to have elected people represent them on a board and then to be told that those rights can be stripped away that quickly and that easily, I think that was very sad actually," Donna Kennedy-Glans, a longtime Progressive Conservative who intended to challenge Mr. Anders for the nomination, told The Hill Times.

The attempted coup was the second challenge Mr. Anders has faced for his nomination since 2004. That was his first election as a Conservative MP, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance, successor to the Reform Party, and the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003. Alberta's current justice minister, Alison Redford, narrowly lost the 2004 nomination race against Mr. Anders, who has represented the district since 1997 when he succeeded Mr. Harper as the Reform Party's candidate.

Mr. Anders had before that worked as a researcher and Alberta lobbyist for the National Citizens Coalition, opposing laws that favoured labour unions. Mr. Harper became vice-president and later president of the National Citizens Coalition after he resigned his Commons seat in 1997, and later re-entered the Commons representing Mr. Manning's former riding of Calgary Southwest in 2002. Though he has kept his Calgary residence in Mr. Anders' Calgary West riding, Mr. Harper has chosen to continue running for re-election in the Calgary Southwest riding since then.

Voters are normally registered to cast their ballots in the ridings in which they have their "ordinary residence," but Mr. Harper's office said he votes in Calgary Southwest. He is able to do so through a section of the Canada Elections Act that allows a former MP from the previous Parliament to vote, along with his family members, in the office of the returning officer for the electoral district in which the former MP is a candidate, regardless of the location of his residence. Mr. Harper's financial contributions to the party are recorded on Elections Canada reports with his Calgary West residential address.

Conservatives who oppose Mr. Anders because of his past positions opposing the right of women to choose abortion, opposition to gay marriage and his Commons opposition to honorary Canadian citizenship for Nelson Mandela in 2001 have said they are puzzled by Mr. Harper's consistent support for Mr. Anders. The Conservatives who want a different MP for the riding accuse Mr. Anders of a poor record of representation in the Commons, where he seldom speaks and is rarely seen outside the chamber. He is also infamous for years ago working as a heckler for the U.S. Republican Party, and in 2000 he was reported telling an election crowd prison inmates who contract AIDS should be placed in solitary confinement.

Conservatives, even those who don't back Mr. Anders, say he may have accumulated credit with Mr. Harper and the party council by his work coaching party organizers. "Rob is often asked to speak to party workers across the country," said Andrew Constantinidis, a former president of Mr. Anders' riding association who was voted out by Mr. Anders' opponents last year. "Of all the MPs, he is the most knowledgeable about grassroots campaigning." Mr. Constantinidis said Mr. Anders also hosts fundraisers for other candidates, including two so far this year.

Mr. Constantinidis accuses former Calgary West Progressive Conservative MP Jim Hawkes of orchestrating the riding campaign to oust Mr. Anders, pointing out that Ms. Kennedy-Glans was a member of Mr. Hawkes last federal election campaign, when Mr. Harper, who previously had worked as an assistant for Mr. Hawkes, defeated him in the 1993 election with support for the National Citizens Coalition. Ms. Kennedy-Glans' husband, Laurie Glans, was Mr. Hawkes' campaign treasurer. Mr. Constantinidis said Mr. Hawkes still holds a grudge against Mr. Harper.

Mr. Hawkes, while acknowledging he wants Mr. Anders replaced as the party's candidate, denies he wants Mr. Anders out because Mr. Harper long ago defeated him. "For 15 years, I was chief government whip, you don't do anything to hurt the leader of your party, that's the mantra," he said, adding that he is not organizing the campaign against Mr. Anders. Mr. Hawkes is now in his early 70s.

On the other side, Mr. Anders' opponents point out that several of Mr. Anders' allies in the riding are linked in various ways to the Wildrose Alliance party, as well as members of the party's national council. Michele Austin, now an acting member of Mr. Anders' board, worked on Ms. Smith's leadership campaign and continues to assist her.

Ms. Smith acknowledges she knows Mr. Harper and his wife, Laureen, and that Laureen Harper, a graphic designer, "put together my brochure in 1998 when I ran for the school board, so yes I've known the family for some time."

"There's a lot of people who are very conscious of the fact that Mr. Harper has a lot of people in his Alberta caucus, people who are more inclined to support a Wild Rose vision for Alberta, and those who are happy to support the PC vision for Alberta," Ms. Smith told The Hill Times in a recent interview. "I try to stay away from soliciting people whom I see in that sort of conflict. We do have a number of people who are helping us who are also federal Tories. They would be federal campaign workers working on federal campaigns, who are coming out to help us organize our constituency meetings, but I would say that's a more grassroots level of engagement rather than a higher level of engagement."

Several of the Calgary riding directors trying to oust Mr. Anders said they are aware of the Conservative requirement that the party cannot establish a provincial party and that the party "shall promote and maintain relationships with existing provincial conservative parties."

The federal Conservatives who support Ms. Smith helped her gain the leadership of the Wildrose Alliance after the former Wildrose Party and Alberta Alliance party merged last year in opposition to the Progressive Conservative government.

Brendan Miller, one of the former riding directors who tried to mount a nomination campaign against Mr. Anders, said the party constitution does not appear to prevent individual party members, even MPs and Cabinet ministers, from supporting and organizing for the Wildrose Alliance.

"It's a very open section," he said. "It says that they will not start their own conservative parties provincially and that they will support provincial conservative parties that are independent. What that means and what restrictions are placed upon MPs and other members of the party from that section would be very hard to define."

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