Alberta United: new conservative group aiming to impact municipal politics

A group asserting it’s fed up with how municipal government has been operating is hoping to shake things up during the next municipal election.

Alberta United says it has been formed in conjunction with the United Conservative Party (UCP) and other conservative groups, in hopes of having their voices heard.

“I love Alberta, and we need to put it back where it was,” group co-chair Todd Simmer told CityNews.

In a statement to CityNews, executive director of the UCP says Alberta United was not formed in conjunction with the party.

“I can confirm as I am the Executive Director of the United Conservative Party that this group has not been formed in conjunction with the UCP,” Dustin van Vugt said. “There is no connection between our Party and this group.

Simmer has had his own issues with the Town of Cochrane and says he’s not alone, that others are also fed up.

He says it all boils down to people not feeling heard or represented at the municipal level.

“Definitely through my experience, we weren’t being heard. It didn’t matter that we had our ducks in a row. And there’s just a complete miss that way, and avoidance seems to be a tool to basically take any type of justice out of the playing game,” he said.

Alberta United will be hosting meetings in Calgary’s Wards 7, 8, and 12 this week.

The group also has chapters in Cochrane and other parts of Alberta.

“So, these meetings that will take place will engage like-minded people who want to be able to be involved in the process of who gets elected and who can run,” Simmer said. “The goal is to allow these chapters to be set up in every riding or municipality so that local municipality has a voice, because it seems that people are getting elected and just doing whatever they want regardless of what their community thinks.

“You’re seeing it by all of these upheavals now with petitions everywhere.”

Mount Royal University (MRU) political scientist Lori Williams says party politics have existed at the municipal level in Calgary for some time. But whether or not it’s effective remains the question.

“What’s much more important to voters — and this has been expressed repeatedly — is to have individual councillors responding to their own constituents on a policy-by-policy basis,” she said. “Polling shows consistently that Albertans don’t want this. They don’t want to be connected to be a particular party affiliation.”

Simmer says he doesn’t see party politics as controversial.

“The community is getting together and speaking about what’s important to that community and working towards putting good candidates in — what’s wrong with that?”