Wildrose Party
in Calgary, CanadaCategory: Attraction
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Kipling Square, 610 10 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2R 0B2, Canada Print route »
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The Wildrose Party (legally Wildrose Political Association, formerly the Wildrose Alliance Political Association) was a conservative provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. The party was formed by the merger in early 2008 of the Alberta Alliance Party and the unregistered Wildrose Party of Alberta. The wild rose is Alberta's provincial flower.
It contested the 2008 provincial election under the Wildrose Alliance banner, and was able to capture seven percent of the popular vote but failed to hold its single seat in the Legislative Assembly. Support for the party rose sharply in 2009 as voters grew increasingly frustrated with the Progressive Conservative (PC) government, resulting in a surprise win by outgoing leader Paul Hinman in an October by-election. In the fall of 2009 Danielle Smith was elected as leader and by December the Wildrose was leading provincial opinion polls ahead of both the governing PCs and the opposition Liberals. Wildrose's caucus grew to four members in 2010, after two former PC members of the Legislative Assembly defected in January and an independent MLA joined the party in June of that year.
In the 2012 election, while the party failed to have the breakthrough predicted by most media pundits (many predicted it would become the government), it did increase its vote and seat totals and become the official opposition.
In December 2014, nine Wildrose MLAs including leader Danielle Smith left the party to join the Progressive Conservative caucus under its recently elected leader Jim Prentice. All of the defectors to the PCs who sought re-election in the 2015 general election lost their seats, through either losing the nomination process in their riding, or losing the general election to the Wildrose challenger.
Effective February 3, 2015, the party's registered name was changed from Wildrose Alliance Party to Wildrose Party.On May 18, 2017, the leaders of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta announced a merger, which was ratified with 95% support of the membership of both parties in July 2017. The combined United Conservative Party held their inaugural leadership election on October 28, 2017.
