Alberta Political Shake Up of 2014

As most things were winding down, getting ready for the Christmas holiday season, what is being considered to be the Alberta Political shake up of 2014 unfolded. On December 17, Chestermere-Rocky View MLA Bruce McAllister along with eight other Wildrose MLAs crossed the floor to join the Progressive Conservatives (PCs).
McAllister commented, “This was not an easy decision, I have not slept much over the last two weeks but at the end of the day, I made the right decision”.
Within moments of Danielle Smith and a good chunk of the Wild Rose party announcing that they were crossing the floor and heading to the PC side, social media lit up with both messages of support and less tasteful messages. Being called everything from a ‘trader’ to a ‘sell-out’, McAllister stands firm in his belief that he did what was right and continues to have Albertans best interest as his top priority.
“There have probably been overtures made from the PC side for quite some time and I would suggest that both these parties recognize that the right would unite at some point. This happen suddenly, there is no question.” explained McAllister.
“Danielle (Smith) was not involved in any negotiations, to my knowledge, and I certainly wasn’t”, explained McAllister when asked if there had been plan being worked on over the previous weeks or months to leave the Wild Rose party and move over to the PC party.
“Although I can’t speak for all of them, those people that wrote cheques and supported me as a Wild Rose MLA, to the large degree, those same people will be writing cheques for me as a PC MLA. They value the job that I’ve done and am doing and are supporters. A great majority of those people are people that stood up against Allison Redford just like I did and saw the worst bureaucracy and the worst administration in the history of Alberta. Now enter Jim Prentice – a man that is adopting conservative play book. Its Wild Rose policy but it’s also theirs. They’re not Progressive Conservative values, they’re common sense Alberta values”.
“Both sides got a wakeup call over the last couple of years. Clearly the PC’s recognized that they were off course and needed to change – and so they did. They found a wonderfully capable leader who I think is the guy to have his hands on the steering wheel right now in this province and that happened, make no mistake about it, because of everyone who pounded a Wild Rose stake into the ground, that made a call for Wild Rose, to knock on doors for Wild Rose and to do all of those things to say, this is not acceptable in Alberta.”
When asked again about the timeline of the decision to join the PC party was questioned, McAllister responded, “Caucus had several discussions, again I wasn’t on the negotiating team. There was a group from the PC’s and a group from the Wild Rose meeting to discuss a re-unification of these two parties. I wasn’t a part of that. These things have to happen around your caucus table afterward and everything has to be laid on the table. You’ve got to consider things and if I had hesitation about anything, it would be about the process. In a perfect world this could go to memberships for both parties, they could see the value in it and make a decision that is the best for Alberta. I think with the avenue of time that was available, that wasn’t able to take place. The window for this to happen was small and so we recognize that and we wrestled with it. I believe I have done what is best for Alberta and for the people of Chestermere Rocky View – I am convinced of that. But even that said, you still struggle as people have partisan loyalties and people gave me an awful lot of time and dedication to putting me in this chair and so I wish I could have spoken with absolutely every one of them that voted with me on every bill I vote on, but at the end of the day, they put me in that chair to make the best judgment that I can. At the end of the day, I firmly believe it is best and that’s why I chose to do it.”
McAllister went on to discuss the Wild Rose members that stayed behind saying,” I wish all of my colleagues would have came. They’re standing there as if they’re taking the principal path to not re-unify when in reality I don’t think they have any plans to put it on the line in the next election anyway”.
“Going forward, the biggest thing for me, and the biggest thing for the Premier, is going to be the upcoming budget in the spring. It’s going to be a tough budget and I hope it is a fiscally conservative budget – I believe it will be. There are some big decisions to be made but I’ve always maintained in our homes, in our families in our businesses we have to go back to the mirror first when we have to make tough decisions. Governments have to do the same thing and I firmly expect Mr. Prentice to do that and as difficult as it will be, I’m definitely looking forward to it.”