EDMONTON—Derek Fildebrandt has officially handed over the reins of the party he helped found as an MLA in the Alberta legislature.

On Wednesday, David White, who ran as a Freedom Conservative Party candidate in the provincial riding of Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin, took over as the party’s interim leader.

“We’re a younger party. There’s a lot still to be done,” White told reporters outside the Alberta Legislature Building.

“We now have four years to build appropriately toward 2023.”

Fildebrandt, who led the party for almost a year after he left the United Conservative Party, also spoke to reporters at the leadership announcement and said he was leaving politics for good, with no intention of running for public office again.

“I’ve got a life ahead of me that doesn’t involve the colonoscopy of partisan politics and media,” Fildebrandt said.

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He also said he’d stick around and play a support role for the party.

White, who worked as a paramedic before entering politics about six weeks ago, will serve as interim leader for a maximum of one year before the FCP holds a leadership contest. He wouldn’t commit to putting his name forward for the permanent job, but said he was open to it.

The party has a lot of work ahead as it tries to position itself as a viable alternative for conservative voters in Alberta. But White said in the meantime, the FCP will act as a “shadow government,” holding the United Conservatives to account.

When pressed by reporters about his environmental policy, White said he wanted a slow and responsible approach to addressing the issue of carbon emissions. However, he doesn’t support a carbon tax and wouldn’t elaborate on his party’s climate policy.

Standing behind White during the announcement, however, Fildebrandt told reporters “the party’s platform doesn’t care about it” because there are bigger fish to fry before dealing with carbon emissions.

He said party members would have an opportunity to develop a broader environmental plan at an upcoming policy convention.

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The Freedom Conservative Party was formed in the summer of 2018 and is a right-wing, fiscal conservative political party.

In the 2019 provincial election, the party boasted 24 candidates throughout Alberta, but a United Conservative majority win saw Fildebrandt lose his seat and the party fail to have any of its prospects elected to the legislature.

Fildebrandt received less than 10 per cent of the vote in the riding of Chestermere-Strathmore, where he lost to the UCP’s Leela Aheer. He announced he was leaving politics in late April and was stepping down as leader of the FCP.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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