In a letter emailed to constituency Presidents yesterday, Tony Sansotta announced his resignation as President of the Alberta Liberal Party. In his letter, he refers to events of the past several days in reference to the recent overtures by Liberal leader David Swann to cooperate with other progressive parties as the reason for his resignation. Mr. Sansotta is the second high-profile Liberal to resign from the party since a motion to seek cooperation with other progressive parties was approved at the party’s recent policy convention. In June, Edmonton-Riverview Constituency President Karen Sevcik resigned in protest of the motion.
UPDATE: The interim Liberal Party President is Jody MacPherson, who is also the current Vice President Communications.
23 replies on “liberal party president resigns over cooperation.”
Where does it say he’s resigning over cooperation? I don’t see that at all.
Wait. Didn’t the guy sign the open letter? Is it possible he is referring to different recent events?
I think you might have pulled out your jump to conclusions mat Dave, unless Swann strong-armed Sansotta. Anyone who’s met both would know just how unlikely that is.
Dave Taylor also resigned from the Liberals.
I heard he’s moving to China in a few weeks.
Tony’s script for how his ALP Presidency would play out seems to have backfired. (I always felt he had the Federal Liberals as his main motivation). Money wise the ALP is in much better shape – I will be interested to see David Swann’s response and what the Caucus has to say.
Ben – tell us more about the China connections?
As Norman Mailer said, left-wingers are incapable of conspiring because they’re all egomaniacs at heart.
I had to read this twice, I thought it said Liberal party president resigns over corruption
Tony is exhibiting the same childish and egocentric characteristics of his old buddy, Dave Taylor. The guy is going away on business but wants to frame his resignation like it’s something bigger than it really is. I say, good bye, Tony, and good luck but tha’s as far as I’d go. Members are not going to take to the streets to demand that he stays on or to ask for Swann’s head. Actually it’s like he’s plunging another little knife in Swann’s and the party’s back, won’t kill him/it but sure is annoying.
He’s no martyr and in a couple of weeks he’ll be totally forgotton. Does anyone remember the president before him or the one before that? Didn’t think so.
What does it matter if he is going away? If he was just giving up the Presidency due to his trip, he’d say so. He chose to make the ‘co-operation’ issue the reason for his departure – so it is.
I do agree with the poster above that it’s a knife in the back to Swann. I just don’t get the spin (repeated by Rick Miller on Twitter) about the trip to China. How does the fact he’s going away make it any less of a spit in the face to the ALP?
A cynical minded person might suggest that the DRP and their proposal was crafted by creative NDPers trying to take advantage of an organizationally weak and directionless Liberal party.
Secret taped conversations reveal the plot:
Finkel: “Okay so we propose the parties stop running against each other!”
Elder: “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Finkel: “Exactly, the NDP will never go for it, but I bet we can convince David Swann to support it. Or maybe just stay out of the way. Kevin Taft’s people won’t be happy, Hugh MacDonald thinks it’s crazy. Don’t get me started on Laurie Blakeman. This will be perfect.”
Elder: “But won’t people suspect we’re up to something, since we’re long standing NDP members?”
Finkel: “Don’t worry about it, I spoke with Brian Mason and he’s in on the deal. We make a big fuss when he rejects Swann’s proposal after we get the motion passed at their convention.”
Elder: “Genius, pure genius.”
Finkel: “That’s nothing, after that, we reveal our report showing that 7/11 was in fact, an inside job.”
Elder: “Don’t you mean 9/11?”
Finkel: “No.”
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=092709
Hahaha, that was awesome.
“7/11 was an inside job” is my new tag line. Thnx much 4 the giggles.
Cleansing and change is good.
I don’t think Elder and Finkel are that capable or that scheming, nor do I think the Grits are that dumb. I bet you however someone must have taped the conversation between Harper and MacKay before their famous merger.
This from Wikipedia: ‘The Alliance was created out of the United Alternative initiative launched by the Reform Party and several provincial Tory parties as a vehicle to merge with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The federal PC Party under Joe Clark rebuffed the initiative to “unite the right”. In December 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties voted to disband and merge into the Conservative Party of Canada.’
And we all know what happened to Joe Clark and I think I know what will happen to Brian Mason if he doesn’t wake up and smell the (wild)roses.
Genuine progress is a steamroller and those who can’t keep up with the future need to step out of the way — Sansotta and Taylor (and possibly Mason and Erickson, depending on how the talks go) included.
It’s to be expected that traditional die-hards in all parties will never like change or multi-party cooperation. But how does change happen in any field of endeavor? Someone, somewhere, takes a stance and makes a change that those who are fearful won’t like.
Swann deserves a pat on the back for engaging in something new and different to shake up the status quo. Good on him, and hopefully, good for Alberta.
Jody’s Twitter account says she is Kent Hehr’s PR person for his mayoral campaign. Yet on her website (linked from Twitter account details) she has a bookmark to Naheed Nenshi’s campaign site.
Spying on the competition or working for one team while cheering for another?
Kind of funny either way.
The Liberals seem to be dividing into three. Those who are leaving to try and build a new centre-right party (Alberta party), those loyal to the Liberal party brand, and those who want to follow Swann over a cliff looking for partners among those who are not interested.
Swann didn’t create all the fault lines, but he does seem to be increasing the number of them, and making the existing ones worse.
Gritty Ol’Reformer wrote: “And we all know what happened to Joe Clark and I think I know what will happen to Brian Mason if he doesn’t wake up and smell the (wild)roses.”
We all know what happened to Joe Clark? You mean that a man in his 60’s decided to retire from politics for the second time? Or are you trying to reinvent the past and imply that Clark was forced out?
Electoral cooperation with the Liberals has been defeated by an overwhelming majority of delegates at the last two NDP conventions. These are the same people who vote on the leadership every convention – Mason has nothing to worry about.
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So Tony knows he is going to China and rather then leave gracefully he dicides to take a swipe at the leader and the party on his way out.
Classy!!
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