UCP president will not seek re-election to the position

Open this photo in gallery:

Cynthia Moore, the United Conservative Party president who has decided she won’t run again for the position this fall, is the first to acknowledge that keeping the UCP’s members on the same page is hard sometimes.

“It’s been difficult because as conservatives, we’re more likely to be outspoken,” she said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

This is an understatement in the wild world of Alberta’s governing party. In its six years of existence, the UCP has been a hotbed of open fractiousness – the kind that exists when tear-it-down movements are forced to exist alongside establishment conservatism.

Even after a relatively narrow win in the May election, it’s a party still figuring out its identity under Premier Danielle Smith. She herself rebounded back into provincial politics by representing those who felt betrayed by the system – especially the Jason Kenney government’s COVID-19 pandemic health restrictions and vaccine mandates.

While party presidents are usually not hugely public figures, Ms. Moore’s two-year term has been closely scrutinized throughout, including her role in organizing the 2022 leadership review followed by a leadership race – periods where the UCP seemed at war with itself. She worked behind the scenes on hundreds of Zoom calls to keep party members engaged.

But still, Take Back Alberta (TBA), a group representing social conservatives on the party’s right flank, targeted Ms. Moore’s presidency earlier this summer. Now, her term is set to expire in early November, at the conclusion of the party’s annual general meeting in Calgary – and many will view her departure as a loss for those still left in the UCP who think of themselves as Progressive Conservatives.

Yet Ms. Moore says party divisions are not the reason she’s leaving her volunteer role.

“I want to move on and do something else,” she said, adding her decision was delayed. “Hundreds of people have reached out to me to ask me to continue, so I wanted to give that new consideration.”

She would rather not talk about TBA, which takes credit for rallying the leadership review votes to push Mr. Kenney from office last year and whose leader, David Parker, saw Ms. Moore as another establishment figure he wanted to take down. In June, after the provincial election – with Rachel Notley’s Alberta NDP safely vanquished – he called for Ms. Moore to resign or not run again.

The party president says the group has nothing to do with her decision, though she acknowledges the management of all the differing points of view is a lot of work: “You do run out of energy.”

Ms. Smith is the right leader for this moment, Ms. Moore said, because she understands “the nuances” of the different parts of the UCP movement, and has friends across the political spectrum. (The Premier downplays the importance of TBA but also is friends with Mr. Parker.)

Ms. Moore was also an ally of former premier Jason Kenney, and says that with a new leader, it’s also time for a new president.

“The big thing is the how difficult it is to keep a conservative coalition together – that’s the key in all of this. And probably the reason why we have a new leader.”

She will, however, keep her hand in politics and says she will work to improve her party’s fortunes in Calgary, where the UCP lost seats to the NDP in May. Ms. Moore says she might even seek the UCP nomination herself, probably in her home riding of Calgary-Elbow – a constituency now held by NDP MLA Samir Kayande.

“I purposely don’t speak out publicly about anything to do with policy, because that’s not my role. But I do have opinions.”

Ms. Moore says she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t involved in conservative politics in the province. Her late father, Amoco Canada Petroleum executive and philanthropist Sherrold Moore, was a key part of former Progressive Conservative premier Ralph Klein’s kitchen cabinet. Her mother, Pat, was a longtime party volunteer, who organized Get Out the Vote efforts for Mr. Klein. Ms. Moore herself has been on the UCP board for 5½ years.

It’s sure to be a contentious race to succeed her as party president. So far, only former provincial cabinet minister Rick Orman (an unsuccessful Alberta PC leadership candidate in 1992 and 2011) has formally declared. He says he will rely on his long institutional knowledge and ability to listen to party and caucus members to bridge the differences within the party.

Mr. Orman adds that it’s key the membership is supportive of the leader as she battles with the federal government on energy and justice issues important to the province and to Alberta conservatives.

“For a leader to feel comfortable in dealing with Ottawa, she has to know their own party is solidly behind her,” he said in an interview.

Before Ms. Moore leaves, there is still work to do. She will be debriefing UCP MLAs on the election at a caucus retreat next month. She will also chair the Nov. 3-4 AGM.

Unity and cohesion might always be an issue for conservatives. But Ms. Moore will be telling party members of her hope that the UCP can get past a period of internal battles being put on full display.

“I hope that people will understand that our – I hate to refer to it as infighting – does not help us in terms of Albertans feeling that we’re disciplined enough to be in government.

“And that people will understand what’s best for the party and for this government is for us to keep the internal infighting to ourselves – to not do it so publicly.”