Our Interim Leader, Sharon Maclise, is a veteran of Alberta’s conservative Grassroots politics and has
been actively fighting for the best interests of Alberta since she joined the Reform Party in 1989. She was
invited to run for nomination as a candidate in the 1993 federal election but was raising a young family
at that time so was unable to do so. The Reform Party, before it was reconstituted into the old federal
Conservative Party, started as a political organization that would fight to gain greater political
and economic independence for Alberta and fight to protect Alberta interests. It did not take long for
Preston Manning and Stephen Harper to change it entirely and for it to become just another status quo,
central Canada, Ottawa Party with any hint of its Alberta roots left in the dustbin of history.
Unhappy with the increasingly elitist dominance within the provincial Alberta Progressive
Conservative Party, and Ralph Klein’s ideologically progressive transformation, Sharon began to look for
a more constructive way to use her energies to work for her beloved Alberta. She wanted to see greater
political and fiscal independence for the province and a way to loosen the stranglehold the central
Canadian federal gov’t had upon the province, politically, fiscally and electorally.
In 2003, while helping a sister who ran as a Separation of Alberta candidate, she came to realize
that Alberta independence was the only political path worth pursuing. Under the existing system, a system
impossible to change, Alberta would forever be controlled by competing provincial political interests
that demanded that Alberta be kept firmly under the thumb of Ottawa and a federal gov’t that was
electorally controlled by the two biggest Central Canadian provinces, Quebec and Ontario. The fact
that Alberta provided the bulk of the revenue pouring into Ottawa and being redistributed to the growing
number of Have-Not Canadian provinces meant that it was fiscally imperative that Alberta be kept away
from the levers of power, in perpetuity. And Quebec, the province consuming more than half those
Equalization funds, with the greatest number of seats in Parliament, combined with powerful Ontario,
the central banking capital of Canada, would never loosen the taxation strangulation they held over
Alberta.
In 2005 Sharon was elected President of the SPA (Separation Party of Alberta) but for reasons too
confusing, and unimportant, to explain here, she gave up, along with the entire elected Board, on that
Party within six months of her election. The Party had been in sharp decline before her election and
continued on that trajectory after, until it folded entirely.
In early 2006 she was invited to participate in an effort to start a new conservative Alberta Party. It
had become more and more evident that the PC Party was becoming top-heavy, corrupted by
corporate influence and languishing under the weight of too many unprincipled, short-sighted, self-
serving people, both elected and un-elected. Sharon joined the Wildrose Party Political Association and
was elected VP Membership, and mobilized the collection of 8000 Signatures to form what would
become the Wildrose Alliance Party, and finally the Wildrose Party.
Sharon ran for the Party in Leduc Beaumont Devon in the Party’s first election, virtually one month after
its formation, in 2008. (Sharon also ran for Edmonton City Council in 2013.) She remained a
member of the Wildrose Party and went on to participate in the Edmonton Glenora constituency
association, taking on different roles and finally as President of the CA.
Sharon worked actively to prevent the merger of the PCs and the Wildrose and was bitterly shocked and
disappointed to see how the two Leaders, first Danielle Smith and later Brian Jean, tore the Party to
shreds. Instead of doing what true Leaders should always be able to be counted on doing, fighting until
the end for the survival of their organization, they both opened the door that led to the dismantling of
the best conservative Party Alberta had ever had.
Immediately after the demise of Wildrose, Sharon returned to her Separatist roots and joined the
ongoing work to collect Signatures for the Western Independence Party of Alberta, She had been a
Board member of WIPSask, an Independence Party in Saskatchewan, for several years. When the WIPA
Signature Campaign failed a few months later, she started a new Campaign to start the Alberta
Freedom Alliance. She continues leading that initiative at this time.
This is an outline of Sharon’s political credentials. To see her full professional profile go to the Sharon
Maclise Bio.
I’m all for Alberta Independence along with Saskatchewan and part of BC.
I’d love to see it. The three areas would make a wonderful country because the people share so many common values.
If Trudeau wins this election or the weak Tories get a minority with the Greens or NDP holding the balance of power. There will be nothing left to stay in Canada for. The globalists will grind whats left into oblivion. Alberta needs to think seriously about leaving sooner than later. While we still have a foundation left to build on. I was born and raised in Ontario. I moved to Alberta in 2008. I never used to be in favor of Canada splitting up. But I certainly am now if it means western Canadians can have something to hold onto of their own. Before the Quebec based political mafia strip us clean.
A separate Alberta needs to remove the Ottawa controlled RCMP and form its own provincial police force, its own Alberta Pension Plan and have its own taxation (its own Revenue Alberta). Five economic unions would hopefully follow: Alberta,Saskatchewan & Manitoba in a Prairie union, BC, Ontario, Quebec & the Maritimes each in their own union. ALL without a central government in Ottawa!
I seriously doubt there is any interest in Manitoba in separating from Canada. The Equalization program has been good to that province and it knows that the way to remain on that gravy train is to remain in the orbit of the Left-leaning provinces in the East. The voting patterns in Manitoba certainly prove the majority of the people there still favor Liberal, if not all-out Socialist, politics and govt. That would not suit Albertans who have never voted that way – until the communal madness of the 2015 election. I think Saskatchewan and Alberta would eventually make a great partnership. But for now, the only real possibility for Independence is in Alberta ~ not just because many more Albertans want than Saskatchewan citizens but also because there is a real, albeit reluctant, understanding among many in the country regarding the reasons why we deserve it.