Trying to challenge the United Conservative Party Government’s misuse of the Charter’s notorious Notwithstanding Clause may be a waste of time and money, but using the UCP’s ridiculous recall legislation as a strategy against the perpetrators is clearly rattling Premier Danielle Smith and her ministers and MLAs.
This is an example of asymmetrical political warfare that deserves to go down in history. It is all the more remarkable since it is a popular citizens’ uprising. The Opposition NDP appears to have nothing to do with it!
Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides was on the CBC’s Alberta at Noon call-in program yesterday complaining again about that recall petition that’s been approved by Elections Alberta in his riding.
“The spirit, and the intent behind recall of course was for your local residents and local constituents to be able to hold an MLA accountable if they’ve done something significantly egregious and that doesn’t seem to be the case with what we’re seeing now,” he claimed.
“We’re seeing really co-ordinated efforts to recall every single MLA, which seems to smack in the face of what the what the purpose was at the very onset,” he continued, overstating the situation somewhat but doubtless illuminating the UCP’s fears.
“The spirit was for situations where there’s an egregious breach of trust, someone’s broken the law, someone has engaged in misconduct,” Dr. Nicolaides insisted. “… Here in Calgary Bow … the petitioner has not suggested that I’ve broken the law in any way, has not suggested that I’ve behaved unethically, or engaged in any kind of misconduct whatsoever.”
Putting aside the fact that many of us consider suspending the fundamental rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech for a whole class of citizens is in fact an egregious act, let’s concede Dr. Nicolaides’ point that, as Alberta’s unofficial provincial motto states, No Laws Were Broken.
But we can also acknowledge that whinging about the spirit of a law is, literally, a loser’s strategy. That is to say, you’re going to lose the argument in a court of law if you bother to take it there. So, it must be added, would be a legal argument that the UCP’s use of section 33 of the Charter violated the spirit of the drafters of the Constitution.
I don’t know if Dr. Nicolaides believes the pish-posh he’s peddling, but if the minister and the UCP want us to imagine that was the spirit of Jason Kenney’s intention when his government drafted that law in 2021, it’s a step too far. If that had been the intended spirit, it would have been included in concrete provisions to be passed by the Legislature.
The obvious circumstantial conclusion is that the UCP intended to use the Recall Act for political purposes against the NDP. If they imagined it would never be turned back against them, that is the very definition of hubris and they deserve whatever happens next.
When the Smith Government passed its Election Statutes Amendment Act last May, boasting that included changes to the Recall Act would “make it easier to recall an MLA,” it had the chance to fix the problems Dr. Nicolaides is now whining about. It didn’t. We all understand why.
The party even boasted on social media that “Alberta’s United Conservatives will give voters the power to fire their MLAs if they break promises.” So the spirit of the legislation was obviously never to hold MLAs accountable only for “something significantly egregious,” as the education minister redundantly put it.
Dr. Nicolaides also tried to claim non-residents of his riding are signing the petition. When he was called on that nonsense by the moderator, who pointed out that Elections Alberta’s job was to check the eligibility of signers, Dr. Nicolaides pivoted to echoing the premier’s claim that outsiders are violating the law by coming into the riding as canvassers.
Both are extremely unlikely. The first, as noted, because Elections Alberta checks signatures when the petition forms are handed in. Well, they don’t check them all, Dr. Nicolaides responded weakly.
The second because Elections Alberta checks canvasser applications before issuing ID. And count on it, they’ll now be going over every one with a fine-tooth comb, whether or not the UCP gives Elections Alberta the additional $13.5 million Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure says the agency needs to do the job properly. If an applicant hasn’t lived in the riding for at least three months, you can count on it they’re not going to be allowed to collect signatures. Dr. Nicolaides certainly knows this too.
Dr. Nicolaides is right to be worried, though. His margin of victory in the 2024 provincial election was only 2.4 per cent. That sets him apart from the only other UCP MLA against whom a recall petition has been approved by Elections Alberta. Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt, by contrast, won with a 27-per-cent margin.
Two MLAs, it must be added, aren’t quite “every single MLA,” as claimed by Dr. Nicolaides. But more are said to be in the works.
For example, in his Calgary Herald column yesterday, political commentator Don Braid reported that “a recall campaign is shaping up” in Premier Smith’s own Brooks-Medicine Hat riding.
Mr. Braid said no papers have been filed with Elections Alberta. However, a website calling for Ms. Smith to be recalled indicated last night that “at this time the application has not been approved by Elections Alberta.” So that sounds as if there is in fact paperwork somewhere.
It would likely be pretty hard, even with the widespread anger at the UCP for its egregious attack on the fundamental rights of teachers, to gather the required signatures in the premier’s Brooks-Medicine Hat riding.
Still, these are interesting times – for everyone, it would seem – so you never know for sure.
