The Alberta Party spent their annual general meeting on Saturday building a new campaign platform for the provincial election just seven months away.
The party only holds three seats in the Alberta legislature, but hopes to form the next government.
Among the priorities of party leader Stephen Mandel is the province’s deficit.
“We have a debt that is almost $27,160 for every man, woman and child,” Mandel told the audience, adding that he’d like to claw back some of the carbon tax to deal with Alberta’s $8 billion deficit.
The nearly 500 members in attendance also discussed cutting public funding to private schools, a new taxation plan, and capping post-secondary tuition for both Canadian and international students.
On the Trans Mountain pipeline, Mandel said he was “optimistic that the federal government spent billions and billions of dollars.”
“They didn’t do this frivolously.”
Casey Douglass, who travelled from Red Deer to attend the meeting, said he’s a former United Conservative Party voter who now sides with the Alberta Party.
“They’re so inclusive, a full spectrum of society—which is what we need in this era.”
Mandel said the platform will be finished by the end of the year, and that it would show voters just how different the Alberta Party is from both the UCP and NDP.
The party passed a majority of their proposals, including issues revolving around seniors, healthcare and climate change.
With files from Sarah Plowman.
