Juno News - February 28, 2024


Petition to recall Gondek continues to gain momentum

Mentioned
Jody Gonnick
Trudeau's latest attempt to CENSOR you Trudeau and the media are building a SURVEILLANCE STATE

Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

176.83

Word count

3,066

Sentence count

—

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we are joined by the man who started the petition to recall Calgary Mayor Naudeen Dorrance, Jodie Gondek Landon. In this episode we discuss the reasons behind the recall campaign, what it s like to be a part of a grassroots effort to try and recall a mayor, and how he s managed to get nearly half a million signatures in support of his campaign.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 hey everyone welcome back to the alberta roundup i'm your host rachel emanuel today we are joined
00:00:17.040 by the infamous landon johnston he is the man who started the petition to recall calgary mayor
00:00:23.600 jody gondek landon thanks for joining us today thanks for having me rachel
00:00:27.680 so first and foremost obviously this is a pretty big feat that you've endeavored on
00:00:33.360 can you explain sort of why you decided to try and recall the mayor
00:00:38.880 uh i think like a lot of calgarians like we've been frustrated with the
00:00:43.760 the decisions and policies and um basically the last two years of what's been going on in council
00:00:50.480 um it's just it's just been one thing after another that's not
00:00:56.000 it's not making it easier for calgarians to live or stay in calgary um and then i just saw an
00:01:02.320 opportunity to file a petition and i took it um i no one asked me to do it and uh i just i thought
00:01:10.640 i was going to be doing it by myself like legit thought it was just going to be me so
00:01:14.480 yeah so it's really been a grassroots efforts i'm assuming when you're saying she hasn't made
00:01:20.160 it easy to live in the city one of the things we can look to for example is her increase of the 0.56
00:01:24.880 tax by 7.8 that's an absolutely astronomical tax hike especially when we're looking at the
00:01:30.480 rising costs of pretty much everything right now um i'm also wondering specifically you know just this
00:01:35.360 last year she tried to cancel canada day celebrations what did you think about that
00:01:39.360 i think if the mayor wants to be a cultural icon because i find a lot of her decisions
00:01:49.840 aren't based off of what's best for the city but it seems that what's best for her and if she wants
00:01:55.840 to be a cultural icon she doesn't have to be a mayor to do that she can quit and just be the head of 1.00
00:02:03.920 whatever she wants to be it doesn't have to be a mayor it just seems like a lot of those policies 0.95
00:02:09.040 benefit her um and maybe like a small minority of calgarians that agree with her um and that's
00:02:16.880 just like it people see right through it though like people are just sick of it they're tired of it
00:02:22.080 and you know call it what you want woke agenda whatever it is it's it's not benefiting us like it's
00:02:29.040 it's causing um more division amongst us like calgarians and canadians and we're done with it like
00:02:36.640 i think we're fed up with it and it's just you know this is an opportunity to um let them know
00:02:43.760 like hey like stick to the issues and stop trying to make this about something that we don't actually
00:02:49.840 care about like um like again it's just such a small minority of people that actually care that the mayor
00:02:56.800 is taking it upon herself to push these agendas but really it's hard to live in calgary like there's so
00:03:04.880 many calgarians on like the brink of bankruptcy or on the brink of losing their house or like it's
00:03:10.960 just like they're so obtuse on their policy decisions like it's just like one little tax after another it
00:03:16.800 just adds up and you know just think of like fixed income calgarians like they can't they can't afford 0.99
00:03:22.800 to live here like it's you know canada itself is becoming um it like the inflation by itself is is
00:03:31.920 insane but then it's just yeah like i said like just the taxes this council is like implemented
00:03:36.880 on us is just like a death by a thousand cuts and you know we've had enough of it so when you talk
00:03:42.400 about regular calgarians having enough of this what do you yourself do for a living and how have you
00:03:47.600 found the time to work on this petition are you away from work right now are you taking time off
00:03:51.360 doing it after hours what does your regular day look like right now as you're seeking to get
00:03:55.840 almost half a million or sorry well over half a million signatures um i mean i didn't plan on
00:04:02.720 doing what we're doing right now like i legit was just gonna go on saturdays and to my neighbors and
00:04:09.680 just collect signatures maybe try to get like three four thousand in 60 days um so the fact that this
00:04:17.520 turned out to be a lot bigger than i thought it would be um you know has forced me to adjust my
00:04:23.040 priorities um you know i do a track so that includes furnaces acs service work um so last week i was
00:04:30.560 able to install three air conditioners um you know so that that i made some money last week and then
00:04:36.480 this week i've had some service calls here and there uh but you know i just find like i can if i do
00:04:42.960 if i go to a house in calgary um i'll just go to like 10 or 11 neighbors on either side of the house i'm
00:04:49.520 doing a service call ad and get signatures um and then if i go to the grocery store i'll get
00:04:54.080 signatures um and then any free time like i would normally have in the winter i'd just be playing
00:05:00.080 video games or um you know um you know dinking around in the garage and so this has actually given
00:05:07.840 me um a lot of purpose for what i would normally not be doing a lot in the winter time so um this has
00:05:13.840 been it's been fun for me like it's been stressful but um meeting people and you know like listening
00:05:20.320 to like people that also agree with what i'm doing has been a lot of fun and very rewarding um
