Alberta UCP activists want 'control' of party board — but to do what with it, exactly?

David Parker's bespectacled eyes widened as the leader of Take Back Alberta told fellow political activists what will go down at the United Conservative Party's annual convention this weekend.

It's different from what most traditional politicos will say is happening at Calgary's BMO Centre — a political schmoozefest where members get to clap thundersticks for leader Danielle Smith, get tipsy at hospitality suites and choose the party apparatchiks who manage fundraising dollars and help constituency associations file documents on time.

Parker sees it in more revolutionary terms. 

He sees this as a chance to elect an "absolute majority" of the UCP board, loyal to his movement and its beliefs.

Parker has taken credit for helping drive Albertans to channel their anger with COVID rules into toppling former premier Jason Kenney, replacing him with Danielle Smith, and electing like-minded conservatives to form half the UCP board at the annual general meeting last fall. He's among the organizers who encouraged 3,725 Albertans to attend this weekend's event, largely to finish with the other half of board posts.

But the charismatic Parker has lately tried to shake accusations that he's a wannabe puppetmaster, rather than a great empowerer of the grassroots. "I don't want to control the premier; I'm not interested in that," he told a crowd in the small town of Taber, Alta., last month. "I want you to control your politicians. I want the people to be the ones who are in charge."

The attendees at the Take Back Alberta events Parker has held around the province are galvanized by continued fights against the threat of mask mandates or any threats to their personal liberties, and more lately by the fight for "parental rights" when it comes to transgender kids. Those voting for UCP president at the AGM will also get to vote on several policy resolutions about things like student pronouns and medical freedoms.

On the convention's eve, Parker struck an even more determined tone on social media.

"After this AGM, the grassroots of the UCP will be in charge," he wrote Thursday night. "Those who do not listen to the grassroots or attempt to thwart their involvement in the decision-making process, will be removed from power."

But if there's a "control" mentality that much of those record throngs bring to the United Conservative AGM, political veterans have a warning for them:

Parties don't work that way.

"The reality of modern politics is that the influence of the elected board is overstated, or not that significant," says David Yager, the president of the Wildrose party when Smith led it a decade ago.

These were thankless tasks to run party operations, especially outside of election periods — it was administrative, technical governance fodder, and nobody wanted the jobs.

"You didn't go to the bathroom in the middle of a meeting because you came back in and you discovered you were president," Yager quipped.