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Albertans may see yet another new party on their ballots when the 2019 provincial election rolls around.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Elections Alberta gave the group that wants to resurrect the Wildrose Party the go-ahead to call itself the Alberta Advantage Party.

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That’s despite the fact there is already an established Alberta Party with a sitting MLA.

The leader of that party, Greg Clark, isn’t exactly over the moon about the decision, but knows new parties in this province are more than likely going to have the words “Alberta” and “Party” in them somewhere.

He’s going to have a talk with his legal team, he told the Journal, but said he’s not too worried about voter confusion “because their policies will be dramatically different from ours.”

The Alberta Advantage Party was the first choice for a name selected by about 50 former Wildrosers at a Nisku organizational meeting July 29.

To form the new party, the group has to either collect 7,868 signatures from Albertans supportive of its creation, have three MLAs cross the floor, or register 44 candidates with Elections Alberta in the next provincial election.

Marilyn Burns, who has spearheaded the Wildrose 2.0 movement, said in a statement the “great accomplishments of the Wildrose members will carry forward under a new name.”

“The Alberta Advantage Party will pick up the ball that Brian Jean dropped and we’ll run with it,” she said.

The move to create a new Wildrose Party comes after it and the Progressive Conservatives voted July 22 to merge under the banner of the United Conservative Party.

egraney@postmedia.com

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