00:05:27.040 like as an hvac guy like i go to a house and i troubleshoot an issue and you know finding um
00:05:35.040 you know a fix for a problem is very rewarding and so what this petition to me is like i found an issue
00:05:42.640 and i'm working on troubleshooting and and finding solution for it um and there's a lot
00:05:48.080 of other people out there that are helping with me with that solution and again that's rewarding
00:05:52.720 to me like i enjoy fixing problems or how many other people are actually like working on the campaign
00:05:58.240 with you yeah it's impossible to know the exact number but i mean um again it's just me and then
00:06:05.680 all these other organizations had planned on doing this and i had no idea until they contacted me
00:06:11.040 the day of the the petition was certified and they were like hey landon we've got hundreds of volunteers
00:06:16.560 and um we've got website developers and all this stuff so i was like hey you have at it like you don't
00:06:22.400 need my permission to get signatures just bring the signatures to me when you're done um so it's in the
00:06:28.400 hundreds probably five six seven hundred people that have signed up um to volunteer either to canvas or
00:06:34.880 do admin work or help on the website um so it's it's a huge it's a huge amount of people that have
00:06:43.040 been doing this for free like i don't have any money like we're not
00:06:46.880 all the money that's been spent on this is can't come from my bank account at least on my end of it
00:06:51.840 like these other organizations had the infrastructure in place um and i just said you know what do whatever
00:06:57.360 you guys got to do to get signatures and just make sure it's illegal and uh yeah so far it's it's
00:07:04.960 hundreds of people yeah you have hundreds of people working to gather the signatures as i mentioned it's
00:07:09.360 over 514 000 signatures that are needed that's more people than even voted for a mayoral candidate in the
00:07:16.080 2021 election do you think that this is a fair parameter and how certain are you that you guys are
00:07:21.520 going to be able to get all those signatures it's it's impossible it's just statistically impossible
00:07:28.720 even if you had unlimited resources unlimited helpers um the pool of signatures is like 630 000 potential
00:07:38.960 um calgarians that can sign this but that doesn't take into account um like there's like 30 40 50 000
00:07:49.200 calgarians who do not speak english so like you have to find people that can communicate with those 1.00
00:07:55.280 people to sign the petition um there's elderly that you can't like ethically go into like a um a hospice
00:08:05.600 house to get signatures like it's just like the pool shrinks and shrinks and shrinks the more you
00:08:10.400 think about it because the statistics came from 2019 and those people like people have moved away since
00:08:17.600 the last census or 2019 um and then then it doesn't include people that have lived here less than six
00:08:23.520 months um you know you just think about um just how diverse the city is like there's there's a lot of
00:08:31.440 boundaries so i'm just saying like that that 600 000 number shrinks down and down and down almost to
00:08:37.200 below the 514 000 signature threshold right so it's it's impossible but that was my big mostly about
00:08:45.280 sending a message at this point yeah it's well it's to be honest it's about sending a message
00:08:49.360 about the petition itself because it's it's impossible it should it was never meant to be
00:08:54.640 40 of the entire population if you look through the bill readings and the select committee's
00:09:00.080 recommendations the recommendations were like 35 or 30 even of the uh eligible population that can
00:09:09.920 actually vote and that's possible like that's easy to do if you have someone who's um unfavorable enough
00:09:17.600 35 would be enough to recall that that elected official but let's say you have um elected official
00:09:26.480 who is favorable like 50 or something so that threshold of 35 you could potentially file that
00:09:34.400 petition but it would work that hey this is a favorable mayor or favorable elected official
00:09:40.160 so you're literally going to waste your time and money trying to kick him out but this was designed
00:09:45.680 the petition was designed to get rid of mayors or elected officials that were not doing their job
00:09:53.120 and if we have the the least favorable mayor in potentially the history of calgary we have unlimited
00:09:59.360 resources potentially and unlimited helpers because it turns out people from outside of calgary can now
00:10:07.280 volunteer we were under the impression that only calgarians could help us but now the pool of
00:10:13.920 volunteers has grown exponentially because yesterday we found out people outside of calgary can come in
00:10:19.920 and help us canvas get signatures they just have to be canadian citizen and over 18. so like i said with
00:10:26.640 all their resources and and um i'm like i just want to prove that this would be impossible i want to
00:10:34.960 prove like even everything we have it's impossible to implement this at such a large scale and hopefully
00:10:41.440 they'll change it so calgary mayor jody gonick responded to these recall efforts she said it stings a
00:10:47.360 little bit and she also warned calgarians who signed the petition that she isn't sure whether their
00:10:53.440 information will be kept private we're going to play that clip for you guys now now you've got a
00:10:57.840 recall opportunity where people will be disclosing their personal information to an individual and
00:11:06.000 i'm not really sure how confidentially that will be kept or what will happen with that information
00:11:11.200 landon what's your response to her i guess fear-mongering tactic here yeah that's exactly what it is like
00:11:17.200 that's that like she's she's basically pointing out the flaw of the petition that was designed by the 0.72
00:11:24.000 government like you know it is it is a lot of information we need a signature full name address
