Is that a Capital L in your liberal, or are you just happy to see me?
I had a nice chat tonight with an Alberta Liberal Party supporter. He expressed sincere concern with me about vote splitting between the Alberta Party and his Party. A very real issue that we will have to work our way through. But in my opinion, as I have shared time and again, we must work THROUGH it. We will work very hard to engage in new methods of policy creation, have innovation as a founding principle, and not be constrained by a preconcieved ideological outcome. None of that can include working on a strategic collaboration with any party. We may fail, but it won’t be by trying the same things, others have for the last 90 years. (We WILL be strategic in this next election, just not fatalist when it comes to vote-splitting).
In my opinion, it will be about the best IDEAS, and ones that will hopefully appeal equally to Rural and Urban Alberta.
So when I came around to asking him why he simply didn’t join us and help us try something new, instead of continuing the 90 tradition of not winning elections in Alberta, he said this:
“But I am in love with the liberal idea… I like the definition”
First, I must admit, I really found that passion very endearing. But I think this is the reason I didn’t even consider the Alberta Liberals when I left the Alberta PC Party, and desperately looking for a moderate alternative to get behind. It simply confirmed what I find many big L Liberals to be about. Married to the academic ideology of liberalism.
Hell if that was the only reason to join a political movement, I would be as much a Liberal as I am Conservative: (Social / Fiscal). But partisan politics requires IDEAS, INNOVATION and ACTION. If we constrain the progress of a Party to an academic/ideological predefined outcome… well we would probably never govern. That’s not an option for Alberta in my opinion.
As I have joked a lot lately, “Some of my best friends are liberals”….. but I just wish they weren’t so hard pressed to protect the Capital L Liberal brand in Alberta… It’s time to try something different.
Co-Founder of two beautiful daughters and 