Let's have a (political) party

A new political party in Alberta may be on the horizon.

Alberta’s Progressive Future is an organization created by members of the progressive movement in response to the results of the 2023 Alberta General Election.

According to a news release put out earlier this week, they believe the first goal needs to lay the groundwork to ensure a progressive party can defeat the UCP in the next election. 

They say to do that, they want the Alberta NDP to begin exploring the potential benefits of a name change.

"While the Alberta NDP is already completely autonomous from the federal party, sharing the same name as the federal party creates confusion for the average Alberta voter. This confusion is very effectively exploited by the UCP and will continue to be for as long as the provincial party has the same name as the Federal NDP." said director Brian Malkinson.

The group says Janet Brown Opinion Research carried out polling on behalf of APF from September 13-26, 2023, with the results highlighting a few key points:

50% of respondents think that the federal NDP either has some or a great deal of influence on the provincial NDP.
12% of respondents could vote for the Alberta NDP but do not support the party at this time
An additional 12% of respondents are not likely to vote for the Alberta NDP but would vote for another centre or centre-left party.
Based on this poll, the Alberta NDP could be missing out on as many 24% of voters that are within the party’s voter universe.

While the results of this poll do not conclusively prove that a rebranding of the Alberta NDP would necessarily lead to more votes for the party, it does show that there are many people in the Alberta NDP’s target base that did not support the party in the recent election.

The APF also wants to explore the potential impact of a rebranding of the Alberta NDP and how that may change voter behaviour. The APF’s intention to explore the possibility of a name change is supported by a number of candidates in target seats in the recent 2023 election including four in Calgary, one in Red Deer and one in Fort Saskatchewan - Vegreville.

They're urging voters to check out their website for more information.

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