Twenty-four hours before Kerry Towle made her stunning announcement on Nov. 24 that she was leaving the Opposition Wildrose party to join the governing Tories she quietly cleaned out her office at the legislature.
Aside from her husband Dan and Premier Jim Prentice, no one knew about her decision – not even Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose whom she considered a close friend.
“I have made harder decisions in my life but this was the most awful- feeling decision I have made in a long time,” said Towle, adding her first communication with Smith about the decision was 45 minutes before her announcement with the premier on Nov. 24. It was Smith who texted her to express her disappointment.
“If I thought I could have talked to her I would have, but that is just the way it goes. That is politics. You don't walk in to the leader and tell them you're leaving. They would kick you out right there,” said Towle, acknowledging the close friendship is now over.
“I hope in time, not forever, but certainly her indication has been yes,” said Towle, wiping away tears of the heartbreak during a one-on-one interview with the Province on Nov. 28. “I am hoping time will heal all wounds and at some point in time in the future we will be able to sit down and have a glass of wine and say, ‘that was really a terrible time and we can move past it' but as of right now, yeah.”
It was a week of great strain and little sleep for the rookie Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA. On the day of her announcement a Wildrose staffer smashed her coffee cup, an incident that also brought tears. She spent much of last week on the government side of the legislature, forced to endure the disdain from former Wildrose colleagues who once respected her. And then, there was the knowledge she's a pariah to Wildrose loyalists who long revered her for the pugnaciousness of her stances against the governing Tories, badly wounded after the Alison Redford days but recovering and gaining strength under Prentice's leadership.
“I wanted to get out of session and back to my riding as soon as possible. When I was in Edmonton I felt awful. I had to be accountable for my decision, and it was hard,” said Towle, who must now take her determined stands on social reform with less media attention, and convince her new Tory colleagues there is still much work to be done on the issues close to her heart – seniors and protecting the vulnerable.
She also has to convince many of her constituents she is not a turncoat or an opportunist who bolted just because the Wildrose party is struggling through its worst internal crisis in its brief history.
“Everything I stand for has not changed. I believe this government has to do more for seniors and the vulnerable,” said Towle, who must go through a Tory nomination process to represent the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake riding before June 1. “I believe this government has to get spending under control. I believe this government has to get to balanced budgets and consolidating the budget reporting to Albertans. None of that has changed.
“What has changed is that I believe the Wildrose party was falling apart, and I believe the membership was dictating how we vote,” she added. “There was a certain faction of people who decided they were going to run the party and they were sending the party in a direction that was not in line with my views or with the views I shared with my constituents. When I realized that, I then knew I was no longer representing my constituency in the right way.”
Towle said last Friday she had received more than 300 phone calls and emails from citizens since Nov. 24, with about 10 per cent rejecting her decision and about 10 of those “really angry”.
“I told them I was sorry for disappointing them. I tell them I hope they can see over the next 15 months that I will work hard and nothing has changed with that but I understand if they can't support me,” said Towle, adding the overall response to her decision has been “overwhelmingly” supportive.
And that includes members of Innisfail town council, who met for their regular council meeting on the same day as Towle's bombshell announcement.
“I was totally shocked when the announcement happened,” said Coun. Mark Kemball, who sat last week as deputy mayor and filled in for vacationing Mayor Brian Spiller. “Kerry has been easy to work with as our MLA, regardless of what party she has been in. She has been excellent. Anything we have ever asked of her she has followed through on. I don't anticipate that changing whatsoever.”
In the meantime, Towle will continue to meet with constituents, and when the Christmas holiday season is over, she will regroup and begin a new chapter in her political career. She said no promises of a rapid advancement to a cabinet post have been made to her, and she will soon have to fight hard once again to be nominated to represent the Tories in Innisfail.
“I wanted to come over knowing it wasn't about that. It was about my integrity so that people knew that if I was leaving the Wildrose there was something really wrong,” said Towle. “It was the most difficult decision I ever had to make but there is something wrong.”
See Editorial on page 6.
