Maxime Bernier has lots of fans in Alberta. But does he have enough to make a dent in the Conservative vote in the next federal election?

He just might because he garnered significant support from Alberta during the leadership race and one of his biggest fans is Alberta MLA Derek Fildebrandt who, like Bernier, is turning his back on his old party and starting up a new one with decidedly libertarian views.

Both Bernier and Fildebrandt have such super-sized egos it’s hard to imagine they could fit in the same room at the same time.

But Fildebrandt was a loyal and outspoken standard-bearer for Bernier when he ran for the leadership of the Conservative party last year. They agreed on so many things that Fildebrandt said Bernier spoke “Alberta common sense fluently,” and called him “an Albertan from Quebec.”

They both wanted to get rid of federal equalization payments (Alberta contributing and Quebec receiving), the carbon tax and supply management.

When Bernier recently called into question what he called Justin Trudeau’s “extreme multi-culturism,” Fildebrandt publicly backed him up in a tweet and added that Bernier’s position “is broadly accepted by the majority of Albertans and Canadians” without offering any proof.

He also said his new party would fight for the same constitutional authority over immigration that Quebec has.

Fildebrandt was by no means the only Albertan to support Bernier for the leadership. In the final round of voting, Alberta delegates gave Bernier 53.07 per cent of points, right behind Quebec, which gave him 55.06.

While there is no question that a significant slice of Alberta conservatism tends towards Bernier’s type of libertarianism, Fildebrandt himself could be a hindrance rather than a help to Bernier’s plans for a new party.

That’s because Fildebrandt has been mired in controversy, not because of his political views, but because he has been convicted of breaking the law twice, and was found to be double dipping on his MLA expense account. He was fined $402 in December for a hit-and-run with his pick-up truck. In February he pled guilty to illegal hunting and was fined $3,000. A few months earlier it was discovered that he was pocketing his MLA housing allowance and renting out his Edmonton apartment.

Fildebrandt was originally elected as a Wildrose MLA for a rural constituency just east of Calgary. He fought openly with Wildrose leader Brian Jean and when Jason Kenney moved to form the United Conservative Party, Fildebrandt became one of the strongest boosters of the merger and could often be seen at Kenney’s side.

But Kenney kicked him out of caucus after the double-dipping scandal, which, given that Fildebrandt was the UCP finance critic and former Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, was doubly embarrassing.

After the illegal hunting conviction, Kenney forbade him from seeking a UCP nomination.

A few months later, Fildebrandt announced that he was starting his own provincial party, the Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta.

“We are a coalition of unapologetic conservatives, libertarians and Alberta patriots. We don’t want to simply throw out the NDP, throw a new coat of paint on the truck and start driving. We want to flip it over and fundamentally change the status quo of Alberta’s place in Canada,” he said at the official announcement.

It’s clear that besides huge egos Bernier and Fildebrandt have a lot in common. They don’t like losing, chafe at party discipline and see politics as way to impose their will on everyone else. Sounds a lot like Donald Trump.

So far, prominent Alberta Conservatives, including Jason Kenney and Conservative MPs, have stood behind Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and discounted Bernier’s quest to start a new conservative party.

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But as we learned with the Reform Party and the Wildrose Party, the possibility that conservatives in Alberta will split into rival factions is never that remote.

And now that there new conservative parties emerging both inside and outside Alberta that are focused on the carbon tax, immigration, equalization payments, pushing oil pipelines through to both coasts and provincial rights — parties that have strong links to each other — who knows how many voters they might attract?

GS Gillian Steward is a Calgary-based writer and freelance columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: is a Calgary-based writer and freelance columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @GillianSteward

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