James Albers is a former provincial politician from

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada.

Political career

Albers ran for the Progressive Conservatives in the

1989 Alberta general election The 1989 Alberta general election was held on March 20, 1989, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Many political observers were surprised by the early election call as less than three years had passed since the previous el ...

. He ran in the electoral district of

Edmonton-Avonmore Edmonton-Avonmore was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first-past-the-post method of voting from 1971 to 1997. History The Edmonton-Avonmore ...

but was defeated finishing second out of three candidates to

New Democrat New Democrats may refer to: * New Democratic Party, a social democratic party in Canada * New Democrats (United States), the ideological centrist faction of the Democratic Party ** New Democrat Coalition, the related caucus in the United States H ...

Marie Laing. He finished about 300 votes ahead of future

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

MLA

Don Massey Donald Lee Massey is a former municipal and provincial level politician from Alberta, Canada. He served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1993 until 2004. In that period he also served as Leader of the Official Opposition ...

. Albers ran for the leadership of

Social Credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

in 1999. He defeated three other candidates to win a hotly contested leadership race. Just prior to the

2001 Alberta general election The 2001 Alberta general election was held on March 12, 2001 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The incumbent Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, led by Ralph Klein, won ...

he negotiated a coalition with the

Alberta Party The Alberta Party, formally the Alberta Party Political Association from 1998 to 2004, is a political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. The party describes itself as centrist and pragmatic in that it is not dogmatically ideological in ...

to jointly run candidates under the Social Credit banner. Despite the coalition with the Alberta Party, the Social Credit party fielded only 12 candidates in the 2001 election. Support for the party was decimated after a large portion of its members bled off to the

Alberta First Party The Alberta First Party ) was an Albertan separatist political party in Alberta, Canada. It went through several iterations before becoming its current incarnation as the Freedom Conservative Party. History (1999–2018) Early history (1999� ...

and unprecedented popularity of Premier

Ralph Klein Ralph Philip Klein (November 1, 1942 – March 29, 2013) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 2 ...

. Albers resigned shortly before the election and was replaced by

Lavern Ahlstrom Lavern Ahlstrom (May 28, 1936 – April 12, 2024) was a Canadian provincial level politician who was leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party. Political career Ahlstrom first became involved with Social Credit in the 1970s. He has been a perenn ...

as leader. Albers later joined the

Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta The Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta () was an Albertan autonomist, libertarian and conservative political party in Alberta, Canada. The party was named the Alberta First Party () from 1999 to 2004, when it changed its name to the Separatio ...

, and advocated a Western separatist stance. In 2020, the

merged with Wexit Alberta to form the

Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, which was formed through the merger of Wexit Alberta and the Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta in 2020. Views According to its constitution, Wexi ...

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alberta Social Credit Party leaders Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta candidates in Alberta provincial elections Alberta Social Credit Party candidates in Alberta provincial elections Canadian people of Dutch descent {{Alberta-politician-stub Western Canadian separatists Maverick Party politicians