Khan wins all 15 hometown delegates
Stephen Khan has swept the slate and picked up all of the available delegates at a strong showing at his hometown delegate selection meeting.
The former St. Albert MLA picked up all 15 of the available delegates at Monday night’s delegate selection meeting (DSM) in the Progressive Conservative leadership race that is underway.
“I’m always just humbled and incredibly grateful for the incredible support I get from St. Albert,” Khan said.
However, the five alternate delegates selected all pledged their support for Jason Kenney’s unite the right cause. This means if one of the chosen delegates pledged to Khan cannot travel down to Calgary on March 18 to vote for the next leader, one of the five alternates will take their place.
Overall, 11 aspiring delegates stood up to voice their support for Kenney during the one minute speaking time, while 13 stated they were firmly in the Khan camp.
Although Kenney didn’t win any selected delegates on Monday night, the renew camp made up of Khan, MLA Richard Starke and lawyer Byron Nelson, is still trailing Kenney in the race.
“Overall I think we have closed it back down to about 15 delegates or so,” Khan said, although he is not sure of the official numbers.
But Khan is still optimistic the renew camp can catch up. He said Kenney campaigned months longer than the rest of the leadership contestants and only holds a small lead.
“I think this (St. Albert DSM) gives us some momentum and I’m really excited about the delegate selection meetings coming ahead,” Khan said.
Monday night’s event drew a large crowd, with 206 ballots cast for the delegates. This was the second largest delegate selection meeting so far, trailing only the Vermilion-Lloydminster vote, where 302 people cast their votes. Starke, with the home field advantage, walked away with all 15 delegates in his riding.
Two youth delegates selected on Monday night were Sydney Martin and Kyeler Tymafichuk.
The board members selected at the meeting were Richard Plain, Glenna Bell, Tim Holt and Neil Korotash.
The rest of the selected delegates are Beth Bell, Brent Francis, Glenn Connell, Kent Davidson, Darwin Martin, Allen Evaniew, Nicole Rondeau and Eamon Malloy.
The acclaimed delegate was Ben Brodhead.
The alternates voted in were Shawn Veenendaal, Dominic Kondratskik, Scott Payne, Liam Connelly and Ester Hofstede.
The St. Albert DSM was the 29th successful vote. A total of 87 delegate selection meetings need to be held before delegates head to Calgary to vote for the new party leader on March 18, 2017.
