Although Alberta is our most conservative province, it's currently governed by Jason Kenney, who is very much an equivalent to the swampy establishment Republicans south of the border - hence all the restrictions and why it took him until now, and such pressure, to finally lift them. The Albertan United Conservative Party to which he belongs is a composite of two older provincial parties, the Progressive Conservatives (who were further divided into the McCain-tier-squish/CINO 'progressive' faction of Ed Stelmach and Allison Redford, and a more properly 'conservative' faction championed by Ralph Klein) and the further-right Wildrose Party, and the thoroughly Progressive Conservative Kenney ran some pretty dirty tricks to defeat the Wildrose candidate Brian Jean in the UCP's first leadership election post-merger.
Fortunately Kenney is up for a leadership review in April, so hopefully he'll get O'Toole'd in two months and Brian Jean can assume his rightful place as UCP leader and Alberta's premier then.