The Alberta Tories’ 41-year reign appeared to be coming to an end with the April 24 election (held after we went to press). The upstart and more conservative Wildrose Party was leading in the polls. While Wildrose is not a pro-life party, it did have numerous socially conservative candidates run under its banner. Wildrose leader Danielle Smith ran for the leadership in 2009 as a libertarian, but has presided over a true big-tent party. She has vowed to scrap the Alberta Human Rights Commission and her party is open to discussing conscience rights. This led Alberta PC Premier Alison Redford to denounce Wildrose and its supposedly extreme position, saying she was “frightened” at the prospect of legal recognition of conscience rights. We find it odd that a human rights lawyer like Redford should oppose conscience rights; apparently phony, but politically correct rights like abortion-on-demand and same-sex “marriage” take precedence.
We are disappointed that Smith has sometimes appeared to run away from moral issues, but we are much more disappointed that Redford’s Tories stooped to the tactics employed by Jean Chretien and Paul Martin in the early 2000s by employing the old “hidden agenda” and “extremism” canards.
