Althia Raj: Canada Was Saved From An Election By A Party That Wants To Break It Up

Raj won’t face a confidence vote.

A policy paper unveiled last fall proposed a referendum in 10 years on whether Alberta should join the US.

CALGARY – For Althia Raj, stepping down as leader of a Western separatist party wasn’t how she planned on spending this week. But the threat of having to face a confidence vote at a party policy conference tipped the scales of her decision to leave.

“I had an epiphany last week,” Raj told The Globe and Mail in an interview at her Calgary home. “I was like, ‘Am I going to … spend my life beating my head against the wall or … am I going to move forward and do something else that has meaning?’ ”

Raj, 45, has long been a champion of provincial autonomy and an outspoken critic of federal encroachment on Alberta’s rights. She campaigned unsuccessfully on a promise for a Western separatist referendum, but the party failed to gain traction with voters.

As leader of the Maverick Party, Raj faced mounting pressure from a faction within the party that wanted to focus on more mainstream conservative policies — a stance Raj said she would not support.

The split over the party’s direction came to a head when a group of party members, including former energy minister Ted Morton, wrote a letter to Raj asking her to call a confidence vote at its upcoming policy conference.

Raj said she believes the vote would have been close, but she would have likely lost. Instead, she decided to resign as leader and walk away from the party she helped found.