00:11:30.240 either your phone number or your email address like that's that's more information than i would
00:11:35.840 want to give the government um because i've had my my identity stolen and all i can tell people is like
00:11:43.360 that's that's just the mayor being afraid and using fear to to sow division because i have i i've had
00:11:50.640 had people say landon i really want to sign this petition but i don't want to give up my information
00:11:55.520 and i'm just like i understand like that's that's scary but the only people that are going to retain
00:11:59.680 this information are going to be the people we handed into right because by law we have to destroy all
00:12:06.080 records once it's handed in to us and i have no intention of of retaining anyone's information like
00:12:14.160 that's that would be breaking the law and i don't want to go to jail so um all i can say is we have
00:12:20.480 no intention of using anyone's data and it's actually the government that you should be afraid of because
00:12:26.240 we have to hand this into them and i don't know what they're going to do with it because i asked for
00:12:30.880 um the the records of the chain of custody once these are handed in
00:12:34.400 um and hopefully that they're destroyed because i i believe it says in the legislation that it will
00:12:40.720 be destroyed after the 45 days of certified certified certification is up um so again she's using
00:12:50.080 the fear of the rules against calgarians which isn't fair because you know the government already
00:12:57.760 has all that information like every like you're not giving us any information that you haven't already
00:13:02.560 given up to the government right like we're just that's just what they need to verify the signature
00:13:08.720 so if they call you i think they said they call like three or four percent of the total signatures
00:13:14.400 to verify that you are who you say you are and signed it or whatever so um but yeah as far as i know the
00:13:23.680 rest of the information is destroyed or has to be destroyed just my last question for you here
00:13:28.960 how much longer are i guess two questions rather how much longer do people have to sign the petition
00:13:34.160 and where can they get updates and learn where to sign it uh yeah so we have a website uh recall
00:13:40.480 mayor gondek.com um and so that'll have the nearest locations uh where you can sign um so basically
00:13:48.240 it'll be updated hopefully every day and then the most important thing it'll have your nearest commissioner
00:13:53.200 so if you have finished petitions we're asking like even if it's just like 10 12 people that have
00:13:59.440 signed it hand it into a commissioner and then they'll give you more petitions or you can download
00:14:04.160 more petitions um it's just we can't really get an official count and still until people start handing
00:14:09.360 in petitions and we're asking people to do it regularly instead of waiting till the last week because
00:14:15.600 that's going to be a gong show for us trying to collect all the petitions that are out there
00:14:20.560 um so yeah go to the website there's um hopefully all the information you need um we're updating it
00:14:26.720 and refining it every day um there is a twitter account um recall gondek yyc um where we'll be
00:14:33.440 posting like updated locations um and i just want to say a lot of businesses have stepped up and it's
00:14:41.760 that's it's it's weird i never thought it would be brave but it i feel like it's been brave of a lot
00:14:46.960 of businesses and individuals to step up um because a lot of people are scared they're scared of
00:14:51.680 retribution by the city for signing this or being a part of it um which terrifies me because
00:14:59.840 you know it's it was never about being brave but i guess like it does take a bit of courage to like
00:15:06.000 go against the government but i mean this is an opportunity for us as citizens to really
00:15:12.160 voice our opinion and let them know like um this isn't the way it's going to be from now on right
00:15:20.240 like i've been getting calls from all over north america um people keeping an eye on this because
00:15:25.440 if they see that people have a voice and have the courage and and strength to fight then there's other
00:15:34.720 like locations right across the world that are going to see this that it's possible to fight and stand up
00:15:40.000 against um you know policies that are degrading and um destroying our way of life right like so like
00:15:48.960 it's it's huge like it can be huge it just takes a little bit of courage to to put yourself out there
00:15:54.480 and sign it um or convince your loved ones or friends or family to be like hey don't be scared to
00:16:00.560 sign it like we need this we need these signatures we need you to get out um and it seems like a small
00:16:05.840 thing just to sign it um but in in the end like it's going to be huge like we're going to have
00:16:11.360 um a large number of people like we're just getting started like it's taken time to put teams together
00:16:16.560 and door knockers and and businesses and i mean we have five weeks left which isn't a lot like we're
00:16:22.320 up against the clock but we're just kind of getting the ball rolling like it's it's now we're we're out
00:16:27.520 there we're at plus 15s we're um at grocery stores um you know getting kicked out of libraries and
00:16:34.160 and really pushing the limits to where we can and can't get signatures because you know i think
00:16:39.200 it's important for the next people to file petitions to know what the boundaries are right
00:16:43.520 like if you can't go where the public congregates then again this just makes it that much harder to
00:16:48.880 to get signatures so right absolutely well we look forward to following this story with interest
00:16:54.320 over the next couple of weeks thank you so much for joining us today landon thanks rachel all
00:16:58.000 right everyone that's all we have time for today as always please like this video and subscribe
00:17:02.720 to true north we will be back with more content on saturday i hope you guys have a
00:17:07.360 great rest of your week god bless