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Summarized by Kent Larsen
Party Started Because of Intolerance to LDS Members Chooses Leader
Calgary Alberta Canada Herald (CP) 22Jan00 D2
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA -- The political party started when LDS
politician Randy Thorsteinson objected to the intolerance in the
Social Credit party towards LDS Church members has selected a new
leader. The Alberta First party chose elk farmer John Reil as their
leader on a vote of about 140 to 50 at the party's first leadership
convention.
Last year, Thorsteinson, who was leader of Alberta's Social Credit
party, resigned along with eight of the 17-member executive board
because of the intolerance that other board and party members had
toward the LDS Church and its members. They then started Alberta
First, a right-of-centre party. Thorsteinson wasn't at the convention
due to illness.
Reil, in his first statements after winning the leadership,
criticized the governing Conservative party's acceptance of a
Canadian Supreme Court's gay rights ruling. Reil said that the
legislature should have fought the decision. The party's stands
include reducing health care spending for services not medically
required, such as abortion.
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