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After letting his United Conservative Party membership lapse, Jason Kenney had to be granted a waiver to run for leader.

Kenney’s membership expired in mid-August.

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According to his communications director, Blaise Boehmer, it came to the team’s attention after the merger of Progressive Conservative and Wildrose party membership lists.

Boehmer said Thursday his team notified the leadership election committee immediately and renewed Kenney’s party membership.

Committee chairwoman Robyn Henwood told the Journal her group didn’t find any violation of the rules during a brief discussion about the issue.

“Officially, we did give (Kenney’s campaign team) a waiver, so that if anyone ever came back, they had it in writing there was an official waiver from the chair,” she said.

According to Section 5.1 of the official race rules, candidates must have been a member of the UCP or one of its legacy parties for at least six months prior to filing their application.

However, there was no requirement for that membership to have been immediately prior to a candidate’s leadership application.

“We did have that discussion when we were writing our rules,” Henwood said.

“We wanted to allow candidates who maybe couldn’t hold a membership because of their job. We didn’t want to discourage them.”

Boehmer said Kenney’s membership expiry was not indicative of the former MP’s dedication to the party he has helped create.

egraney@postmedia.com

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