And then there were 21! Twenty-one petitions acceptable to Elections Alberta to recall members of the Alberta Legislative Assembly, that is.

Twenty of them are directed at MLAs from the governing United Conservative Party, one at an MLA from the Opposition NDP. 

The latest batch, published by Elections Alberta yesterday, includes Premier Danielle Smith herself. So, will she stay or will she go? 

A few months ago Ms. Smith would certainly have been immune to this kind of attack in her rural-urban Brooks-Medicine Hat riding in southeast Alberta. She probably still is. 

Still, it’s fun to speculate about what might happen to the premier now that she’s not only infuriated her natural political opponents on the so-called Alberta left, which isn’t very far to the left at all even in relative terms, but also large numbers of traditionally Conservative farmers and ranchers in the region worried about pollution from that massive open-pit coal-mining operation the UCP seems so determined to permit on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies, and the separatist loons who inhabit her own party’s far-right fringe.

That said, beyond the long list of MLAs now facing recalls, what the heck is going on is far from clear. 

Who is running the Operation Total Recall website that provides organizing information and updates for local petitioners is so far unknown. Somebody is, but it’s highly unlikely it’s the NDP Opposition led by Naheed Nenshi, despite repeated and increasingly hysterical claims to the contrary from the government.

UCP supporters seem to have set up a false-front petition drive against their own MLA to stymie better-organized foes in at least one case – that of the petition against Utilities Minister Nathen Neudorf, MLA for Lethbridge-East. Could there be more? That’s not clear yet either.

And is the drive to unseat the NDP’s Calgary-Beddington MLA, Amanda Chapman, being run by the UCP, or by someone else? Also hard to say. 

There is an enormous amount of speculation, of course, much of it uninformed. 

What can be safely concluded though is that this is a gong show, and no matter what they say, it’s all on the UCP. They drafted, passed and amended the law – an affront to the Westminster Parliamentary system but a sop to their MAGA base – and they own the metastasizing crisis that has resulted. As Mr. Nenshi put it, “This is their legislation. They wrote it.” 

There seems to be a general consensus among serious commentators and even some that are not so serious that the UCP strategic brain trust never imagined for a moment that this silly law would ever be used against them. No, this was to be used in the event of another “accidental” NDP government like the majority led by Rachel Notley that was elected in 2015. 

All their whining about how the Recall Act was intended to be used only in the case of “egregious” malfeasance by an MLA is so much hot air. If that’s what they’d intended, they would have written the law that way. If the process is being abused, as the UCP keeps complaining, it’s being abused in exactly the way they intended – just not against the NDP. Case closed. 

There has been plenty of speculation on what happens next. Not all the petitions – or necessarily even any of them – will gather enough verifiable signatures to result in a vote in the riding on whether the MLA should be recalled. And even if that happens, there’s no guarantee the MLA couldn’t run and win in a subsequent by-election. 

But there is no question the grassroots campaign has turned into a massive distraction for the UCP and a gift that keeps on giving for Alberta political commentators. 

If the UCP imagined this fire was going to burn itself out, they appear to have been mistaken. If it doesn’t, I’d say the government has three options: They can repeal the law (embarrassing), they can amend it (less so, but tricky), or they can call an early election (which they could very well win).

My money’s on Option 3.

Here’s the list of MLAs who are now facing recall petitions approved by Elections Alberta in their ridings: 

• Demetrios Nicolaides, MLA for Calgary-Bow, minister of education
• Angela Pitt, Airdrie-East, Deputy Speaker
• Nolan Dyck, Grande Prairie
• Myles McDougall, Calgary-Fish Creek, minister of advanced education
• Ric McIver, Calgary-Hays, Speaker
• Muhammad Yaseen, Calgary-North, minister of immigration and multiculturalism
• Rajan Sawhney, Calgary-North West, minister of Indigenous relations
• RJ Sigurdson, Highwood, minister of agriculture
• Dale Nally, Morinville-St. Albert, minister of Service Alberta and red-tape reduction
• Glenn Van Dijken, Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock
• Jackie Lovely, Camrose
• Nathan Neudorf, Lethbridge-East, minister of utilities
• Jason Stephan, Red Deer-South
• Searle Turton, Spruce Grove-Stoney Plain, minister of children and family services
• Amanda Chapman, Calgary Beddington, Opposition education critic
• Peter Singh, Calgary-East
• Tanya Fir, Calgary-Peigan, minister of arts culture and status of women
• Adriana LaGrange, Red Deer-North, minister of primary and preventative health services
• Rebecca Schulz, Calgary-Shaw, minister of environment
• Danielle Smith, Brooks-Medicine Hat, premier
• Nate Glubish, Strathcona-Sherwood Park, minister of technology and inovation

Elections Alberta approves singer Corb Lund’s anti-coal petition

Speaking of those southern Alberta ranchers deeply concerned by the potential for pollution from that open-pit coal mine on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies that the UCP is determined to allow, Elections Alberta announced Monday it has approved country singer Corb Lund’s petition opposing coal mining in the region. 

The citizen initiative question submitted by Mr. Lund reads: “The Government of Alberta shall prohibit by law any and all new coal mining activities, including new approvals and permits, within the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.”

“There’s 200,000 people using that water downstream, not only for drinking, but for multi-billion dollar food processing industry in Lethbridge,” Mr. Lund said on Nov. 19, when he submitted his petition application to Elections Alberta in Edmonton. “So the whole thing seems like a terrible idea!”

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