Enraged over a back-to-work order imposed upon striking Alberta teachers and emboldened by the success of Thomas Lukaszuk’s petition about nothing, union activists felt they could capitalize on the ire and use Alberta’s recall legislation to overthrow the UCP government. In theory, it could be done. Danielle Smith’s party only holds a narrow majority, and if as few as five seats were turned over to the NDP, Naheed Nenshi would become the premier with a majority government.They began with the lowest-hanging fruit by going after Calgary-Bow MLA Demetrios Nicolaides. The choice made sense since Nicolaides is the Alberta independence minister, and he only won the constituency by a little more than 600 votes in the last election. If a by-election were to be forced in Calgary-Bow, there would be a good chance it could swing to the NDP..OLDCORN: Crime doesn’t care about skin colour — but our courts sometimes do.Legacy media and establishment pundits were overjoyed with the development. They reported on the initiation of the recall process against Demetrios Nicolaides as if it were a true uprising of Albertan voters. They laughed at how Danielle Smith’s own recall legislation was being turned upon one of her own members. Some speculated it may be the beginning of the end of the UCP government.Then, the recall applications spread further. Every few days, legacy media jubilantly reported that Elections Alberta had approved another recall initiative against a UCP MLA. Soon, 26 recall initiatives had been approved, representing nearly 30% of the legislature. Legacy media’s hushed tones implying a government overthrow were becoming shouts from the rooftops. Surely Danielle Smith’s government was going to be humiliatingly hoisted by its own petard!.Political scientists speculated Alberta would be heading to a spring election so Smith could avoid being brought down by all these recall initiatives!When UCP Minister Rebecca Schulz resigned from cabinet, headlines ensured to note that Schulz was one of the MLAs with a recall initiative active against her. Was she fleeing before the recall could happen?.WENZEL: Canada’s new culture war is being fought in Google reviews.The deadline for the first recall petition is now less than a week away, and reality has come home to roost.The prime activist organizing a recall effort against Demetrios Nicolaides was forced to admit that, with months to work at it, she had only garnered 6,000 signatures on her petition. That leaves her 10,000 short of the number required to trigger a recall. With this kind of petition, usually around 10% of the signatures are found to be invalid for one reason or another, so her initiative is more likely closer to 11,600 signatures short of the mark. It didn’t even come close to making it. Nicolaides’ political career may face many challenges, but being recalled isn’t one of them right now..So, why was it impossible for a petitioner to gather 16,000 signatures in one constituency when Thomas Lukaszuk managed to gather 400,000 across the province?It’s because the recall legislation is written to ensure the initiative must remain local. Petitioners must be registered, and they must live within the constituency. Outside money and workers can’t be used on a recall initiative. While Lukaszuk was able to utilize union and activist groups to concentrate his petitioning efforts in areas of strong support, the activist targeting Nicolaides had to use local resources, and she clearly couldn’t gather enough of them..ALBERS: Something big is beginning to grow in Alberta independence movement.Real petitioning is tough work. Anybody can make an online petition that can gather thousands of signatures in a short time, but to get real, physical signatures, in person, with a name, address, and phone number gathered by a registered petitioner is a whole different story. A hard-working petitioner working an eight-hour day might get 100 signatures. To get 16,000 or more takes a large organization with a motivated electorate. Neither existed in Calgary-Bow nor does that exist in the other constituencies.All it takes to start a recall initiative is $500 and an application form to Elections Alberta. That’s the easiest part. That’s why 26 of them were set off. The petitioning part has stopped the initiatives in their tracks though..The rest of the initiatives are in areas with even stronger support than Calgary-Bow. One of the initiatives is against Danielle Smith in Brooks-Medicine Hat, where she won with 66% of the vote. Another is in Highwood where the UCP candidate won with 69% of the vote. These initiatives are dead in the water.In a way, it’s good that Alberta’s unions put the recall legislation to the test like this. They proved that the bar is set high enough to stop frivolous recall efforts and abuses of the system..OLDCORN: Senator Paula Simons’ Alberta independence ‘racist’ and ‘transphobic’ smears go too far.The recall bar is not set so high that it’s impossible to initiate one, but an initiative will only have success in the most exceptional of circumstances. A local MLA will have to have breached public trust so badly that a large majority of the local electors feel they can’t wait until the next election to fire their representative. No MLAs have done that yet in this electoral cycle and union temper tantrums don’t count.The upcoming year is going to be a historic one as petitioning to invoke an independence referendum is almost sure to be successful. It’s time to turn the page on the recall stunt and pay close attention to the real direct democracy action sweeping the province.
