The recall petition targeting Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is part of a widespread effort by constituents to have MLAs voted out of office before the next provincial election.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will have to face a bid to remove her from the legislature after a recall petition was approved by Elections Alberta on Wednesday, making her the latest target of citizens using her United Conservative Party’s own legislation to voice their anger with the government.
The effort to oust her from her Brooks-Medicine Hat constituency occurred one day after Alberta’s top elections administrator sounded the alarm over a bill that would transfer many of his powers to elected officials, warning of perceived partisan influence over elections.
The Alberta government has been under pressure on multiple fronts in recent months, including a growing number of its MLAs facing recall petitions. The UCP has seen anger over its use of the notwithstanding clause, a tool in the Canadian Constitution that it has employed to shield its back-to-work legislation for striking teachers and laws affecting trans and gender-diverse youth from court challenges.
Ms. Smith’s government has also been roiled by the continuing controversy over health procurement contracts, which is being investigated by Alberta’s Auditor-General and the RCMP.
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“I think that this is sadly undermining confidence in our democratic processes and our democratic system,” Ms. Smith said Wednesday about the recall petitions at an unrelated news conference.
The effort to boot Ms. Smith is the latest chapter in a widespread effort to use the UCP’s own legislation, passed under Ms. Smith’s predecessor Jason Kenney, to target the government. The movement started on Oct. 23, when Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides became the first MLA officially targeted by a recall campaign.
Two other UCP MLAs – Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz and Technology Minister Nate Glubish – were added to the list of active recall petitions that grew to 21 on Wednesday.
Alberta NDP education critic Amanda Chapman is the only opposition MLA facing recall. Alberta’s legislature has 87 members.
While facing long odds, petitioners have three months to collect signatures equal to 60 per cent of the total number of votes cast in Ms. Smith’s constituency in the 2023 election.
A little more than 12,000 signatures will have to be gathered and validated in order to force a recall vote for Ms. Smith. However, she glided to victory in the past election with more than 66 per cent of the vote.
A majority vote to recall Ms. Smith would force her to vacate her seat and result in a by-election.
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The petitioner campaigning to oust the Premier, Heather Van Snick, said in her application that Ms. Smith is no longer fit to serve her constituency because she doesn’t live in the community and “has shown little effort to understand the people she was elected to represent.”
Ms. Smith, in her response to the petition, touted her government’s infrastructure projects in the area and said she regularly makes herself available to meet with constituents.
On Wednesday, Ms. Smith reiterated her position that the recall process is being weaponized, but said her government has decided not to amend the legislation for now. She has previously said it’s too easy to submit a petition application and suggested unions are trying to overthrow her government.
“We’ll have a better understanding if there’s any tightening up of those rules that need to be made in the future,” Ms. Smith said.
The Alberta Federation of Labour has said it would look at using recall to its advantage. Most petition organizers have said they independently submitted their applications.
Despite foreshadowing potential alterations in response to the deluge of petition applications, the UCP government said last week that it wouldn’t amend its recall legislation.
The province did, however, introduce dramatic changes to laws governing citizen-initiated referendums that has led Elections Alberta, the arms-length elections administrator, to raise serious concerns over the proposed amendments that strip the Chief Electoral Officer of most of their powers.
In a sharply worded letter sent this week to Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery and Speaker Ric McIver, Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure said proposed changes neutering his ability to validate referendum questions would erode the separation of powers between his independent office and elected officials and diminish voters’ trust in elections.
Validating those petitions would now be the job of the Justice Minister.
“The potential harm of perceived partisan influence over electoral processes cannot be overstated,” Mr. McClure wrote in the letter copied to all 87 Alberta MLAs.
Heather Jenkins, press secretary to Mr. Amery, said the province has responded by amending the bill with changes that would maintain separation between Elections Alberta and the Attorney-General.
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Those changes include requiring cabinet, not solely the justice minister, to decide whether a citizen-initiated referendum question should be referred to the Alberta Court of Appeal.
Elections Alberta said it is analyzing the amendments. The bill passed third and final reading on Wednesday without further changes. It now needs to receive royal assent before becoming law.
Under the new bill, Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer also wouldn’t be able to refer referendum questions to court, and all continuing court proceedings that Mr. McClure had forwarded to a judge would be discontinued.
That would have ended court proceedings over a referendum question on Alberta separation if not for Court of King’s Bench Justice Colin Feasby, who issued his decision on that case last Friday and concluded that the proposed question would violate the Constitution but a referendum on the question could still happen.
Justice Feasby added that government legislating the end of the court proceeding “disrespects the administration of justice” and called Alberta’s disregard of the courts “cavalier.”
With a report from The Canadian Press