A longtime behind-the-scenes member of Alberta’s conservative community says he is parting ways with the United Conservative Party (UCP) because he believes it has become “bloated, dishonest and corrupted by entitlement.”
“Today, I am resigning my membership in the United Conservative Party,” Cameron Davies wrote in an open letter posted to social media on Thursday.
“Let me be clear: this is no longer the party I helped build.”
Davies had also been a key player in the Wildrose Party before its members merged with members of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta (PC) to form the UCP. He also spent time as co-campaign manager for Jeff Callaway in the 2017 UCP leadership race.
“(The party) is addicted to power and allergic to transparency,” Davies wrote on Thursday. “We are not witnessing leadership — we are witnessing damage control.
“Backroom deals, gag orders and purges of internal dissent have replaced open dialogue and democratic decision-making. MLAs are muzzled, caucus is sidelined, staff are silenced and the grassroots members who built this movement have been abandoned.”
Global News has reached out to Premier Danielle Smith’s office for a response to Davies’ letter and will update this article once a response is received.
Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, said “these are exactly the things that led to the demise of the PC party.”
“This is really problematic for conservatives,” she told Global News on Friday. “Conservatives don’t like entitlement. They don’t like governments that don’t listen to the grassroots, particularly this brand of conservatism.
“It shows that there are splits that are re-emerging within the United Conservative Party. That unity is certainly deeply in question here.”
Williams noted that Davies is the third notable UCP member to publicly voice sharp criticism of the party in 2025.
Earlier this year, MLA Scott Sinclair was kicked out of caucus for threatening to vote against his government’s budget and now sits as an Independent.
The most high-profile internal critic has been Peter Guthrie, a former Alberta cabinet minister who quit cabinet in February and was kicked out of caucus for his concerns relating to multimillion-dollar health contracts.
Ousted UCP MLA Peter Guthrie releases letter critical of former party
Williams said she believes the concerns raised over Alberta Health Services (AHS) contracts likely also played a role in Davies’ decision to part ways with the party.
“This is all centring around the handling of the AHS controversy,” she said.
The former head of AHS sued the government earlier this year, alleging she was fired for investigating allegations of political meddling and questionable costs in contracts.
The government disagrees and has said Athana Mentzelopoulos was fired because she was failing in her job duties and was hindering health reforms.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
“These are people that have spoken their minds, been difficult to rein in and control and it would be easy just to dismiss them as mavericks or people who are unco-operative,” Williams said of the three high-profile internal UCP critics. “They’re doing it very publicly.
“There’s a huge challenge here for Danielle Smith and the party to try and bring these very disparate voices together.”
–with files from Global News’ Morgan Black and The Canadian Press