{"id":9970,"date":"2014-05-12T22:25:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T14:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=9970"},"modified":"2014-05-12T22:25:58","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T14:25:58","slug":"departure-of-pc-leadership-candidate-removing-obstacles-for-jim-prentice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/12\/departure-of-pc-leadership-candidate-removing-obstacles-for-jim-prentice\/","title":{"rendered":"Departure of PC leadership candidate removing obstacles for Jim Prentice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: Facebook Page of Ken Hughes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CALGARY – Another obstacle has been removed from former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice’s path to the leadership of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party.<\/p>\n

Ken Hughes, Alberta’s former municipal affairs minister and the first person to throw his hat into the ring, has announced he is dropping out to support Prentice.<\/p>\n

“It was my intention, in good faith, to lead a positive, principled campaign to a successful conclusion in September,” Hughes said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“When it became apparent that Jim Prentice would consider leading Alberta over the past 10 days or so, I started to reflect on what is best for Alberta given the alternatives,” he said.<\/p>\n

“After listening to many Albertans, it became clear there is a growing consensus that Jim Prentice is the leader Alberta needs now.”<\/p>\n

A source close to Prentice announced weeks ago that he was putting together a campaign team. That announcement is expected next week but at the moment he is still undeclared.<\/p>\n

The decision by Hughes leaves former Alberta cabinet minister Ric McIver as the only official candidate in the race.<\/p>\n

Hughes said he’s known Prentice for nearly 40 years and considers him a close friend.<\/p>\n

“He embodies the kinds of characteristics needed for the difficult role of leadership in the modern world today: a strong intellect, competence, common sense, experience in business and public service and an ability to project strong leadership within Alberta and outside to the rest of Canada and the world.”<\/p>\n

The decision by Hughes follows an announcement late Sunday night from Alberta Justice Minister Jonathan Denis that he would not be seeking the leadership and would also support Prentice.<\/p>\n

“Our team has heard from many Albertans who want a leader with a vision of smaller government, safer communities and living within our means. I believe Jim Prentice shares this perspective. I will be supporting him for leader of our party and our next premier,” said Denis.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Doug Horner also decided last week not to seek the leadership, saying he will support a candidate who has still not “officially” declared his candidacy.<\/p>\n

Alberta Jobs Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said he will make his intentions known early this week.<\/p>\n

Alberta Conservatives will elect their new leader in September.<\/p>\n

Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CALGARY – Another obstacle has been removed from former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice’s path to the leadership of Alberta’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3242,2034],"class_list":["post-9970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","tag-jim-prentice","tag-ken-hughes","mauthors-bill-graveland","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}