Albertans across the province are organizing to recall MLAs they say have not represented their constituents in Alberta’s Parliament.
Recall petitions for ten more MLAs were approved on Friday, and organizers will be preparing to collect signatures in the coming weeks. According to Elections Alberta, “a recall vote is successful if more than 50% of the electors who voted are in favour of the recall.”
Several MLAs on the list won by a narrow margin – the Honorable Muhammed Yaseen of Calgary-North won by just 129 votes.
Organizers are already gathering signatures to recall Demetrios Nicolaides and Angela Pitt. Nicolaides’ recall petition needs just over 16,000 signatures to pass, while Pitt’s needs just under 15,000.
They’re also working on a petition to recall Danielle Smith.
Operation Total Recall, the group spearheading the provincewide campaign, aims to recall all 44 MLAs who voted to use the Notwithstanding Clause to legislate teachers back to work. To the group, and to many Albertans, the decision was “a profound step” that they need to fight.
However organizers say that their frustration with their elected representatives is not limited to the use of the clause.
An MLA who doesn’t respond
Maureen Foss recently asked her MLA, Jackie Lovely, about wait times at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton on Lovely’s post on social media. “I specifically asked a question about why there was no contingency plan in the event of a lack of space for patients,” she told TheRockies.Life.
“She blocked me,” Foss said.
“It sure says a lot about [Lovely] and her lack of regard for her constituents.”.
Foss, who is now the Chief Financial Officer for the Camrose recall campaign, said it was not an isolated incident, and that she knows others who have also been blocked for asking questions. Foss. “It’s definitely driven me to do more with the recall,” she said.
Lovely won the Camrose seat in 2023 with 63 per cent of the vote.
She did not respond to TheRockies.Life’s request for comment about how she has represented her constituents.
Change needed, organizer says
Beyond being a way for constituents to remove MLAs they no longer support from office, Foss sees the recall petition as an opportunity to bring to light what good representation means, and to help people understand what’s possible in a democracy.
She said many people in her riding have the assumption that when something is broken, the government will fix it. She hopes people begin to realize through the petition that the current government is breaking more than they fix.
Foss works for a non-profit in Camrose that supports seniors and individuals on AISH. “This government, they’re crashing the healthcare system, they’re crashing the education system, they’re destroying the ability of the underprivileged, folks on AISH, to survive,” she said.
“People need to realize that when your elected representatives are not being effective, that other people actually want to do something about it,” she said.
