Four months after suggesting the cash-strapped Alberta Liberals may consider a leadership review, outgoing party president Todd Van Vliet said his team is now on solid footing.

“We could’t fix the fundraising of the party and we had to make some changes,” he said. “People are prepared to go to their wallets for this party. It’s not just about ideas.”

About 100 party members gathered at the Clarion Hotel in Calgary Saturday for the annual general meeting at which party leader Raj Sherman touted “financial, social and economic responsibility” as policy objectives.

In a rousing afternoon speech, the longtime leader outlined a series of priorities for his party.

Among them is a proposal for a community-centre design for schools, complete with hot meals, low fees, affordable daycare and senior services. He supports a high-speed rail link between Calgary and Edmonton as well as progressive income taxation and greater regulation of the energy sector.

A former doctor, Sherman said he’d save $1 billion in health care spending by cutting management and adding more front-line staff.

Sherman also called for a national commission on foster children following a joint Calgary Herald-Edmonton Journal investigation that found the number of children who died in Alberta foster care tripled the officially reported figures.

Sherman also talked down the threat of the NDP and Alberta Party snapping up votes.

“Every progressive voter needs to vote for one centrist, common party,” he told reporters. “For Albertans to divide that vote doesn’t make sense.”

Although the provincial Liberals cut ties with their federal counterparts in 1976, Sherman said he supports federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s calls for a carbon tax.

“In my mind a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal,” said Sherman. “We have the same values.”

Van Vliet said the party improved its fundraising in the first quarter of 2014. Financial reports posted by Elections Alberta showed the Liberals bringing in just $79,905 in the first three months of this year. That’s down from $112,592 in the previous quarter, but higher than last year’s first quarter in which the party raised $55,293. The Liberals remain behind the other three elected parties, although party treasurer Toby Ramsden noted the party cleared its debts in September, leaving it free from interest payments.

Party vice-presidents presented their financial and policy reports behind closed doors Saturday morning. “Those are discussions that are normally held in-camera,” Sherman said, although the party held this session publicly last year.

“We wanted the members to raise any questions they might have without worrying about whether the press was in the room,” said Van Vliet, adding that the party’s AGM commission made the decision. “I think everybody was really positive. In previous AGMs there were lots of questions about where the party going.”

The meeting ended with Shelley Wark-Martyn, an Ontario cabinet minister in Bob Rae’s NDP government, acclaimed as party president.

drobertson@calgaryherald.com

Twitter.com/dcrHerald