Alberta conservative leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer says the caucus he seeks to lead needs to get its financial house in order.
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Schweitzer says the new United Conservative Party won’t be a credible voice for fiscal management if it can’t keep its caucus out of a projected $337,000-deficit this year.
“We simply cannot get this stuff wrong,” Schweitzer said Friday. “This is not a complicated formula to do. We should be better than this.”
The United Conservative Party was created last month when the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties voted to merge. That has resulted in a duplication of staffers combined with a loss of legislature funding.
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Before the merger, the two caucuses had been receiving a combined $4 million a year for staff and operations.
Former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, who is also running for leadership of the merged party, said in a statement that caucus will make the necessary changes to come in on budget if he wins.
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“I have never had a deficit year in caucus and I won’t this year. In 2015-16 Wildrose ran a rather significant surplus, in 2016-17 we came in on budget,” said Jean.
He noted the funding has also been cut back because two of their legislature members, Derek Fildebrandt and Richard Starke, have left.
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Starke, with the Progressive Conservatives, never joined the new caucus. Fildebrandt, the former Wildrose finance critic, quit the newly merged caucus earlier this month following revelations of questionable spending surrounding meal and housing expenses.
The caucuses cannot run deficits and Jean said this year will be no exception.
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“If I am returned as leader, I am confident that with prudent business-like attention to spending we will finish the year within the budget that the legislature has set for us, as we always have,” he said.
Former Progressive Conservative leader Jason Kenney and former Wildrose president Jeff Callaway are also running for the party leadership. Neither could be reached for comment.
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A new leader will be picked Oct. 28.
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