Elections Alberta Announces Recall Petition Against Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, 2 Cabinet Ministers

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the Edmonton Leader’s Dinner at the Edmonton Convention Centre on March 19, 2025. Photo by Carolina Avendano/The Epoch Times

Elections Alberta announced that a recall petition for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and two of her cabinet ministers has been issued.

The Dec. 10 petition from Brooks-Medicine Hat resident Heather Van Snick demands that Smith step down, alleging that she has been overlooking her local constituents and undermining public services in order to pursue privatization options. The petition also said Smith does not reside in her riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat and has no substantive ties to the area.

Smith denied that she ignores her constituents in her riding and said she takes all feedback into account in making policy decisions. She also said people are weaponizing the province’s recall process due to policy disagreements. Under Alberta law, an MLA does not have to reside in the riding they represent. Smith lives in High River, Alta., several hours west of her riding.

Recall petitions were also issued Dec. 10 for Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz and Technology Minister Nate Glubish, with the petitioners in both cases alleging that the two don’t listen to their constituents.

The new petitions bring the total number of petitions against MLAs to 20, with UCP MLAs as the main targets, in addition to one NDP MLA, Amanda Chapman, who serves as her party’s education critic.

Recall legislation was brought in by former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in 2021 and went into force in 2022. The act was amended this past spring to give petitioners more time to collect signatures and to lower the number of signatures required in a move the province said would “make it easier for Albertans to hold elected officials accountable.”

It wasn’t used until October of this year, when a wave of recall petitions began to be issued.

Recall Rules

A petitioner must live in the constituency of the MLA they want recalled and provide a statement for why they want the MLA recalled in addition to paying a $500 filing fee.

Both Smith and Kenney have said that the recall system was only meant for serious breaches of public trust and misconduct, not as a process for airing out policy grievances.

After approval, the petition requires valid signatures from a minimum of 60 percent of the total votes cast in the 2023 election for the riding of the MLA in question in order to move forward to a vote. The petitioner has 90 days to collect these votes, all of which must be eligible voters in the constituency whose MLA is being targeted in the recall.

A total of 20,117 votes were recorded in Smith’s riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat in Alberta’s May 29, 2023, provincial election, meaning that at least 12,070 valid signatures will have to be collected by Van Snick in order for the recall petition to trigger a vote in Smith’s riding. Under the recall rules, a vote would then take place within four months of the successfully completed petition being published.

If more than 50 percent of voters call on Smith to step down, she would be immediately removed as MLA and a byelection would be held in her riding.

Accusations

The other recall petitions already issued include numerous allegations against various UCP MLAs. Common themes of accusations include allegations that MLAs are overlooking their constituents; trying to privatize education, health care, and other services; voting for budget cuts; and voting against organized labour.

Petitioner Joshua Eberhart, for example, accused UCP MLA Dale Nally of Morinville-St. Albert of ignoring the input of his constituents and voting for the use of the notwithstanding clause in ending a teachers strike in the province in a way that Eberhart characterized as government overreach. Nally denies the accusation.

Alberta’s UCP government passed the Back to School Act into law at the end of October, ending a strike by 51,000 Alberta teachers that started Oct. 6 with teachers demanding higher salaries and smaller class sizes, and concerns over the lack of specialized educators in classrooms.

Smith had said the bill, which invoked the notwithstanding clause, was a “last resort” in order to end the strike and get students back in school.

The act imposed a collective bargaining agreement on the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) union that it had previously rejected, giving teachers a 4 percent salary bump over four years as well as hiring additional 1,500 more educational assistants and 3,000 more teachers.

The notwithstanding clause in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms lets government override certain rights and freedoms in the Charter if deemed necessary and bars any legislative challenge for five years.

Other accusations include MLAs allegedly putting party loyalty over the needs and priorities of constituents, as well as not responding to phone calls and emails and, in one case, supporting Alberta independence.

The MLAs in question have all denied the accusations on the recall petitions and said they are doing the best they can for their constituents and all Albertans.

The recall petition by Alberta resident Laurie McCormack against her riding’s NDP MLA Amanda Chapman said Chapman has put the interests of public-sector unions above those of constituents. For her part, Chapman said her support of unionized teachers in the strike was due to the majority of her constituents telling her they supported that position.

Alberta’s Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said last month that he’s not surprised there are so many recall petitions being issued against the UCP, who he accused of being “completely out of touch” with Albertans.

“I don’t know how successful these petitions will be, but certainly they are incredibly destabilizing,” Nenshi commented in a video posted online Nov. 25. “They show that we’ve got a government that has lost all grip on reality and is completely out of touch with its citizens.”

For her part, Smith has said recall legislation is being used in bad faith by those who politically oppose her government.

“As the members who are organizing the recall campaigns were calling to overthrow the government, I can tell you that that kind of language does not say to me that they’re engaging in the recall process in good faith,” Smith said last month in the Alberta legislature, adding that the recall system is “not meant to overthrow and topple governments mid-term.”

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.