A founding member of Alberta’s Wildrose Party is now the leader of the province’s newest official political party, which plans to compete with the United Conservative Party for support from right-of-centre voters .

“We are the only truly democratic and grassroots party in Alberta,” Marilyn Burns said in a news release issued on Monday.

“Our primary platform is integrity in government, with voters having the right to recall elected MLAs.”

The AAP was added to Elections Alberta’s register of political parties on Friday after a canvassing campaign gathered 8,600 signatures on a petition asking for the party to be registered.

Watch below: (From August 2017) Efforts are underway to start a new party modeled after the Wildrose Party.

“Collecting the approximate 8,600 signatures was a tremendous feat,” Burns said. “Albertans have clearly indicated that they want another party on the ballot in the spring 2019 election.

“Our message and platform resonated with people all over Alberta as they signed the petition and wished us luck.”

A file photo of Marilyn Burns.

Aside from advocating for recall legislation, elements of the AAP’s platform can be found on the party’s website and include a pledge to extricate Alberta from Canada’s equalization payment tradition “to free Albertans from being Canada’s tax slaves.”

The party also wants Alberta to have the “right to select our own immigrants in the same way that Quebec already does” and to scrap the NDP’s legislation dealing with gay-straight alliances, which ensures all schools have policies for GSAs and that students who join them aren’t outed to parents without their permission.

The AAP platform also calls for improved police training to address growing concerns about rural crime across the province and to further deregulate the agriculture industry.

In August 2017, Global News spoke with Burns about her plans to create the AAP after former Wildrose Party members felt betrayed by their party’s decision to merge with the Progressive Conservatives to form the UCP.

“I was one of the original founders of the Wildrose Society so this is go around No. 2 for me and in comparing what is happening now as to then, we are at least a year ahead,” Burns said at the time.

The AAP will hold its AGM on Nov. 17 at the Lacombe Memorial Centre in Lacombe, Alta.

More to come…

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