In this episode, I sit down with the newly elected president of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, Angela Nordeau. We talk about what s going on with the party and what it means for the future of the party.
00:00:00.000I'm just going to start with a bit of a ramble to give some people some background if they're not familiar with what's kind of happening in the party, or at least my interpretation of it.
00:00:07.500You kind of had a split between the party executive members and, well, the leadership yourself, and I guess almost in a tertiary way in the members themselves.
00:00:19.240The small board of directors essentially considered you removed as the leader from the party, but it wasn't accepted by the members.
00:00:29.540The AGM was held last weekend, and the members sort of stood up.
00:00:34.440The executive committee walked out, and you've been reinstated as leader and yourself as president.
00:00:40.180Is that kind of in a nutshell what's happened here?
00:00:42.440Yes, that's a good summary of it, and you just need to realize is that what we're talking about is a rogue board that wants to declare themselves leader forever.
00:00:54.080You know, they manipulated the elections that we were going to have.
00:00:58.080They eliminated people who sent in their nominations.
00:01:02.960They didn't disqualify them or let them know to the last minute.
00:01:05.720It's just really been disheartening to see the way this past board of governors behaved, but it was so exciting to be amongst our members, to have a great discussion, to have, again, a democratic process of electing people.
00:01:21.820And again, I don't know if it was seven hours into the meeting, we still had 83% of the people that were there and voted in favor for the new board and for myself as leadership.
00:01:32.860And it was just, it was great to end on such a high note.
00:01:37.620Okay, so going into party management and operations and things like that, for people not familiar with it, that's typically kind of the domain of the executive committee and the party president.
00:01:47.640So I'll bring Angela in and kind of ask. Now, you guys are in an odd spot.
00:01:51.820As I said, I did contact Jeevan Mangit just to ask him, trying to find out what's going on from there.
00:01:56.840He basically said, go to the Elections Alberta website, and that tells you who runs the party.
00:02:01.480Well, and that still lists Jeevan and Rick Norfey.
00:02:05.140Now, as the one who's been selected, Angela, as party president, how can you rectify or change that with Elections Alberta?
00:02:12.000What's the process and what's happening now?
00:02:13.620Well, we've been talking to them, and we're looking at our different options, obviously.
00:02:18.380The fact of the matter is that the membership spoke.
00:02:50.940But we've got a message, and we have a movement to bring forward to the people of Alberta, and we're just getting busy with that.
00:03:02.500Okay, but in the meantime, like who's controlling the email accounts, the fundraising, the bank?
00:03:08.740I mean, until that's resolved, it's going to be very difficult for you guys to organize effectively anyways, isn't it?
00:03:14.160Well, I would actually say no, Corey, in that we have some awesome CAs.
00:03:21.760Angela's got one that are up and running, 25 to 30, and they can carry on.
00:03:27.260I mean, one of their complaints for the last year is that they write in or they call in to get the membership from their CA so they can build their CAs,
00:03:35.480and our past board wouldn't send it to them.
00:05:29.500And I do believe that they'll come to reason and realize, you know, I guess we need to go join with the other groups that they say that this is where we need to be.
00:06:46.580Like, it's a very different field than what we've been dealing with for the last year.
00:06:50.540As a CA president for the last 14 months, I've had zero support from the old Party Board of Governors.
00:06:57.260And, basically, we've been running CAs on our own without that support.
00:07:01.640So, yeah, we've got a long list of things that we know that we need to put in place to help the CAs be effective and successful in their bid to find candidates and to get things moving.
00:07:55.820Yeah, we're going to get pushing forward.
00:07:57.480And again, we'll hold probably a special general meeting so that we can bring forward the policies and bylaws that the members already submitted and wanted to vote on.
00:08:06.460But bottom line, we want to start doing town halls, going around the province and working in the different CAs to let people know that we actually do have a solution that's much better than the Sovereignty Act, which is, again, going into their courts and asking for permission.