This will certainly give Ms. Smith something to think about when she should be concentrating on how to keep her party’s MAGA-influenced and openly separatist lunatic fringe sweet at the annual general meeting now only 17 days away.
Less than a week ago, Ms. Smith told the Legislature that no changes are coming to the Recall Act just yet. But it seems probable that no matter how foolish it makes the government look, the UCP is going to be forced to recall easy recalls sooner than later.
The Recall Act is bad law, drafted and enacted for bad reasons. But there can be no sympathy for Ms. Smith and the UCP for the way it’s being used now.
Marg Tokar here, founder of AB Resistance. If Demetrios Nicolaides is indeed accusing the Calgary Bow recall team of “cheating” in any manner, I invite you to speak with Jenny Yeremiy, the lead for this recall. Indeed, she should be given an opportunity to repudiate such accusations. I can tell you with assurance that Ms. Yeremiy and her team were and are meticulous in following every rule laid out by Bill 54, and actually consulted with EA on aspects they were not absolutely clear on. Mr. Nicolaides should be asked for proof of his accusations, as well as how he would have access at this point to any of the misleading information he is disseminating. Mr. Nicolaides’ time would be better spent planning for a by-election.
Marg Tokar: The UCP are clearly getting ultra desperate. There is no way around it. If the UCP is squeamish and fearful of recalls for MLAs, which the UCP initially supported, they must be that bad of a government.
When the cat’s away the mice will play. Sounds like there’s a secret cadre of mischief makers running around, rattling the bones of the old Cdn body politic. Probably the same people orchestrating the 70 candidates on one ballot movement. Is it organized? Are they getting funding?
no..it isn’t “The same people”. yes it is organized…no they aren’t getting funding.
“Is it organized? Are they getting funding?”
Possibly. Who knows. One thing is certain, that funding would be minuscule compared to the dark (American) money that flows to the UCP coffers and their “grassroots” base (TBA, the separatist cabal etc.). You know, the money that keeps your far right buddies in power? Either way you’re trying to compare the influence of the millionaire/billionaire class vs a few bucks at the constituency level? C’mon Ron, that argument is pretty weak, even for you.
Organized… like the Alberta separatist grifters? Getting funding… like the foreign funded Maple MAGA crews?
Ron this is alberta, home of the UCP, origin of the reform party, the alberta “prosperity project” united we roll and paramilitary wannabes shutting down the border. All of those examples VERY WELL FUNDED. Even if they were receiving funding, and it doesn’t seem like they’re working with much, it would be orders of magnitude less than the oceans of money the far right has dumped into this province to influence its politics.
Good grief.
Funding? Like the wealthy Bonnyville oil patchers and business owners funding Mitch Sylvestre’s separatist Prosperity Project? You mean like that funding?
Bravo! I will be careful not to step in it anywhere in Bonnyville thereabouts.
I for one would like to see the entire UCP cabal recalled. More than that I would like to live to see the day when Hellberta once again becomes a democracy. The UCP “lunatic fringe” is a powerful but minority of Hellberta’s population. One wonders how a small group of malcontents can take power and control the levers of power here, but then many Hellbertans are as messed up as their American counterparts, and they apparently love calamity. In fact they choose fascist chaos over dialogical democracy ie. cooperation and compromise. Alberta is largely responsible for Canada losing its immunization status, but apparently that is just fine with the UCP. It seems like one of their goals is to reduce the number of seniors in the province through malfeasance. Like their buddy Trump who oversaw the death of over 500,000 Americans during covid, Smith et al are more than happy to see Albertans unnecessarily perish. Lovely group of people aren’t they? Don’t people realize that the disaster that is the USA is not a panacea? Since when is chaos a preference? One may chalk it up to a madness that has taken over humanity and I suppose one can rationalize anything from that standpoint, but it is not preferable for the sake of people. Ayn Rand and company would love living in Hellberta. History has shown that the Third Reich took many of their dehumanizing policies from Americans – in fact Henry Ford made money with Ford-Werke making military vehicles for the Nazis and Ford was honoured by the Third Reich. Ugly history is currently being revisited by the likes of the UCP. The UCP has set up a Hellberta police force that will undoubtedly take up the tactics of ICE, so expect to be disappeared if you live in Hellberta and are progressive. I write this because the wheels of absolute evil are turning by a bunch of fascist religious lunatics. Talk about irony! It is Remembrance Day today and my father, along with over one million Canadians, fought against fascism and they are all rolling over in their graves because the Hitleresque UCP and GOP are gleefully destroying plurality, peace, democracy, and destroying people’s lives. Two Hellberta truths: Everything that the Canadian military fought against during WW2 is alive and well in Hellberta and the only good patient is a dead patient. Recalling the UCP is the least these peoples’ problems.
What Smith did, under the cover of claiming it was more democratic…was to make her province’s government *inherently unstable*–another benefit for her American Oilygarchs.
