United Conservative Party to plot path forward at AGM

These are just some of the questions up for debate on the floor in Calgary at the Westin near the Calgary airport.

There will be at least 25 policy proposals debated and voted on by hundreds of party members. The work done this weekend will help pave the way for the next platform rolled out by the United Conservative Party. Premier Jason Kenney will also deliver a speech on Saturday night.

Most policy proposals are drawn up by various constituency associations around the province.

Already, some of the proposals have stirred controversy. Policy 15 states: “implement an education ‘voucher system’ that will provide for equal per-student funding regardless of their school choice, free from caveats or conditions.”

This raised some eyebrows with critics who said a voucher system, widespread in the United States, effectively means provincial education funding would follow a student to public, private, charter or home schools.

Lori Williams, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal University, also pointed out that health care was a priority in this year’s policy proposals.

There are several policies dealing with privatized health care, she said, like options for privatized delivery of care and privately funded services.

“That’s something that has been stood pretty strongly against by Albertans historically, so that would mark a significant change if it became part of government policy,” Williams said.

Some policies may not make it onto the floor for debate and all need better than 50 per cent support when voted on. While some may make it into the party’s platform, that doesn’t necessary mean they will become government policy in the future.

Williams said this will be the first mass grassroots gathering since the election, though, and Kenney hasn’t exactly been popular after a budget with education, municipal affairs and post-secondary cuts.

“I think it’s remarkable that roughly six months into his tenure, Jason Kenney gets booed at a football game,” she said.

“That’s pretty unusual — to be the target of that kind of anger this early in his mandate is pretty remarkable.”

There was also the United Conservative government’s Bill 22 — an omnibus piece of legislation that was used to fire election commissioner Lorne Gibson, who had been investigating the UCP’s 2017 leadership race.

“A lot of this flies in the face of the grassroots guarantee that Jason Kenney promised right from the beginning of this whole process of becoming the leader of one party, uniting the two parties and becoming the leader of the united party,” Williams said.