Alberta Legislature Decides to Keep Wildrose as Official Opposition

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The Speaker of the Alberta Legislature have announced on Tuesday that The Wildrose Party will continue to be the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly despite its number of MLAs being reduced to just five last week. After the defection of nine Wildrose MLAs to the ruling PC government last week, both the Liberals and Wildrose are left with just five MLAs. Whereas, the New Democrats have four members and there is one independent.

According to the decision announced by Speaker Gene Zwozdesky, it was mentioned that “based on a thorough review of authorities and precedents across Canada, I have determined that incumbency is the key factor in the case of a tie and that the Wildrose caucus shall continue as the Official Opposition.” In response to the statement, Wildrose House Leader, Shayne Saskiw, stated that “given prior precedent, it is our belief this ruling strengthens our democracy.”

Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA, Drew Barnes, also welcomed the news and said that “it also means we will continue to be allowed to ask the first three questions of the day,” adding that “that will allow us to continue to set the tone in the Legislative Assembly.” Furthermore, Barnes revealed that The Official Opposition is also given an additional budget that is worth about half a million dollars. It was added that “our total budget is about $1.3 million and we use that money to hire mostly researchers, some legislative assistants and one communications person.”