00:08:21.520Hey, will you make us supreme over you?
00:08:23.520We have a better result or better plan than that, than what they're doing.
00:08:28.520They're doing, but it's good to see people coming on board and following Danielle the way they are, because that that's certainly a step in the great direct in the right direction.
00:08:37.420We're thrilled that they're imitating so many of our policies.
00:08:40.180They just got two or three more to go and we're doing great.
00:08:44.560Yeah, well, you always have been something of a pragmatist.
00:08:48.400You got in trouble for that with your endorsement of Ted Morton, I believe, many years ago.
00:08:52.220So the bottom line is, I mean, it doesn't matter who gets the job done.
00:08:56.800So but you're basically I mean, you're there saying if the UCP doesn't do it, you're going to.
00:09:02.600Well, I think they're actually following us and even Danielle, you know, like she's by far, in my opinion, the best of the pack, the only one in the pack that's going to stand up or make an attempt to Ottawa.
00:09:12.280But this idea to say that we're going to pass legislation, then we're going to go out to Ottawa and say, hey, we want you to make our legislation supreme over your legislation.
00:09:23.140That's like asking for permission for something, you know, they're going to say no.
00:09:26.760And then you're in a lost position, whereas with the Wild Rose and what we're proposing is that we actually talk to the people.
00:09:32.860Next election, they're going to be able to answer.
00:09:35.560Do you want to have our own police force?
00:09:37.320Do you want to have our own tax system where we collect all the taxes by Albertans for Albertans?
00:09:42.720Are we going to have our own environmental regulations?
00:09:46.520And you actually need to present that to the people when they elect us.
00:09:49.940We actually have our mandate from the people on the things we campaigned about.
00:09:54.220And perhaps the two most important things where they're not there yet is if we want better government than the legacy parties, we have to have accountability.
00:10:01.900You have to be able to fire your elected representatives any day, 24-7, 365 days of the year.
00:10:08.380And this idea that once every four years is good enough, look what Rachel did to us.
00:10:20.800But most important for Alberta, the Paris Accord and carbon net zero does not work for us, doesn't work for the world.
00:10:29.540And for Danielle to say that, oh, we're going to meet carbon net zero and we can do all these innovative things if we're taxed so heavily, that's a no-go.
00:10:56.980Well, I mean, it's certainly a distinct stance and you're there and putting that out.
00:11:00.640So maybe just in closing, I guess, with Angela, because there is just a, where can people find information on the party, keep up with it?
00:11:07.640I mean, there's kind of multiple sources going on right now.
00:11:11.760Where could you direct people if they're looking to find more information to contact you guys?
00:11:15.800So we are getting that up and running.
00:11:18.700Yeah, I mean, we're five days out from the AGM.
00:11:21.700So we are scrambling and we will have that out quickly and shortly here.
00:11:27.580The CA presidents and the CA boards are reaching out to their current members right now to establish contact and to let them know.
00:11:34.720Well, they've had contact already before, but to just let them know, hey, we're still here and we're still moving forward with this movement.
00:11:40.780And frankly, the sovereignty movement in Alberta is in a much better position today than it was last week at this time because of what happened at the AGM.
00:12:06.900You can see what happened and make up your own determination on what's going on.
00:12:10.760I think it's important to have alternative parties out there giving a good message out there, you know, when we come election time.
00:12:17.620And it's unfortunate to see parties dedicating so much time to fight within themselves rather than, you know, getting established for an election.
00:12:24.280So I hope it's all resolved fairly soon and look forward to talking to you guys then.
00:12:28.700One last thing, Corey, being the person who I am and sticking my neck out when I'm not supposed to, but we're going to be going back to our old website, wildrose.party, www.wildrose.party.
00:12:41.440If this road board doesn't turn over and do the honorable thing, we'll start up that and people can start looking there, www.wildrose.party.
00:12:52.340And that'll probably be where we end up because it looks like they're going to dig in and not want to do the right thing.