Alberta’s United Conservatives call in lawyers in Progressive Conservative name fight

Former UCP and current independent MLAs Pete Guthrie and Scott Sinclair are trying to bring back the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta party.

Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party has brought in its lawyers to challenge a rogue splinter group in a fight over resurrecting the province’s legacy Progressive Conservative party brand.

The UCP has sent a cease and desist letter to two former United Conservative caucus members who are now seeking to challenge Premier Danielle Smith’s government by forming a new party using the old Progressive Conservative name.

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UCP executive director Dustin van Vugt, in a statement Wednesday, said the cease and desist letter was sent to protect the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta copyright and trademarks that belong to the UCP.

“The PC Alberta name, logo and goodwill were being used by people with no right to it,” he wrote.

Van Vugt said neither of the ex-UCP caucus members were part of PC Alberta.

“Their attempt to usurp the goodwill associated with our legacy party in order to confuse voters and avoid the hard work of building a political movement is particularly insulting to the thousands of former PC Party members and supporters who are now contributing members of the UCP,” he wrote.

The Progressive Conservatives ran Alberta’s government for four decades before collapsing and merging with the Wildrose Party into the new United Conservatives in 2017. The UCP has been Alberta’s governing party since 2019.

Peter Guthrie, a former cabinet minister in Smith’s government, along with former UCP backbencher Scott Sinclair, made headlines earlier this month announcing their plans to resurrect the PC name for a party that would challenge the UCP.

Guthrie said Wednesday the letter shows the UCP is worried, and trying to intimidate those who want to move the province’s political sphere back to “normality.”

“They’re fearful of us getting off the ground here and offering options to Albertans,” he said in an interview.

Guthrie said they’re still gathering signatures to register, but now they’re also working to join and rebrand the centrist Alberta Party.

“We can get to that official party status now without having to get caught up in all the legal games that the UCP is trying to play here,” he said.

Guthrie and Sinclair, both voted out of caucus earlier this year for challenging UCP policies, have said that Smith’s government has lost its way, is catering to a narrow band of extremists and separatists, and that centrist conservatives need a place to park their vote.

The would-be PCs have told supporters the Alberta Party will take on new board members and begin taking steps to change the name to reflect a progressive conservative alternative in the province.

“It may be that we have to tweak it a bit, but you can’t own ‘progressive’ and you can’t own ‘conservative,’” said Guthrie.

He added the Alberta Party is looking for a new direction, and the partnership makes sense.

“The Alberta Party has that infrastructure in place, and we’ve come out of the gates -- we’ve had this incredible amount of interest. We started with a very small team, and we’ve had thousands of people trying to contact us,” he said.

The collaboration means it’s likely they’ll need to hold a leadership contest, Guthrie said, since the Alberta Party already has a leader. Lindsay Amantea took on the role on an interim basis last year.

The Alberta Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2025.

Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press