Rob Breakenridge: The UCP wanted recalls and referendums. Hope they enjoy them.

The possibility of some comeuppance now looms over the province.

By: Rob Breakenridge

Creation-turning-on-the-creator is a well-worn trope in popular cinema, usually serving as a cautionary tale or providing some deserved poetic justice.

Alberta’s experiment with voter recall is shaping up to be a real-world case study of this phenomenon. It is certainly a cautionary tale for other governments, but also, arguably, some well-earned comeuppance for this government.

Unfortunately, with the potential embarrassment of seeing their own members devoured by recall, the UCP is prepared to inject some chaos into what’s already shaping up to be a tumultuous period. Things are going to get messy.

Alberta, of course, has both voter recall and citizens’ initiative laws on the books. Both pieces of legislation were passed while Jason Kenney was still premier, but didn’t come into effect until 2023. Last year, Danielle Smith’s government introduced changes to those laws that made it easier to both recall a politician and get a referendum question on the ballot.

All of this, by the way, falls under the auspices of Elections Alberta, and there is suddenly a lot on their plate.

Elections Alberta is currently counting and verifying the approximately 456,000 signatures gathered by Thomas Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian campaign. The agency has also just approved a petition aimed at forcing a referendum on funding for private schools. On top of that, there are now two approved recall petition campaigns with several others apparently in the works.

Last week, the Chief Electoral Officer appeared before an all-party committee to plead for an extra $13.5 million to manage all of these recall and citizens’ initiative petitions and to prepare for the eventuality of recall votes and referendums (including those the premier is considering for next year).

That plea fell on mostly deaf ears. The UCP used their majority on the committee to approve barely a tenth of what the Chief Electoral Officer was seeking — a paltry $1.46 million. He’s appealing to the government to reconsider, but he shouldn’t hold his breath.

None of this is intended to be an argument against direct democracy, but this does help explain why it’s relatively rare. Governments are loath to create circumstances that could make life difficult for themselves. So to that end, the UCP deserves some credit.

However, this was not about the UCP holding themselves to account. This was more of a concession to the party’s conservative base, sold as a way of keeping any future left-wing governments (provincial or municipal) in check.

It’s no coincidence, then, that the first organized recall campaign did not target any MLA, but rather now-former Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek.

And it should also be noted that it was in the midst of this very recall effort — which ultimately fell short — that the premier signalled her intention to lower these thresholds.

At the time, Smith took to social media to declare that, “My position is clear: voter recall is part of our democracy to hold all elected officials accountable in between elections.” Her post also included a graphic proudly touting this quote from a Rick Bell column: “Premier Danielle Smith leads a government looking to make it easier to recall a politician.”

It wasn’t quite an endorsement of the Gondek recall petition, but there was certainly no objection whatsoever to that attempt. Its organizer, by the way, became enough of a political celebrity that he parlayed that into a seat on the new city council.

Now, suddenly, the premier’s much less sure about the ethics and appropriateness of recalling politicians. Last week, Smith suggested that these petition drives are aimed at toppling her government, and accused petition organizers of not acting “in good faith.”

To be clear, there is nothing in the legislation that stipulates a specific reason or purpose for a recall campaign or anything in particular that makes a politician eligible. It’s basically, “here’s when you can launch a recall petition” and “here’s how to do it.”

But, yes, the timing is problematic for the UCP. Folks are ornery these days, exacerbated in no small part by the handling of the teachers’ strike and the decision to use the notwithstanding clause to force teachers back to work.

It’s also true that the UCP is only three seats above the majority threshold in the Alberta legislature. And so a few successful recall campaigns could indeed threaten to topple the government. But that’s not something petition organizers really need to concern themselves with.

It could be something for voters to consider, though. Remember, no MLA is recalled or replaced until and unless the voters say so.

Each riding is different, since the threshold for a successful recall petition is the equivalent of 60 per cent of the number of votes cast in that riding in the last provincial election (to be gathered within 90 days). If that bar is cleared, there would then be a yes/no recall vote. If 50 per cent or more of voters opt to recall, the seat becomes vacant and a by-election would then occur.

Turfing government MLAs — especially in solid UCP ridings — wouldn’t be easy. Then again, there was plenty of skepticism that the Forever Canadian petition drive would succeed, and they appear to have far exceeded the minimum target.

For now, the premier says no changes are coming to either the recall or the citizens’ initiative legislation. It’s probably too late to put this genie back in the bottle, anyway.

The bigger question is whether Elections Alberta will be allowed to do its job here. If the resources aren’t there for petitions to be approved and verified, not to mention the need to administer everything that comes after a successful petition, then these laws may as well not exist.

The government can’t have it both ways. If they truly believe Albertans deserve access to recall and referendums, then there’s an obligation to cover those costs. Direct democracy isn’t free. If, on the other hand, they believe it’s too disruptive and not worth the cost, they should scrap these laws.

The problem here is that they professed to believe the former and only when they became a target did the latter position suddenly become appealing. But their buyer’s remorse is really just their problem. They need to suck it up, fund the system, and face the music.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer and host of The Line: Alberta Podcast. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com

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The Line: Alberta is a provincial bureau of The Line, edited by Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney. Email us at alberta@readtheline.ca.