'Is it a party if no one shows up?': Deadline passes, no leadership candidates revealed for Alberta Liberal Party
After a tumultuous decade that’s seen the Alberta Liberal Party go from the official Opposition to holding no seats in the legislature, there’s seemingly little interest for anybody to take on the task of leading the rebuild.
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David Khan, left, and David Swann were the last two permanent leaders of the Alberta Liberal Party. The deadline for the party's leadership race passed Friday with no candidates coming forward.
The party is in the process of selecting a new leader, but the Friday evening deadline for nominations came and went with no news from officials, or any prospective candidates, as to who might be on the ballot come the September vote.
As of Saturday, the party had not announced any nominees and the link to its “leadership” page had been removed from the homepage of its website.
According to Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt, it could be the death knell for Alberta’s longest-standing political party — one that formed the first four governments after the province’s inception, holding office from 1905 until 1921.
“At what point do you shut down the party? You’re not raising money, you don’t have any MLAs, no one wants to be your leader. At a certain point you just have to wind this up, don’t you?” Bratt said. “Is it a party if no one shows up?”
According to quarterly fundraising reports released by Elections Alberta, the Liberal Party’s fundraising has been minuscule this year.
Through the first two quarters of the year, the Liberals raised just shy of $37,000, while the UCP and NDP raised $1.4 million and 2.5 million, respectively. The Liberals’ fundraising numbers also fall behind the year-to-date amounts raised by other smaller parties like the Alberta Party, which collected about $60,000, and the Pro-Life Alberta Political Association, which raised $162,000.
The Liberals have come back from the brink before. After holding no seats between 1971 and 1986, and winning just four in that year’s election, former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore became leader in 1988 and breathed some life back into the party.
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Under Decore, the party’s headcount doubled to eight in the 1989 election, then quadrupled in the 1993 election — its best electoral showing since it formed its final government in 1917 — grabbing 32 seats and snagging the title of official Opposition from the NDP.
Bratt said he doesn’t see a similar resurgence in the cards, especially without a permanent leader.
“They were never in this bad of a shape,” he said. “They weren’t able to field candidates in every riding in the last election; they’re, I think, hardly even on the radar for fundraising. It’s not just about seats. It’s a whole series of things. Yes, they have come back before but I don’t know where they go from here.”
The party’s popularity has been on a downward trend since Decore’s departure in 1994, holding onto small official Opposition caucuses through 2000s before falling to third-party status after winning just five seats in the 2012 election under leader Raj Sherman — who unsuccessfully attempted to add his name to the UCP leadership ballot this year. The fall continued as the party earned a single seat in 2015 under interim leader David Swann , the last Alberta Liberal to hold a seat in the legislature.
David Khan was the party’s last permanent leader. Elected as leader in 2017, he lost the contest for the Calgary-Mountain View riding in the 2019 election — which saw the Liberals shut out of the legislature entirely — and resigned as leader in 2020. John Roggeveen took the reins as interim leader in March 2021.
“It used to be that the provincial Liberals were stronger than the federal Liberals. That’s not the case now,” said Bratt. “I think what’s happened is the (Alberta) Liberal people have all gone to the NDP.”
The entrance fee for the Liberal leadership nomination was $6,000 — a low entry barrier compared to the UCP contest’s $175,000 entry cost — and was open to any party member in good standing. While seemingly an easy foot in the door into a high-profile position in provincial politics, Bratt said any prospective candidate would need to be in it for the long haul and put in a lot of hours to revive the party.
“Six grand isn’t a whole lot of money, but it would be a hell of a lot of work,” he said. “You’d have to be really committed to going forward and basically rebuilding the entire party from bottom to top.”
Neither Alberta Liberal officials nor Roggeveen responded Saturday to Postmedia’s requests for comment, nor has the party issued a public statement since the nomination deadline passed on Friday.
In June , the party said Sept. 12 was the membership deadline to be eligible to vote and an online vote would occur online between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24, with results announced Sept. 25.
