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Conservative Party Merger Alters Landscape in Canada's Oil Patch

  • Wildrose, PCs agree to unite to challenge Rachel Notley’s NDP
  • United Conservative Party to choose leader in Oct. 28 election
Rachel Notley.

Rachel Notley.

Photographer: F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg

The merger of Alberta’s two main conservative parties creates a new political force in the heart of Canada’s oil patch that threatens to unseat Premier Rachel Notley and kill the province’s carbon tax.

Members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties voted Saturday to create the United Conservative Party. Combined, those parties hold 30 of 87 districts, though they received 52 percent of the vote in the last election.