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In the months after the NDP’s surprise victory in Alberta, then-prime minister Stephen Harper told his closest political associates that he planned to set up a provincial wing of the federal Conservative Party to unite the right in the province.

That plan was foiled by his electoral defeat last October, but sources suggest it is not dead.

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Senior Alberta Conservatives say they would prefer the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties come together of their own accord. But if they don’t, their federal cousins will use their organizational and financial clout to ensure the NDP faces a united conservative party at the next election.

“I would say it’s plan C or D,” said one MP.

In many ways, the formation of a third conservative party in Alberta would make a lot of sense. Under the province’s electoral law, merging Wildrose and the PCs is impossible; it would require the dissolution of one or the other. Given the intransigence on both sides, that looks implausible.