Alberta's conservative group has focused on municipal elections

The group, which claims to be fed up with the functioning of the municipal government, hopes to change things during the next municipal elections.

Alberta United was formed in partnership with the United Conservative Party (UCP) and other conservative groups in the hope that their voices would be heard.

“I love Alberta, and we need to get it back to where it was,” Todd Simer, the group's co-chair, told CityNews.

Sizemer has had his own issues with the city of Cochrane and says he's not alone, others are fed up too.

All of this, he said, means people feel they are not being heard or represented at the municipal level.

“Of course, according to my experience, we were not listened to. It didn't matter that our ducks were in a row. Also, this time there is a complete omission, and the omission appears to be a means of removing any fairness from the game play,” he said.

Alberta United will be playing in Calgary's Wards 7, 8 and 12 this week.

The group has chapters in Cochrane and other parts of Alberta.

“So these meetings attract like-minded people who want to be involved in the process of who gets elected and who can run for office,” Simer said. “The goal is to allow these chapters to be created in every riding or municipality so that the local municipality has a voice, because people seem to be elected and do what they want regardless of what their community thinks.

“You're seeing it now in all this excitement with petitions everywhere.”

Mount Royal University (MRU) political scientist Lori Williams says party politics at the municipal level in Calgary has been around for a while. But the question is whether it is effective or not.

“What's much more important to voters — and it's been said many times — is that individual councilors are accountable to their constituents on a policy basis,” he said. “Polling consistently shows Albertans don't want it. They don't want to join a particular party.”

Simer says he doesn't see party politics as controversial.

“The community coming together and talking about what's important to this community and working to put in good candidates — what happened?”