In less than a year, the Wildrose Alliance Party has skyrocketed from the political fringes to having three MLAs in the Assembly and challenging the dominance of the 39-year governing Progressive Conservative Party in many polls. Since the selection of Danielle Smith as their leader in October 2009, many questions have been raised about where the new leader and her party stand on important policy issues. The party has slowly started to release some new policy positions and one of Ms. Smith’s most common responses is that her party would be reassessing many of their positions at their June 2010 policy convention.
Luckily for readers of this blog, a friendly political insider was kind enough to pass along a copy of the draft Proposed Policy Resolutions that will be debated at the 2010 Wildrose Alliance Annual General Meeting scheduled for June 25 and 26 in Red Deer.
The document includes some of what would be expected from a conservative political party in Alberta and has a slightly more moderate tone than expressed in that party’s fringe-right past. Here is a brief summary of a few of the proposals:
– Renegotiate federal equalization program.
– Create an Alberta Constitution.
– Former Reform Party Member of Parliament and current Senator-in-Waiting Cliff Breitkreuz proposes that party leaders should run in a province-wide election and that the leader who receives the most votes in a general provincial election will be sworn in as Premier of Alberta.
– Party member Randy Coombes proposes that his party ensure all law abiding and mentally fit Albertans enjoy the right to keep and bear arms in perpetuity.
– Member Peter Csillag proposes the stop of any and all public monies involved in the deliberate and intentional termination of pregnancies.
– There are a series of policies that could be dubbed the “Ezra Levant” section of the proposal which deal with freedom of speech and the Alberta Human Rights Act.
– Party Vice-President Jeff Callaway proposes the introduction of legislation to allow citizen-initiated referendums though a petition signed by at least 10% of the total voters of the last Provincial election in Alberta (which is quite a low number when you take into account the 40% voter turnout).
– The Medicine Hat and Cypress-Medicine Hat constituencies submitted policies calling for “a public consultative review with Albertans of the collective bargaining process in the public sector.”
– A proposal calls for the creation of a First Nations Forum to provide aboriginal citizens direct communication with government.
There are also policy proposals calling for the creation of “whistle-blower” legislation, educating Albertans in environmental stewardship, abolishing income-tax, supporting nuclear and hydroelectric power, and exempting seniors from paying a number of taxes.
Here is the full document.
Policy Resolutions 2010 Agm Preliminary
