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The remnant of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party has deregistered all 87 of its constituency associations after fewer than half responded to a plea to help pay off the party’s debt.

Following the July vote of PC and Wildrose members to join together in the new United Conservative Party, party treasurer William Stevenson sent a memo to Tory constituency association presidents and financial agents asking for their help to settle an outstanding party debt of around $684,000.

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But in an email sent Monday to local PC officials, Stevenson said the UCP’s interim joint board — which now administers the UCP, PC and Wildrose parties — voted at its Oct. 14 meeting to deregister all the constituency associations as of Monday.

Constituency associations must pay off any outstanding debts of their own and then any remaining funds must be forwarded to the PC party, said Stevenson.

“The IJB did not make this decision lightly. Unfortunately, several constituency associations made the decision to give away funds to charity or to spend excessively on volunteer appreciation without consideration of the obligation to pay off the party debt,” he wrote.