William J. Yurko

William Yurko, a Progressive Conservative MP for Edmonton East and former Alberta provincial cabinet minister, broke with his party in January 1982 over fundamental disagreements about the National Energy Program and western alienation. Yurko had been elected federally in 1979 after a distinguished provincial career under Peter Lougheed, including serving as Alberta's first Minister of the Environment. He felt the federal PC party under Joe Clark was not fighting hard enough against Trudeau's NEP, which he viewed as an existential threat to western Canada's economic sovereignty and resource rights.

Yurko sat as an Independent for the remainder of the 32nd Parliament and did not seek re-election in 1984. His crossing was emblematic of the deep western alienation that would eventually spawn the Reform Party in 1987. Yurko had been one of Alberta's most prominent politicians — he created Canada's first Department of the Environment at the provincial level in 1971 — but his federal career ended in frustration and political isolation.