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It’s not fair to ask the party to develop and reveal all its plans now, especially when the two leading parties aren’t doing so, he said.

That seems like a reasonable argument, but the problem Mandel faces is that his party is sitting at less than 10 per cent support in the polls, and is way behind the NDP and United Conservative Party in both membership sales and fundraising.

He doesn’t enjoy the luxury of time that UCP Leader Jason Kenney has to release his platform, nor the long policy record of NDP Leader Rachel Notley, nor the advertising resources to compete with either of his rivals during the election period.

As such, Mandel admitted his party needs to do a better job of getting its message out to Albertans sooner rather than later.

Yet it’s hard to imagine how his candidates — 42 and counting — will do that at this stage armed only with nebulous pablum on serious issues of government finances and the economy.

To be fair, not all policy motions that came up at Saturday’s convention were so dry.

As an example, one of the most intriguing items on the agenda called for an Alberta Party government to reduce funding for private schools to 50 per cent of the per-student cost provided to public schools. The current rate is 70 per cent.

Journalists at the convention were awaiting that resolution, ready to make it the main focus of their coverage.

But party members in attendance had others ideas, with many expressing significant discomfort at putting the motion into the policy book. They voted overwhelmingly to have the item tabled for further review.