If she was actually interested in democracy, she’d have changed the voting system to proportional representation.
She put a legal tool out there and as any lawyer will tell you, don’t hand someone a gun unless you know where they’re going to point it.
Legislation needs to be written with an eye to both sides. What good will it do? What harm will it do if someone with tyrannical intent uses it or manipulates others to use it?
I don’t believe this blew up in her face. I think chronic political instability is exactly what she craved, all along. “Chaos is a ladder”. She’ll just go back to shilling for Big Oil for Big Money if it’s turned on her.
The damage she did will remain long after she’s gone. Any sensible politicians who see this legislation for the opportunism it was and want to throw it out–will be seen as “undemocratic” and “unwilling to be accountable” while the province and democracy, burns.
Either way, Smith and her Oil buddies, win.
Not Alberta residents.
The sentence you close the essay with (and use as a header) summarizes it completely. No, I have no sympathy whatsoever for Smith and the UCP in this matter, and I hope the recalls work. Talk about being hoisted by your own petard.
If anything the recall movement appears to be starting to rattle some of the UCP caucus. If this starts to appear as if it is getting out of hand, that being close to toppling the Government, you can bet Smith will enact changes to make sure they stay in power. At any rate this is a great spectator sport, especially watching the UCP MLA’s squirm.
I believe that all of these UPC MLAs need to be recalled. Not only because of the Teachers and the Not Withstanding Clause. Lets include their shameful treatment of the healthcare system, their mis-management of the environment and natural resources. Destroying public services and privatizing them. Encouraging separation. It seems that their sole intent is to strip and rape Alberta of all resources, line their pockets and the pockets of their buddies, then leave us with mass to cleanup. They put the tax payers on the hook for orphaned wells, expanded silica sand mining on all public land, so our lakes and rivers are under more pressure than they were. Coal mining on the Eastern Slopes, logging the head waters of the Highwood. FRIGG!! the list goes on and on. Who are these people of Lust, Greed and Glory? It’s the UPC. Damn rights they should be recalled.
I agree completely, she is making it harder everyday on the most vulnerable. To charge for life saving vaccines to believe that vaccines cause Autism is just sad. There were autistic people way before vaccines were used. She is listening to people like Jfk Jr. A man that doesn’t have a medical degree nor a second of scientific knowledge. Trump is a tyrant and she finds this attractive. To cause harm to the people with whom she is sapose to be working for and now complain that we are letting her know legally through these petitions is funny. She is the worst Premier in all of Canada. She has caused mire harm to Alberta by this separatists talk. Who or what companies want to start here when it is not a stable environment. She has screwed us over. She needs to go.
So true! There is no limit to the hypocrisy of Smith and the UCP. The UCP abuse the spirit of the law of Section 33 against teachers, what’s the problem? The citizens of Alberta tap into the Recall Law against the UCP, now the UCP’s hair is on fire and they are whinging about the spirit of the Recall Law. It is time to stop blaming the bad politicians and time to start blaming the people that vote for these bad politicians.
Can we start a Go-Fund-Me for Elections Alberta?
That is really good question. I would donate.
Smith & the clown party are stuck in a cleft stick of their own devising.
Do they repeal the recall act and risk the hypocrisy fallout? Do they risk not losing 4 mla’s (47 – 4 = minority goverment) to successful recalls? Does she gamble and call an early election and try to gaslight, bamboozle & lie to the entire electorate?
This is where the game gets really interesting!
I’ll be the first to admit I was the furthest from being Jason Kenny’s biggest fan but about a year or so ago when I was in the barber shop waiting to get my hair cut I came across an interview with the man where he said something to the affect of “Albertans may continue to hate me but soon they’ll come to realize I was the only one left keeping the madness at bay” (again largely paraphrasing here)
Again I like I’m sure many other Albertans was never Kenny’s biggest fan, in fact ironically enough a lot of the craziness he talks about did start with his tenure as Premier but looking back on it now with that interview in hindsight I do often wonder if his recall legislation was almost his way of giving us the tools to fight back against the madness as he called it under the guise of giving the separatists the tools to give the UCP wins in more orange areas of the province but I readily admit I’m probably giving the man way too much credit
He created the recall legislation to cultivate the support of the very people he now dismisses as crazy. This is Jason Kenneys party, he made it, he broke it, he owns it.
Proof yet again that there are no chess players among the UCP strategists. Only flunkies who play checkers. Badly.
Maybe, but is their game just the same?
It would be entirely fitting if a few UCP stooges lost their seats due to Marlaina’s incompetence and malice. They are starting to panic because they know they will never have an easier more lucrative “job”.
“Rationalization is a psychological defense mechanism in which a person justifies or explains an uncomfortable feeling or behavior with a seemingly logical reason, rather than acknowledging the true, often more distressing, reason behind it. Rationalization means making excuses for something that is hard to accept.”