Meanwhile, the campaign for UCP leadership continues with seven candidates in the running to become the province’s next premier and lead the party into an election next spring. The deadline to buy memberships to vote in the leadership contest closed Friday.
mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @michaelrdrguez
The party is in the process of selecting a new leader, but the Friday evening deadline for nominations came and went with no news from officials, or any prospective candidates, as to who might be on the ballot come the September vote.
As of Saturday, the party had not announced any nominees and the link to its “leadership” page had been removed from the homepage of its website.
According to Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt, it could be the death knell for Alberta’s longest-standing political party — one that formed the first four governments after the province’s inception, holding office from 1905 until 1921.
“At what point do you shut down the party? You’re not raising money, you don’t have any MLAs, no one wants to be your leader. At a certain point you just have to wind this up, don’t you?” Bratt said. “Is it a party if no one shows up?”
According to quarterly fundraising reports released by Elections Alberta, the Liberal Party’s fundraising has been minuscule this year.
Through the first two quarters of the year, the Liberals raised just shy of $37,000, while the UCP and NDP raised $1.4 million and 2.5 million, respectively. The Liberals’ fundraising numbers also fall behind the year-to-date amounts raised by other smaller parties like the Alberta Party, which collected about $60,000, and the Pro-Life Alberta Political Association, which raised $162,000.
The Liberals have come back from the brink before. After holding no seats between 1971 and 1986, and winning just four in that year’s election, former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore became leader in 1988 and breathed some life back into the party.
Under Decore, the party’s headcount doubled to eight in the 1989 election, then quadrupled in the 1993 election — its best electoral showing since it formed its final government in 1917 — grabbing 32 seats and snagging the title of official Opposition from the NDP.
Bratt said he doesn’t see a similar resurgence in the cards, especially without a permanent leader.
“They were never in this bad of a shape,” he said. “They weren’t able to field candidates in every riding in the last election; they’re, I think, hardly even on the radar for fundraising. It’s not just about seats. It’s a whole series of things. Yes, they have come back before but I don’t know where they go from here.”
The party’s popularity has been on a downward trend since Decore’s departure in 1994, holding onto small official Opposition caucuses through 2000s before falling to third-party status after winning just five seats in the 2012 election under leader Raj Sherman — who unsuccessfully attempted to add his name to the UCP leadership ballot this year. The fall continued as the party earned a single seat in 2015 under interim leader David Swann , the last Alberta Liberal to hold a seat in the legislature.
David Khan was the party’s last permanent leader. Elected as leader in 2017, he lost the contest for the Calgary-Mountain View riding in the 2019 election — which saw the Liberals shut out of the legislature entirely — and resigned as leader in 2020. John Roggeveen took the reins as interim leader in March 2021.
“It used to be that the provincial Liberals were stronger than the federal Liberals. That’s not the case now,” said Bratt. “I think what’s happened is the (Alberta) Liberal people have all gone to the NDP.”
The entrance fee for the Liberal leadership nomination was $6,000 — a low entry barrier compared to the UCP contest’s $175,000 entry cost — and was open to any party member in good standing. While seemingly an easy foot in the door into a high-profile position in provincial politics, Bratt said any prospective candidate would need to be in it for the long haul and put in a lot of hours to revive the party.
“Six grand isn’t a whole lot of money, but it would be a hell of a lot of work,” he said. “You’d have to be really committed to going forward and basically rebuilding the entire party from bottom to top.”
Neither Alberta Liberal officials nor Roggeveen responded Saturday to Postmedia’s requests for comment, nor has the party issued a public statement since the nomination deadline passed on Friday.
In June , the party said Sept. 12 was the membership deadline to be eligible to vote and an online vote would occur online between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24, with results announced Sept. 25.
Meanwhile, the campaign for UCP leadership continues with seven candidates in the running to become the province’s next premier and lead the party into an election next spring. The deadline to buy memberships to vote in the leadership contest closed Friday.
mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @michaelrdrguez
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