Alberta Sees A Recall For The Ages

Premier Danielle Smith added to growing list of unloved MLAs.

Photo: veverkolog/Pixabay

“If you come at the king, you best not miss” is a famous line from the HBO show The Wire about the danger of taking on someone far more powerful than you.

But stick-up man Omar Little didn’t say anything about doing so while also going after all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, which is more or less what’s now happening in the Canadian province of Alberta. Private citizens have launched recall petitions against roughly a quarter of all sitting members of the Legislature in recent weeks by using the governing United Conservative Party’s own policy against them, and are now gunning for their queen.

The list of 20 provincial MLAs facing unexpected mid-term performance reviews — all but one of them members of the UCP — has grown to include Premier Danielle Smith herself after Elections Alberta approved a petition against her last Wednesday in her home riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat. She now has the distinction of being the second Alberta premier in history — and the first in nearly a century — to face a grassroots petition drive to be booted from office for being bad at the job.

The conservative movement has seen a lot of comparisons to the Galactic Empire from Star Wars in recent years and not just because of all the space lasers. But the UCP took it to a new level by essentially adding an exhaust vent to aim at on their own Death Star when they followed through on an early campaign promise to “give voters the power to fire their MLAs if they break promises.” As if a willingness to break your word wasn’t part of the job description. The populist move was popular with rightwing types at the time, who must’ve dreamt of it being someday used against the opposing Rebel Alliance NDP instead of them. Although a better analogy might be if the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party began offering people the opportunity to sample leopard faces instead.

Smith isn’t being hoisted by her own petard, as she wasn’t actually running the show when the law was passed three years ago — although she must regret predecessor Jason Kenney didn’t put more effort into the specifics, because “I promise not to totally suck if you elect me” seems enough of a lie to do the trick.

Although it’s no easy feat to overturn the results of a free and fair election in a western democracy. Just ask a pardoned J6er! The way it works is this: Organizers have 90 days to collect the signatures of at least 60 percent of the number of people who voted in the riding in the previous election. If they make it, a vote would be held on whether an MLA should be shit-canned within four months followed by a by-election with a new UCP candidate.

While the government has insisted that union leaders and leftwing activists are “weaponizing” its own legislation against it, petitioners say they’re just regular folks unhappy with the way things are going in a province where the measles are making a comeback.

Alberta Claims Top Spot For Measles, Sorry American MAGA States!

Heather VanSnick, a self-styled life coach who initiated the campaign, said in her application that the premier is no longer fit to serve her mostly rural constituency because she’s rarely there and “has shown little effort to understand the people she was elected to represent.” She’ll need to collect around 12,000 verified John Hancocks to force a referendum on Smith’s leadership though, which could be a tall order in a riding the premier handily won with 67 percent of the vote in the previous election. Twelve thousand is actually more than the total number of votes the two NDP and Alberta Party candidates received combined, although Smith has since pissed a lot of people off with her casual use of the constitutional sledgehammer known as the “notwithstanding clause” to impose her will, including using it to force striking schoolteachers back to work and pass new laws making life tougher for trans kids.

(If unfamiliar with Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, aka the notwithstanding clause, it’s essentially an override button that lets Parliament or a provincial government pass laws that violate certain Charter rights for a period of five years without being challenged in court. What it does is allow the government, with a straight face and a legal hat on, to say they’re taking rights away from some people but only for now and there’s nothing anyone do about it. Quebec is usually the only one who uses it on the reg.)

It’d be a plot twist if Calgary-Beddington MLA Amanda Chapman, currently the sole NDPer in the crosshairs, becomes the only one to lose their job due to all this, but the campaigns provide a service no matter the outcome. They’re less about tossing out crappy politicians and more about creating a public record of dissent while creating headlines and conversations the government would prefer to avoid. Aunt Danielle would surely somehow find a way to use her favourite clause if things don’t go her way, and it’s not as if anyone needs to worry about her sending the Barksdale crew after them in retaliation.

[CBC / The Tyee / Wonketariat on Bluesky]