Listen to, for example, the hollow rationalizations of Demetrios Nicolaides,
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-1-alberta-at-noon/clip/16180894-do-agree-recall-petitions
UCP reality distortion is a PR tactic along with the tactic of selectively changing the rules, or moving the goalposts in order to achieve and maintain power, or “win” the political game, i.e., the ability to impose your particular neurotic belief system on everyone and not just the subset of enthusiastic zealots that are a vital component in the UCP doctrinal feedback loop.
I suppose the UCP hacks should be thankful for recalls. After all, the alternative to getting rid of some self unaware idiot in public office is — in other places — usually assassination. But one wonders what would happen if Queen Danielle decides that the power of recall is too inconvenient a thing to be in the hands of the voters? One election, whenever it happens, is good enough. And that would normally be the case, but we’re not living in normal times.
Far too many who hold elected office these days are little more than cartoon characters and not very worldly people. I am reminded of some of the conversations I had during my RPC days about the nature of politics and the people in it. The consensus was you want morons in elected office, people who are totally dependent on the office for reasons of income, and to impress their friends. Btw, politicians can have no friends, unless they are committed partisans. Then, they can be spied on 24/7, because political parties function not unlike religious cults, where the leadership survives by the slavish devotion of its followers. Fear and paranoia is on everyone’s mind as a rule. This mindset explains perfectly the state of Skippy’s caucus, where loyalty to the leader is important above all else. So important, even loyal idiots can enjoy continuous promotion. Failing upwards really is a thing.
If Smith & Co. proceed with further use of the notwithstanding clause on Monday as expected, they’ll only accelerate the pace of recall petitions. If they end recall petitions, they’ll increase the likelihood of even bigger forms of resistance that they’ll like even less. The only logical way out of this mess would be to withdraw the NWC used on teachers. The UCP are not logical. They’ll likely double down and expand use of the NWC on even more people while ending recall petitions at the same time. A very large distraction will be needed next week. What will it be? Front licence plates?
If you google “Nicolaides twitter recall” and look at the images search, you can see his previous post about recall legislation from 2015-05-18 where he tweets “It should be available no strings attached.” and “I prefer recall that is available regardless of the motivation.”
I’m sure he still supports it 100% in the same way, otherwise people may think him some sort of hypocrite.
Yes, I wonder how many MLA’s will be subject to recall campaigns before Smith and the UCP decide the change it. I feel it will probably happen before they ‘address’ classroom complexity, although interestingly their sign doesn’t say anything about fixing it. Perhaps Smith’s well paid communications advisors have finally figured out it is better to under promise, after all she still hasn’t fixed Health Care yet either.
Smith has likely also figured out she will need a good diversion to get people’s minds of these recall campaigns and all the ways her government has fallen short. Now that her favourite punching bag, the former PM, is gone she has had to resort to surveys about license plate design and speed limits for major highways. I’m not sure that is enough to do the trick and I doubt she will want to get feedback about more fundamental things like political parties in municipal politics.
It appears likely that they will simply repeal the act before anyone is recalled, and I’m a bit concerned that people will not have another avenue of resistance to turn to once this one is closed. Labour leadership seems to be signaling that they don’t have the capacity or desire to escalate to anything illegal, and no one who is invoking the idea of a general strike is serious, so what does that leave us?
This is one of the only times I wished I lived in a UCP riding. As a happy constituent in an opposition riding I am left to cheer from the sidelines. BYE BYE Mr. Ed minister.
Nicolaides is, like all of them, full of one thing I will not mention.
Si they have done nothing wrong! Well their problem is that they have done nothing right so far so they deserve to have their own rules to sack them out.
I surely hope that a petition is approved for Danielle Smith.
Carlos: I can’t wait for the UCP to be banished from Alberta.
The UCP have a very narrow majority, and with two UCP MLAs now in the independent camp, which are Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair, they can’t afford to lose anymore MLAs. This is why these recalls make the UCP and Danielle Smith edgy and very nervous. Anymore UCP MLAs that are ousted, and the UCP are out of power, which is a good thing.
It was announced that Alberta has opened an office in Dubai. No doubt, it exists for purposes of building good will and sound relations between the Emirates and Alberta’s own fledging despotic petro-state. If you’re going to learn the ropes of oppression, better to learn from the best. I recall watching a streamed event sponsored by APP Peter Downing, Alberta’s own Don Quixote mused out loud that Alberta would do well to found a force like ICE, to be used as an internal security force/paramilitary/state-sponsored muscle to keep the opposition in the line. Downing looks like a thug, but now he wants to lead a bunch of thugs. Since the claim that there was $500M from the Trump administration to finance an independent Alberta, a lot of those panelists had widen eyes for their respective grift jobs.