Recall the UCP and other activist responses

[getbak]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Then you know what to do

[Reggie28]

Originally Posted by Wolven

I posted in earlier in the thread, but my understanding is that there is a few 1-week process steps after the paperwork is submitted:
- Elections Alberta will take 1 week to review the paperwork to approve / reject it
- Elections Alberta will give the targeted politician 1 week to respond to the approved recall petition (100 work maximum)
- Then Elections Alberta gets one more week to post the petition details onto their website

Following those steps, the process then finally moves to gathering signatures for 90 days. Once the 90 days are up, if there is enough valid signatures then the LG has 4 months to kick off a recall vote.

If the recall vote is successful, the MLA is immediately removed from position and a byelection needs to be called (unclear how quickly the byelection needs to be kicked off, if it follows the other byelection rules I think the Premier can wait 18 months before calling a byelection for a vacant seat).

With the next scheduled election 23 months away, assuming the UCP doesn’t change the rules, could the government could stall this out and not hold a by-election if it suits their purposes?

On the Nicolaides front, do these things take time to gather steam and numbers will pick up? I would think the early votes would be the easiest, but maybe it takes time for the organizers to get into full swing? I have no idea, but they have only collected a quarter of the signatures a month in.

“In Calgary-Bow, Jenny Yeremiy is working with more than 70 other canvassers to trigger a recall vote of the riding's MLA, Demetrios Nicolaides, who also serves as Alberta's education and childcare minister. Yeremiy said the group has received roughly a quarter of the 16,006 signatures they need to gather by Jan. 21, 2026.”


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...pitt-9.6984764

[The Yen Man]

Off topic, but I found it funny how the UCP are trying to amend this law because people are now "abusing it for political reasons". I'm like huh? The whole point of this law is tied to politics. Of course it's being used for political reasons. What other reason is there? Just seems like such a stupid comment from the UCP, but then again, that's on par with the rest of their comments normally lol.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Reggie28

With then next scheduled election 23 months away, assuming the UCP doesn’t change the rules, could the government could stall this out and not hold a by-election if it suits their purposes?

Yes, I think Smith will absolutely stall the byelections for fear that they might lose each seat to an NDP. The UCP have 47/87 seats, the NDP have 38 and 2 are the independents looking to join the AP -> PC party.

Right now the government topples in one of three ways:

1) If the UCP lose 4 seats and the opposition gain 4 seats in byelections.

2) If the UCP lose 7 seats to recalls (no byelections happen).

If I understand it correctly, UCP has 46 members + speaker of the house. The speaker breaks any ties in voting but if there is not a tie the speaker cannot vote.
- Thus if they only lose 6 MLAs, they can still win votes on the tiebreaker.
- If they lose 7 votes, they cannot tie the votes anymore so long as one of their members remains the speaker of the house (but good luck getting anyone in the opposition to become the speaker). This would result in a 40/40 split government and should cause an election after a confidence vote as neither side would effectively be able to form government.
- If the UCP lose 8 members and Smith does not dissolve the government to call an election then I think it would be possible for the NDP + independents to form government immediately. (Floor crossings could also bring this about)

3) If Smith dissolves government and calls a general election.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Operation Total Recall is still showing 24/44* recalls in motion but with some progress:

• 8 targeted - Meaning someone has stepped up to be the proponent for the petition (Step 1 in their process)
• 4 Initial Paperwork Submitted - Paperwork has been filed with $500 payment (Step 2)
• 10 Initial Paperwork Approved - Petition has been approved and Elections Alberta is awaiting comment from the targeted MLA for up to 7 days (Step 3)
• 2 Gathering signatures (Step 5)

It is really exciting to see the names of these MLAs moving to Approved. Sawhney, Yaseen, McDougall, McIver have all been doing a terrible job of representing Calgary.

I think anyone who lives in one of those ridings and is thinking about volunteering should join Caged Great and learn from the Calgary-Bow example. On the job training!

