Fildebrandt wants floor-crossers barred from seeking nomination in United Conservative Party

A prominent Wildrose MLA is backing a call to block former MLAs who crossed the floor in 2014 from being candidates in a new United Conservative Party, but Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney has condemned the idea as undemocratic.

Earlier this month, Kenney and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean announced an agreement had been reached to unite their parties into the new UCP, putting aside a decade of bad blood.

A key moment in the two parties’ tortured history was the mass floor-crossing in late 2014 of most of the Wildrose caucus to the then-PC government, which was subsequently brought down by the NDP in the 2015 election.

Speaking at a Wildrose event Tuesday night, Brandon Swertz — a member of the Wildrose executive and the party’s unity negotiating team — said a nomination committee set up by the new party with representatives from both Wildrose and the Tories would not allow the floor-crossers to be candidates for the UCP.

On Twitter, Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt posted that he was behind the idea, adding in an interview that the floor-crossers had shown that “they cannot be trusted.”

“A new party needs to be looking toward the future … not the past,” Fildebrandt said Wednesday.

“If there is a single thing that could seriously jeopardize the ability of a United Conservative Party to win the next election, it would be a return of people who broke the trust of their constituents so grossly when they crossed the floor.”

Fildebrandt said the issue has been a significant topic of discussion among Wildrose members.

In 2014, 11 Wildrose MLAs defected to the Tory government. All subsequently retired, were defeated in their run for the PC nomination in their riding or lost their seats in the 2015 election.

A number of the floor-crossers backed Kenney in his run for the PC leadership on a platform of uniting the two parties.

Kenney is out of the country on holidays and was unavailable for an interview Wednesday.

But in a statement, Kenney said the agreement in principle between Wildrose and the PCs commits the new party to “open and democratic” nominations.

“The  floor-crossings of 2014 were a total failure, partly because they were a betrayal of the democratic process. Should one of those former MLAs want to seek a nomination for the united party, the solution would not be to short-circuit democracy by barring them from running for arbitrary reasons,” he said in an email.

Kenney said there should be a vetting process to weed out candidates with extreme views or serious reputational problems but otherwise, the principle should be “let the members decide.”

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said how floor-crossers will be handled will be up to the committee, which will be named by himself and Kenney if the unity deal is approved by members of each party on July 22.

But he said he was “very comfortable with the democratic process.”

“I will leave the decision ultimately up to the members of the party and Canadans and I think they’ll make the right decision,” Jean told reporters at the legislature.

 

Former Airdrie MLA Rob Anderson, one of the Wildrose MLAs who crossed to join the Tory government in 2014, said he won’t seek a nomination in the new united party but said many of his former colleagues would have much to offer as potential candidates.

He said the floor-crossers wanted the same thing that those now pushing party unification are seeking.

“Obviously there’s some people who don’t quite understand that all we were trying to do is exactly what they actually accomplished this last go-round,” said Anderson, who chose not to run again in 2015.

“They did it in a different way, in different circumstances, different methods, etc., but apparently some people are too thick to understand that still.”

With files from Emma Graney

jwood@postmedia.com