An open letter to the Wild Rose Party Faithful

Dear Wildrosers:

Odds are, you don't really care about what this "socialist" (who isn;t really a socialist) or "Communist" (who also isn't a Communist) has to say. But I'm gonna say it anyways, because "Free Speech! Fuck yeah!"

You have to make an important decision. Do you want to form government, or die on your hill of Grassroots? Because at the rate you're going, your party will be going the way of the SoCreds. The Wild Rose Party made a great grassroots movement, and gave a voice to those who felt left out of the post-Klein era, but had no chance of forming government until it was built by leaders who saw the big picture and needed to expand the Wild Rose tent.

Sadly, you are about to throw your second consecutive party leader under the bus.

Danielle Smith brought you from Obscurity and Virtual Non-Existence to 16 sitting legislative members, the largest opposition in Alberta since the mid-90's. Her Libertarian values appealed to many PC members and brought them into the fold. But the thing about Libertarians is, in addition to standing up for their liberties, they also respect others, and you had some troubles with that.

Daggers out, you essentially chased her out of your party for that very Libertarian idea, leading to the first time in history a party leader crossed the floor to join another party. And took 8 other MLAs with her. Oh, we all thought it was horrible back then. She single-handedly decimated the opposition, and left the Prentice cons virtually unopposed. Oh, how everyone crucified her, even PC supporters who were suspicious of her motives and how undemocratic we felt the exodus was.

But it turns out you didn't want a Libertarian, you wanted a religious nut with lakes of fire and misogynistic pies, and a hatred of gays and natives. You needed to rebuild and selected Brian Jean as your new leader to help you do so. And how did he ever. You went from five seats to 21, and then another seat in a byelection. But he learned from Harper to keep his members on a leash. When he began declaring that saying certain things was unnacceptable, you started turning on him. When he actually disciplined an MLA over (accidentally) agreeing with a homophobic tweet, you went ballistic. You turn against him for his constant apologies for the behaviour of your elected members because it shows he has no control as leader. And then you complain when he exercises control over his members. He is the one member at least constantly being accountable for not only his actions, but also those of all your other elected representatives. He's shown himself willing to be responsible, and like Smith before him, he realizes that the Wild Rose Party will not form government as long as it is the party of Homophobics and Old White Men ways.

And now, after losing his son during the leadership race, losing his house in the Fort Mac fire and STILL coming into work every day, and working to make his party more appealing, you're getting set to throw him under the bus too.

I want to do a quick lesson with you folks. You gained 7 seats in the last election, but your percentage of the popular vote dropped overall. Now, seats are clearly the more important number, as they are what counts when trying to form government, but without votes, you don't get the seats. At this point, unless you make your party appealing to more people, like Smith and Jean had been trying to do, you won't ever see many more seats. You're close to your limit. Recent polls put you in the lead ahead of PCs and NDP, but remember, PC's came ahead of you in Popular Vote in 2015 and it didn't translate into more seats from them. You need to appeal and get percentages beyond your hardline base. You need to be willing to sacrifice your principles of homophobia and white rights vs aboriginal rights. You need to say "These things aren't as important as low taxes, so we can support low taxes and gays and indigenous peoples."

Or you can keep being the Health and Wealth ultra-religious tent. But that tent is getting even smaller every day. And people are noticing.

Brian Jean may not be the guy you hoped for at the grassroots level. But he could be the guy that if you listen to him, would ensure you actually win in 2019.

But hey, it's your party, your choice. If you don't want to form government that's up to you.