A bit more progress in Operation Total Recall (23/44* recalls in motion):

• 5 targeted - Meaning someone has stepped up to be the proponent for the petition (Step 1 in their process)
• 5 Initial Paperwork Submitted - Paperwork has been filed with $500 payment (Step 2)
• 10 Initial Paperwork Approved - Petition has been approved and Elections Alberta is awaiting comment from the targeted MLA for up to 7 days (Step 3)
• 1 Organizing - This is the step immediately before gathering signatures, likely where they are getting people signed up to be canvassers, etc. (Step 4)
• 2 Gathering signatures (Step 5)

They have posted a number of signature gathering locations for the weekend and added a feature to join their daily newsletter from the website.

[puffnstuff]

Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer has approved a recall petition for Grande Prairie UCP MLA Nolan Dyck. This is the third official recall petition approved for an MLA, following Demetrios Nicolaides and Angela Pitt.

https://bsky.app/profile/ctheriault..../3m65wqe77w22a

[Fuzz]

You would think with having their office funding neutered, they'd have even more motivation to work quickly on these files. All within the rule of the law, of course. But I can't imagine they are getting into nit-picky slow downs and malicious incompetence. Which would absolutely be the case if UCP friendlies ran it.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Reggie28

With the next scheduled election 23 months away, assuming the UCP doesn’t change the rules, could the government could stall this out and not hold a by-election if it suits their purposes?

On the Nicolaides front, do these things take time to gather steam and numbers will pick up? I would think the early votes would be the easiest, but maybe it takes time for the organizers to get into full swing? I have no idea, but they have only collected a quarter of the signatures a month in.

“In Calgary-Bow, Jenny Yeremiy is working with more than 70 other canvassers to trigger a recall vote of the riding's MLA, Demetrios Nicolaides, who also serves as Alberta's education and childcare minister. Yeremiy said the group has received roughly a quarter of the 16,006 signatures they need to gather by Jan. 21, 2026.”


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...pitt-9.6984764

It was definitely disappointing to hear the level of progress so far - would have been better to stay quiet on it unless they were ahead of pace. Maybe the latest horrorshow will give it a little spark.

That said, it is actually a pretty impressive number. They needed to do about twice as well as the FC petition to hit the target, but it looks like they're roughly matching the FC pace, which is pretty remarkable.

At this point they've probably got to do a lot of door to door. But I suspect SFH owners with the most easily accessible doors skew more conservative, while progressives are more likely to live in higher density, and it's not as easy to knock on doors in condos/basement suites/etc. It's not necessarily a huge difference, but the easiest actions will be lower yield

[MrButtons]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

It was definitely disappointing to hear the level of progress so far - would have been better to stay quiet on it unless they were ahead of pace. Maybe the latest horrorshow will give it a little spark.

That said, it is actually a pretty impressive number. They needed to do about twice as well as the FC petition to hit the target, but it looks like they're roughly matching the FC pace, which is pretty remarkable.

At this point they've probably got to do a lot of door to door. But I suspect SFH owners with the most easily accessible doors skew more conservative, while progressives are more likely to live in higher density, and it's not as easy to knock on doors in condos/basement suites/etc. It's not necessarily a huge difference, but the easiest actions will be lower yield

Not disagreeing with the post but staying quiet also might be a bad idea. This is one of those weird damned if you do, damned if you dont things.

You say we have a bunch of signatures, individuals might not sign because they have to go out of their way to do it, and you already have so many. On the opposite if you say you dont have enough, people think they may be alone on how they feel and then they won't want to stand out to vote.

Now I'm not sure what the best answer is, but I appreciate the honesty of this recall compared to whatever the government is doin.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by MrButtons

Not disagreeing with the post but staying quiet also might be a bad idea. This is one of those weird damned if you do, damned if you dont things.

You say we have a bunch of signatures, individuals might not sign because they have to go out of their way to do it, and you already have so many. On the opposite if you say you dont have enough, people think they may be alone on how they feel and then they won't want to stand out to vote.

Now I'm not sure what the best answer is, but I appreciate the honesty of this recall compared to whatever the government is doin.

Just gotta stay vague. "We are really pleased with our progress so far, but it's going to take an all-out effort to get this over the line".

But it sure seems like the gov't isn't particularly afraid of this, because the latest NWC is so ####ing insane