The Progressive Conservative party drew a big crowd to its leadership delegate selection meeting (DSM) for the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock constituency.
While not the largest DSM turnout yet, 126 people came out to cast votes for their preferred delegates at the Westlock Inn on Monday night.
The meeting was slated to start at 7 p.m. but was delayed 20 minutes due to the volume of members being registered for the event at the door.
Potential delegates were able to stand and make a one minute speech to the crowd to convince them to vote for them. Of the candidates that spoke, four suggested in their speech that they would support uniting the right. No support for a specific candidate was mentioned in any of the presentations.
“I think things are going really well,” leadership candidate Stephen Khan said of the race. “We are hyper focused on delegates right now. We’re very pleased and we are very hopeful about finishing strong just before the Christmas break for the leadership campaign.”
Khan’s campaign has joined forces with leadership hopefuls Richard Starke and Byron Nelson to promote a renewal slate. The three candidates want to renew the existing party. They are competing with leadership candidate Jason Kenney, who wants to merge the PC party with the Wildrose party.
The renewal team estimates that the Kenney campaign is around 20 delegates ahead in the race.
“I don’t think anybody knows specifically,” Khan said of the amount of delegates each camp has. “There is an ebb and flow to delegates and delegates can change their mind. We’ve been talking to delegates through the course of this and we have been able to change some minds.”
The youth delegates selected at Monday night’s DSM are Benjamin Vierson and Hinne Janssen. The board delegates selected are Craig Wilson, Ralph Leriger, Richard Bouwman and Wes Werkman. The remaining members selected are John Vander Deen, Jacqueline Hamoen, Gary Golby, Stanley Vierson, John Tyrell, Roelof Janssen, Jason Zwarg and Clem Fagnan. The alternate youth selected is 16-year-old Rae-Lynn Hamoen. The remaining alternates are Don Savage, Doug Drozd, Helmut Jantz and Ken Jersch.
The delegates will travel to Calgary on March 18 to select a new leader for the party. If a delegate is not able to make it to the convention an alternate will take their place.
The Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock meeting was the 16th of 87 DSM meetings being held across the province.
The St. Albert delegate selection meeting is on Monday Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Kinsmen Banquet Centre. To vote for delegates, members must have been with the party since Dec. 5, 2016. To register as a delegate members must put their name forward to the constituency’s returning officer Lorna Wolodko before noon, seven days before the meeting.
Blaise Boehmer, spokesperson for the Kenney campaign, said in an email they will not comment to media about specific numbers they believe to have won in the delegate selection meetings but say their team “continues to score decisive victories at DSMs.”
