CALGARY - Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman will lead his party into the next election, after party members Saturday voted against a leadership review.
At the annual general meeting in Calgary, more than 100 Liberal party members voted 94 per cent against a review. The vote is required after each election under the party’s constitution.
“I am truly honoured and humbled – I am actually absolutely shocked,” Sherman said. “I myself wish we had done better in the election, I promise to do better next election. I promise to have this party fully prepared to give Albertans the government they deserve.”
Sherman won the party leadership in the fall of 2011. The party spent $150,000 in the 2012 election campaign, winning five seats, down from eight. The Liberals lost their status as Official Opposition to the Wildrose party, which won 17 seats, up from four.
Political observers have suggested that supporters of the Alberta Liberals shifted their allegiance to Progressive Conservative Leader Alison Redford to fend off the Wildrose from gaining power.
Since taking office in October, Redford has increased income subsidies for severely handicapped Albertans, reinstated funding for gender reassignment surgery, and committed to a poverty reduction strategy – all policy positions once advocated by Liberals.
Sherman said Redford wooed Liberal voters with “a brilliantly performed scare tactic.”
“What is clear is that Alberta does not want to go to the right,” Sherman said. “It is a progressive province. The question is, is true progressive policy being implemented (by the Redford government)? I would say no. I think Redford gives the look of a liberal — the makeup is there — but the core skeleton and guts are still the same policies that have gotten this province in a mess.”
Representatives of the Alberta and Evergreen parties attended the meeting. Sherman did not rule out talks of merging with other parties.
“In politics, you never say no, you never say never,” Sherman said.
Sherman said he plans to rebuild the party from the grassroots, and doesn’t want the Liberals to be beholden to union or corporate financiers.
The Liberal’s 2011 financial statement was presented to members Saturday and shows the party brought in nearly $593,000 and spent nearly $629,000, ending the year with a deficit of roughly $36,000. The 2011 leadership race cost $140,000.
The party on Saturday also elected a new executive, and Todd Van Vliet was acclaimed as party president — a position he has held for six months, since former president Erick Ambtman stepped down.
“We’re starting from ground zero,” Van Vliet said. “All the pieces of the puzzle are scattered and weak, and my job is to strengthen each one of those components and put them all together into a functioning machine: outreach, communication, money and fundraising, and constituency associations.”
Van Vliet is a lawyer and entrepreneur who once ran as Progressive Conservative candidate under federal leader Joe Clark, who was also a mentor to Premier Alison Redford. Van Vliet said he left the federal Progressive Conservatives after he saw the way Clark was treated by the party under former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
“I joined the Liberal party because I cared about progressive social thinking,” Van Vliet said. “As long as the (Redford) government is prepared to think progressively, I am happy to back that, and I think our MLAs will also back that.
“As long as Alison has that nice strong liberal bent, and maintains party discipline and keeps Alberta heading in the right direction, I am not going to oppose that kind of thinking. I think that’s terrific. ... But I think she has got a really tough job. She’s got to keep the hard right wingers in that party in line and I think that’s going to be hard for her.
“I hope she is able to do it, for the good of Alberta.”
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal