If Christmas is the season for all manner of things shiny and new, then it’s fitting that the Alberta Party is in the process of introducing itself to the province’s electorate. After all, the idea of a new centrist political party might look particularly good to the million or so moderate Albertans when compared to the existing alternatives, be it the hapless Alberta Liberals or the hopeless New Democrats.
But while the Alberta Party may want to make political history in the notoriously one-sided province, if its leaders aren’t careful it might instead become just another footnote to it. After all, despite last month’s policy convention, the Alberta Party remains a concept – a moderate political party that doesn’t have the word Liberal anywhere in its name – without any apparent convictions. That’s not a luxury that they can afford as a centrist party, because for all the rhetoric about it being a grassroots political movement the Alberta Party will never enjoy the benefits of actually being one.
Grassroots movements tend to come from the sides, be it the left or the right, where inflammatory rhetoric, unrealistic promises and the shared identity of the outsider can serve as enticing forms of political bait for prospective supporters. The values of the political centre, from pragmatism and common sense to mutual respect and fiscal responsibility, don’t excite the same kind of populist passions.
In order to truly excite people, then, centrist parties have to rely on their ideas, and thus far the Alberta Party has been conspicuously silent on what its ideas for the province might be. To date, it has instead been a party of process rather than one of policy, and while that commitment to transparency and accountability might earn plaudits from political science professors it has the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell of capturing the attention, much less the imagination, of the electorate.
What the Alberta Party needs, then, is an idea. It needs a single, definitive, easily communicated vision of and for the province that will capture the attention, if not yet the imaginations, of average Albertans. It’s good that they want to do politics differently, but that’s a commitment to a process rather than a product. It’s like trying to sell somebody on the merits of a car’s drivetrain system without telling them what the car looks like or how fast it can go.
The Alberta Party also needs a leader capable of embodying that vision. While Sue Huff has done a good job as the party’s interim leader, they need to make sure that the person they choose in the forthcoming leadership race clearly reflects and represents the view of Alberta that they’re articulating. It’s no time to select a placeholder or a caretaker, either. The Alberta Party might be looking to the next election cycle rather than the current one, but if they don’t choose the right person for the job they may not be around then to contest it.
Vision is a term so widely abused in politics that it deserves some sort of special protection from the state, but that’s precisely what the Alberta Party needs to find if it is to remain relevant once its new-toy shine wears off. It needs to know what it actually stands for, above and beyond a commitment to doing politics differently. Most of all, it needs to stand for something. Being different, after all, will only get you so far. Just ask the members of the Alberta Liberal Party.
