Alberta’s conservatives introduced recall. Now they’re the targets

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Kathy Kerr is a veteran freelance journalist based in Edmonton.

In theory, Alberta’s United Conservative Party encourages direct democracy.

In practice, maybe not so much.

A spreading campaign to recall UCP MLAs has Premier Danielle Smith trying to figure out how – and if – the province should defang a law that her party championed in the first place.

When it was first instituted in 2022 by former UCP premier Jason Kenney, recall was touted as a way to keep politicians accountable in between elections.

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Maybe the thought was to provide a remedy for local MLA layabouts, floor-crossers or radical leftists, but it’s tough to predict the creativity of angry constituents with a laundry list of grievances.

The UCP opened the door and now is being taken aback by the malcontents rushing through it. Perhaps they never considered Alberta’s progressives could organize and use their own law against them.

Alberta Election Commissioner Gordon McClure has so far accepted applications to allow the recall process to begin for Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides and Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt. There are apparently several more in the works.

In response, the Alberta government is retroactively trying to reframe the purpose of the legislation. It was meant to deal with “breaches of trust, serious misconduct, or a sustained failure to represent constituents, not political disagreements,” according to a recent UCP caucus statement.

Ms. Smith argues it’s not meant to be used to overthrow and topple governments.

Perhaps not, but recall proponents are relying on the broad principles of breach of trust and dereliction of duty to justify their applications. If enough recalls succeed that it triggers a general election – which is fairly unlikely, for the record – who’s to say that’s not a valid outcome?

Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally claims the recall campaign is being organized by a well-funded, well-organized left-wing activist organization. Mr. Nally himself is in the crosshairs of one of the recall applications.

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There does appear to be some loose organization, or at least networking, in the proliferation of recalls, but ultimately none of this succeeds without the tough grassroots slog of collecting enough local signatures of individual voters deeply unhappy with their MLA.

While there is variation in the particular irritant that spurred these petitioners, the teachers’ strike and how it was ended with the notwithstanding clause is definitely one flashpoint.

The UCP set up the means by which aggrieved constituents could use recall, and then made a political move that angered progressives enough to take advantage of the opportunity.

Calgary geophysicist Jennifer Yeremiy is spearheading the recall petition against Mr. Nicolaides, who is the MLA for Calgary-Bow. Ms. Yeremiy’s application to Elections Alberta argues that Mr. Nicolaides “demonstrates a clear failure to support public education” by prioritizing private school funding while the public system falls apart.

“His actions render him unfit to lead Alberta Education or represent Calgary-Bow,” Ms. Yeremiy concludes.

It appears the government is presuming, or hoping, the recall petitioners will fail on a technicality or get bored with the effort. So far, it hasn’t moved to repeal or tinker with the way recall can be used.

“Members [of the legislature] are going to wait and see if any of these petitions end up getting the number of signatures and then we’ll deal with it at that time,” the Premier said in Question Period last week.

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Mr. McClure asked for $13.5-million from the Standing Committee on Legislative Offices for his office to handle the proliferation of recalls. The UCP majority on the committee slashed the ask to $1.45-million. Justice Minister Mickey Amery argued there’s no guarantee all the applications being planned will go forward so the big budget may not be needed.

Surely it would be galling for Ms. Smith to have to repeal or reform an act favoured by the populist base of her party. Ironically, her own government lowered the bar for Recall Act signatures in an amendment pushed through last spring.

That loosening of the rules followed a resolution at the 2024 UCP annual general meeting from several constituencies, including Ms. Pitt’s own Airdrie-East, that asked for a liberalization of the law.

“The current legislation has the threshold set so high that the legislation is not achieving its purpose of allowing the electorate to hold elected officials accountable,” the resolution says.

Well, the electorate is clearly trying to take advantage.

Faced with a growing tide of discontent in the middle of her mandate, Ms. Smith is stuck trying to figure out a way to appear accountable without actually facing the music.

That’s the problem with direct democracy – the voter might not stick with you between elections.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jennifer Yeremiy is a Calgary teacher. Ms. Yeremiy is a geophysicist.