They still need some 8,900 signatures, put together an organizational staff, and wait for potential provincial boundary redraws, but the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party of Alberta is officially being revived.

Independent MLAs Peter Guthrie (Airdrie – Cochrane) and Scott Sinclair (Lesser Slave Lake) made their intentions official at a PC Association of Alberta (PCAA) meeting and news conference at the Westin Hotel in Calgary on July 5, 2025.

Guthrie, elected as a UCP MLA back in 2023 and then turfed from the UCP caucus this past April for voting in favour of a public inquiry into the Alberta government’s involvement in alleged Alberta Health Services procurement irregularities, said that this week has been a whirlwind, since news first broke about the PC Party revival on Wednesday.

He said, however, this decision is not about the past; it’s about the future.

“Three months ago, when I was removed from caucus, I felt both relief and sadness,” Guthrie said.

“Relief because I no longer had to stand beside something I couldn’t support. Sadness because the UCP was no longer the party I joined. It wasn’t the party Albertans elected. Somewhere along the way, it fell off course.”

Guthrie said that since that time, he and Sinclair have heard from thousands of Albertans who feel they don’t have a political home.

“Albertans want a return of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta,” he said.

“So, today, as independent MLAs, Scott and I are taking the first steps to make that possible. Albertans deserve a choice, and we’re committed to making sure that they have it.”

Sinclair was turfed from the UCP in March 2025 for his public opposition to the proposed provincial budget. He said that a lot of Albertans feel like there isn’t a party that speaks to them anymore.

“Folks want a steady hand, a government that promotes unity, not division, one that will reduce spending, balance budgets, a boring government with leadership that’s focused on common sense governance, not unbecoming a celebrity or a podcaster,” he said.

“While we start this journey that might be small to begin with, I do believe we’re waking a sleeping giant.”

Dealing with the PC Party’s troubling past

The PC Party of Alberta was in power for 44 years, the longest unbroken reign in Canadian provincial or federal history.  The party met its ballot box fate in the wake of the trouble surrounding former Premier Alison Redford, who left office in 2014.

The Alberta NDP won a majority of seats in the 2015 provincial election, in what many consider a protest to the culmination of years of corruption and cronyism that had built up in the dynastic PC party.

Guthrie said they understand that history is one that many Albertans will question.

“We want to understand and be able to respect the deep roots of this party and bring it back to those early principles that (Peter) Lougheed created. But we also have to understand we’re in a new time,” he said.

“There was a dissolution of this party, and it was for a reason. So, let’s get back down to the roots of it, and let’s look to the future.”

Sinclair said that he and Guthrie are already setting a new path for the PC Party with their actions thus far.

“If you looked at the standard that both former minister Pete Guthrie and I have taken in our stands, that we took in asking questions of our own party, and our own caucus, they were very much principle-based,” Sinclair said.

“We were asking questions about accountability, financial oversight, value for money, bloated contracts, and it got us exactly where we are today. I would say there’s a lot of parallels between the late days of maybe the PC days that you’re speaking of and talking about this existing Premier.”

Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt said that when you hear people talk about the resurrection of the PC Party, they aren’t talking about the Redford years, or even those of Jim Prentice. He said it’s about the Peter Lougheed years.

“The mythology around Peter Lougheed is so powerful and that is something that I think people gravitate to, and there, even (Premier) Smith will try to claim the mantle of Peter Lougheed,” Bratt told LWC.

“But I would have to think that Lougheed would be rolling in his grave to hear Smith say that. Because as much as he fought Pierre Trudeau over the National Energy Program, he was not a separatist by any stretch of the imagination, nor did he give them any oxygen.”

Bratt said it’s difficult for any new party to start, particularly so for one in the middle, where the PC Party expects to reside. Fringe parties, ones driven by anger, are easier to mobilize in the beginning, he said. It will be a difficult path for the party to field candidates for a provincial election within a couple of years.

But, Bratt sees an opening for the resurrected PC Party – separatism. He said the question is likely to divide the UCP caucus, giving the PC Party their shot.

“The challenge with the UCP is that it is a party that is conflicted over the issue of separatism, and that’s a pretty big issue,” he said.

“Then a new PC party has a window of opportunity.”

Bratt said that, especially in an urban centre like Calgary, even if the revived PC Party skims three to five per cent of the vote from the UCP, it could be devastating to the UCP.

PC Party next steps

Guthrie said that while Premier Danielle Smith has asserted that the UCP still owns the PC Party name, as it was officially folded into the new United Conservative Party years back, the name became available this past spring. He said the UCP had a chance to re-register the name, and they didn’t.

“An astute Albertan picked that up, had it for two years, and then, as I mentioned earlier, there was a renewal that needed to take place on May 27, which we obtained,” he said. that

“I guess they took their eye off the proverbial ball and gave an advantage to the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta and its followers.”

Still, both Sinclair and Guthrie recognize there’s a long uphill climb. According to Elections Alberta rules, they need signatures equal to 0.3 per cent of voters in the last election, which amounts to around 8,900 names.

They need those signatures for party status. Right now, the name is being held in reserve for six months to see if the party can fulfill its obligations to obtain party status. Sinclair said that step two is building out the organization. Only after a provincial boundary redraw can constituency associations be legally formed and then they can go out and build a pool of candidates. The goal is to have candidates ready for the next provincial election.

“Lots of people are asking us about donations and people joining the team. It’s really early days right now, the people that are part of this are, I believe, an unspoken giant and probably a majority of this province,” Sinclair said.

Right now, it’s a small group of volunteers hoping to resurrect an Alberta political giant, Guthrie said. They’ve already begun collecting the signatures, and he estimates there are several hundred tallied since Wednesday.

They’ll be taking some time to meet with people around the Calgary Stampede and then hitting the road across the province to generate more buzz around the party revival.

“We’re just very pleased, though, by the reaction and feedback that we’re getting,” Guthrie said.

“It’s just really heartwarming really to see the kind of interest that we have in this party.”