Roots of The Party
Prior to the 1982 Alberta election, Raymond Speaker and Walt Buck left the Alberta Social Credit Party and ran as Independents due to a collapse of their party and problems with organization and leadership. The two MLA's were successfully returned as Independents to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. After election they tried to form the official opposition over but were denied by the Speaker of the Assembly who gave the two member Alberta New Democratic Party official opposition status.
After being denied the two MLA's floated the idea for a new political party in 1982.
The Two MLA's set about trying to create a new party which began taking root in the spring of 1984. Buck and Speaker began holding meetings across the province which they promoted under the name Alternate Government Movement. The party also hired Preston Manning as a political consultant to present draft policies at its founding meetings.
The founding convention for the party was held over a period of two days on November 23 and 24 in Red Deer. The party selected a board of directors and elected Ray Speaker as leader by acclamation. It also selected the name Representative Party of Alberta from four options. The other three options were United Party, Free Democratic Party and the Free Citizens Alliance Party. The paperwork submitted to Elections Alberta and petitions of registration that had started before the convention were under the Political Alternative Association. The party simply planned to submit a request to change the name as soon as registration was accepted by Elections Alberta. On January 7, 1985 Elections Alberta accepted the petition after it collected the signatures of over 4500 Alberta electors.
Read more about this topic: Representative Party Of Alberta
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