During a campaign stop in High River last week former Wildrose Party president, Jeff Callaway differentiated himself from the former leaders of Alberta’s right wing parties as he vies for the leadership in the new United Conservative Party.
The United Conservative Party was formed with the merger of the Wildrose and the PCs in July and will select a leader Oct. 29. The new party has 28 seats in the Alberta Legislature. It is the official opposition of the Rachel Notley led NDP which has 55 seats.
Callaway spoke about what sets him apart from leadership candidates former PC party leader Jason Kenney and former Wildrose leader Brian Jean in an interview with the Western Wheel Aug. 29.
“We all have taken obvious positions,” said Jeff Callaway, in an interview at Carlson’s On MacLeod in High River on Aug. 29. “We are all against the carbon tax and we are all going to repeal it. But Jason has his grassroots guarantee and is going to leave policy development to the members and Brian Jean is rolling out a whole raft of policies – 101 policies about everything, even municipal referendums on photo radar.
“I’m different. I have three big ideas that I am putting forward that we can rally around.”
Callaway, an investment advisor with CANNACORD genuity wealth management and the Wildrose president for nine years, announced his candidacy on Aug. 10. He joins Jean, Kenney and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer in the leadership race.
Callaway said the biggest concern with Albertans is the economy.
“The number one issue that I am hearing about is, across the entire province, economy and jobs and people who are underemployed,” Callaway said.
His first announcement sees a greater emphasis on natural gas in Alberta.
“To have more fuel by natural gas is going to be a good thing for the province,” he said. “It puts more people to work, the royalties we make for the provincial budget, it will be more substantial than from coal.”
The infrastructure is already in place with natural gas pipelines, he added.
“On top of that we are sit on a couple of the largest amount of resources in almost the entire world in the Montney and the Duvernay,” Callaway said. “We have such a massive resource, let’s capitalize on it.”
He said technology has improved so much, Alberta has decades of natural gas.
Prior to coming to High River Callaway announced on the steps of the Alberta legislature a proposal to buy the Port of Churchill in Manitoba to give Alberta another facility to export its oil and gas as well as grain and other goods.
The proposal also calls on Alberta to build a pipeline to Churchill.
Callaway estimated it would bring about a half-a-billion dollars more a year in the provincial coffers.
His third proposal, involves bringing more capital into Alberta, rather than having it leave the province.
Former Highwood Wildrose constituency president Wendy Adam, while not openly endorsing Callaway, sang his praises in working with then interim leader Heather Forsyth for keeping the party together after former leader Danielle Smith and 10 Wildrose MLA crossed the floor in December 2014 to join the PC led Jim Prentice government. Although he said he liked Jean, Callaway has a different philosophy than the former Wildrose leader for whom he worked with.
“Brian is putting out a 101 different policies — he’s prescribing all of the policies for the party. I am not entirely sure how that engages members or Albertans. I don’t think it does. I think it pushes people away.”
He also added the fact the Wildrose under Jean left a large deficit for the new party is concerning.
“We are talking about selecting a leader for this party who is going to have to deal with a $10.5 billion deficit maybe worse on a $55-billion budget. He is running a 20 per cent deficit on a $2-million budget.
“Pick the NDP or pick Brian Jean. From a fiscal position you might have the same problem.”
Callaway lost to then Progressive Conservative Sandra Jansen in the Calgary Northwest riding in the 2015 provincial election. Jansen is now a member of the NDP caucus.
