After a century of stumbles, Alberta's Liberals march on

A lot has changed in Alberta over the past century.

Half-tons have replaced horses on our streets; the oil and gas industry has supplantedfarming as the province's economic engine;and Calgary, the province'sCowtown,has grown from a small city of 35,000 to a bustling metropolis of more than a million.

Provincial politics, too, isbarely recognizable.

In June 1917, the Liberal Party of Alberta was celebrating an election victory that would turn out to be its last.

I think the NDP are going to lose a lot of seatsand I want them to lose them to us.- David Khan, Alberta Liberal leadership candidate

Today, itholds just one seat in the legislature. A hundredyears removed from electoral success, andmore than a decade from any real political relevance, Alberta's Liberals sit idling at a dustyprairie crossroads.

On Sunday, party members choosebetween two candidates willingto jumpinto thedriver's seat anddetermine which direction their party will take.

The question facingDavid Khan and KerryCundal: Should they continue to fight on under the Liberal flagor allow the tattered brand to simply fade away,folding it into something new.

For Khan, it is a simple choice. If he wins the party leadership, he hopes to lead the Liberals down the road to redemption and into the next provincial election.

"I am very optimistic about the next election," he said. "I think the NDP are going to lose a lot of seats and I want them to lose them to us."

Khan believes his Liberals canwin at least five to eight seats in 2019, mainly in Calgary and suburban Edmonton.

The source of that optimism is hissense that with the NDP in power, and the imminent demise of the Progressive Conservative Party,centrist voters in Alberta are looking for a new home.

"We have got a huge opportunity because there is a huge opening in the centre, and much of that NDP vote in the last election was a protest vote," Khan said.

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And he believes that under Justin Trudeau,the Liberal brand is now a strength rather than a weakness.

"We elected two federal MPs for the first time since 1967 in Calgary,and two more in Edmonton I think federally and provincially, the Liberal brand is on the rise here in Alberta."

'Working together'

There is a precedent for this kind of comeback.

Oneneed look no further than the B.C. Liberals, who went from having no seatstoOfficial Oppositionto forming governmentin just two elections in the 1990s.

Of course, staying the courseisn't the only way forward.

Liberalleadership candidate Kerry Cundal agrees that many centrist voters in Alberta are up for grabs, but the Calgary lawyer isn't ruling out co-operating with other parties to get them.

"If we share the same principles and the same vision for Alberta, then we should be working together, not against each other," she said.

Cundaltook part in a"unite the centre" meeting in Red Deer in April and says that she would consider merging with another party or dropping the Liberal name if party members supported it.

"By July orAugust we will be in a position to know how we are going to move forward," she said, "whether it is under the existing label, whether it is under a new labelor whether it is going to be a formal co-operation with another party."

Cundal saysher greatest fear is that Alberta will become a two-party system where voters in the centre are forced to choose between two extreme choices.

"We don't have to look too far south of the border to see what that looks like you just end up in loggerheads, with people butting heads and not getting anything done."

'They have fallen apart'

But it may simply be too late for either strategy to work.

Political scientist Keith Brownsey says thatthe provincial NDP have governed"well within spitting distance of centre," making the current government a reasonable option for centrists.

And Brownseyadds that the past decade has not been kind to Alberta's Liberals.

"It's a disaster there is no question about that,' he said. "They have fallen apart for all sorts of reasons, everything from lack of organization to poor leadership."

On the surface, that may make a merger with another party or a renamingof the Liberal Partymake sense. But Brownsey says that could be a mistake.

"The Liberals have a brand, they have a loyal core of supporters, they have five to seven per cent of the province you can build on that," he said.

Building on thator building something new, however, will take timeand moneytwothings the party has little of these days.

That meansthat even after a century of wandering Alberta's political wilderness, the province's Liberals may need to march a little further still.