This past Thursday,  the Wildrose and Alberta Progressive Conservative parties laid out plans for a merger of the two into one unified party.

Airdrie Wildrose MLA Angela Pitt is pleased with the announcement and believes Albertans are too.  "This has been a top of mind issue for quite a while now.  I've hosted a couple of town halls where we've brought members of both conservative parties together and ask what their opinions are and what direction we should go in.  Overwhelmingly in all three town halls that I hosted it was 'let's get together, it's time to put our differences aside, come together as one party so that we can ensure that we defeat the NDP in the next election'."

Premier Rachel Notley has said that, regardless of what the party is called, the conservatives will plan to cut essential services if they're elected.  Pitt calls that "fear mongering" by the NDP.

 "That's their standard talking point.  'Oh these conservatives are super scary they're going to cut everything and you're not going to have services' which is just not the case.  We do know we have a bloated government.  We do know we have a bloated health care system and it's not being run efficiently and wait times are through the roof.  This government's solution to everything is just throwing more money at the problem.  

The merger still needs to be approved by 75 per cent of the Wildrose membership and 50 per cent of PC members.  If it's ratified the new party will set up a leadership committee and plans are to elect a party leader by October 28th.  Both Wildrose leader Brian Jean and PC leader Jason Kenney say they will run for the leadership of the new party.

When asked what she thought of the name "United Conservative Party" Pitt deferred.  "It's an interim name, it was just chosen by the Unity Team.   The great part of this new party moving forward is it's still going to be a grass roots party and the members at any time can change the name, they can change constitution, they can change policies, they can make this their party and I'm really excited about that because that's what matters most that the majority of Albertans are reflected in the government of the day."

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