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Alberta Politics

Gronk! said:
globalnews.ca

Five more Alberta UCP legislature members facing recall, bringing total to 14 | Globalnews.ca

Almost a third of the 47 United Conservative members in the Alberta legislature are now under recall.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
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The recall effort comes across as an attempt to overturn the results of the last election, in which the UCP democratically won a majority. That's the way the system works in Canada: we abide by the results of democratic elections. This is not the Third World, where if certain groups don't agree with the results of an election they use whatever procedural tricks they can in order to engineer a different outcome.

It's genuinely amusing the number of people frantically trying to gather signatures to get UCP MLAs recalled, particularly in Calgary. Where was all this hard work and campaigning during the 2023 election, when a few seats flipped in Calgary as well as some in the Edmonton Ring would have resulted in a UCP defeat and an NDP victory?
 
I mean... the UCP democratically won a majority, and democratically enabled the recall legislation in the first place. They did (appropriately, imo) set the bar to trigger a recall very high, but they very much passed on the idea of restricting the availability of recall petitions to specific criteria (e.g. serious criminal convictions, as is the case in the U.K.). The UCP doesn't really have grounds to complain about voters using the tools available to hold them accountable, when they are the ones who provided them with said tools!
 
Markyeg said:
The UCP were fine with their recall legislation when it was being used against the former Calgary mayor, but now that the tables have turned and it’s being used against them they have a problem with it.
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I don't agree with recall legislation at all, at any level.

First of all, it's an attempt to change the results of an election. We have elections at both the provincial and the municipal level every four years. THAT'S the time we get to make a change. Attempting to recall city council members or MLAs who were democratically elected flies in the face of the principle in this country that we respect the will of the voters, as expressed in a free and fair election. It's not only hooligans storming the U.S. Capitol who have an undemocratic agenda of overturning the will of the electorate, it's also people using the recall system to fiddle with the results of a settled election here at home.

Want a do-over? You get one every four years.

The other big problem with recall legislation is that it can make political leaders gun-shy about tackling controversial issues or major structural change, for fear of sparking a mid-term recall drive that could cost them their seats.

The contract we have in Canadian society is that every four years, the public has a right to choose its governing leaders for the next term. The elections are free and fair and run by a neutral government agency (not overseen by the politicians themselves, as are many elections in the U.S.) And when the returns come in, the public agrees to abide by the result of that election, and not attempt to overturn it mid-term.
 
Gus Haynes said:
The UCP passed this legislation to placate members who were angry that they had to sit through four years being represented by an NDP MLA. Like many things the UCP has done under both of its leaders, they did not really think it through.
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IIRC there was recall legislation passed by Social Credit under Premier Aberhart. It was used against their own MLAs and ended up getting repealed.

I would eventually expect something similar to happen in this case.
 
TravellingChris said:
The recall effort comes across as an attempt to overturn the results of the last election, in which the UCP democratically won a majority. That's the way the system works in Canada: we abide by the results of democratic elections. This is not the Third World, where if certain groups don't agree with the results of an election they use whatever procedural tricks they can in order to engineer a different outcome.

It's genuinely amusing the number of people frantically trying to gather signatures to get UCP MLAs recalled, particularly in Calgary. Where was all this hard work and campaigning during the 2023 election, when a few seats flipped in Calgary as well as some in the Edmonton Ring would have resulted in a UCP defeat and an NDP victory?
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"This is not the Third World...."

Good point. So when the government decides to remove Charter rights from citizens, it's probably good to have a mechanism to remove said government via legal, democratic means.
 
TravellingChris said:
The recall effort comes across as an attempt to overturn the results of the last election, in which the UCP democratically won a majority. That's the way the system works in Canada: we abide by the results of democratic elections. This is not the Third World, where if certain groups don't agree with the results of an election they use whatever procedural tricks they can in order to engineer a different outcome.

It's genuinely amusing the number of people frantically trying to gather signatures to get UCP MLAs recalled, particularly in Calgary. Where was all this hard work and campaigning during the 2023 election, when a few seats flipped in Calgary as well as some in the Edmonton Ring would have resulted in a UCP defeat and an NDP victory?
Click to expand...
Yeah...the UCP championed the recall legislation. Blame them for the "the 3rd world" rhetoric.
 
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