The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - February 28, 2024


Petition to recall Gondek continues to gain momentum

Hosted by
Isaac Lamoureux
Mentioned
Jody Gonnick
Trudeau visits Alberta and snubs Smith Ottawa denies Alberta’s drug hunt scheme

Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

179.0

Word count

3,075

Sentence count

4

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

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 of the roundup, we speak with Landon about his efforts to recall the mayor of Calgary, 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 emmanuel today we are joined
00:00:17.100 by the infamous landon johnston he is the man who started the petition to recall calgary mayor
00:00:23.300 jody gondek landon thanks for joining us today thanks for having me rachel so first and foremost
00:00:29.740 obviously this is a pretty big feat that you've endeavored on can you explain sort of why you
00:00:35.300 decided to try and recall the mayor i think like a lot of calgarians like we've been frustrated with
00:00:42.520 the decisions and policies and um basically the last two years of what's been going on in council
00:00:50.500 um it's just it's just been one thing after another that's not it's not making it easier
00:00:57.440 for calgarians to live or stay in calgary um and then i just saw an opportunity to file a petition
00:01:04.980 and i took it um i no one asked me to do it and uh i just i thought i was going to be doing it by
00:01:11.660 myself like legit thought it was just going to be me so yeah so it's really been a grassroots efforts
00:01:18.680 i'm assuming when you're saying she hasn't made it easy to live in the city one of the things we can
00:01:22.540 look to for example is her increase of the tax by 7.8 that's an absolutely astronomical tax hike 0.99
00:01:29.300 especially when we're looking at the rising costs of pretty much everything right now
00:01:32.860 um i'm also wondering specifically you know just this last year she tried to cancel canada day
00:01:37.860 celebrations what did you think about that i think if the mayor wants to be a cultural icon
00:01:46.580 um because i find a lot of her decisions aren't based off of what's best for the city but it seems
00:01:53.040 that what's best for her and if she wants to be a cultural icon she doesn't have to be a mayor to do 0.96
00:01:58.980 that she can quit and just be uh the head of whatever she wants to be it doesn't have to be a mayor 1.00
00:02:06.520 um it just seems like a lot of those policies benefit her um and maybe like a small minority of
00:02:13.460 calgarians that agree with her um and that's just like it people see right through it though like
00:02:19.820 people are just sick of it they're tired of it and you know call it what you want woke agenda whatever
00:02:25.600 it is it's it's not benefiting us like it's it's causing um more division amongst us like calgarians
00:02:34.180 and canadians and we're done with it like i think we've we're fed up with it and it's just
00:02:38.820 you know this is an opportunity to um let them know like hey like stick to the issues
00:02:45.800 and stop trying to make this about something that we don't actually care about like um like again
00:02:52.200 it's just such a small minority of people that actually care that the mayor is taking it upon
00:02:58.160 herself to um push these agendas but really it's hard to live in calgary like there's so many
00:03:05.380 calgarians on like the brink of bankruptcy or on the brink of losing their house or
00:03:10.300 like it's just like they're so obtuse on their policy decisions like it's just like one little
00:03:15.800 tax after another it just adds up and you know just think of like fixed income calgarians like they 1.00
00:03:21.480 can't they can't afford to live here like it's you know canada itself is becoming um
00:03:28.340 like the inflation by itself is is insane but then it's just yeah like i said like just the taxes
00:03:34.480 this council has like implemented on us is just like a death by a thousand cuts and you know we've
00:03:40.580 had enough of it so when you talk about regular calgarians having enough of this what do you
00:03:45.840 yourself do for a living and how have you found the time to work on this petition are you away from
00:03:49.980 work right now are you taking time off doing it after hours what does your regular day look like
00:03:54.120 right now as you're seeking to get almost half a million or sorry well over half a million signatures
00:03:58.640 um i mean i didn't plan on doing what we're doing right now like i legit was just gonna go on saturdays
00:04:08.440 and to my neighbors and just collect signatures maybe try to get like three four thousand in 60 days
00:04:14.540 um so the fact that this turned out to be a lot bigger than i thought it would be um you know has
00:04:21.680 forced me to adjust my priorities um you know i do a track so that includes furnaces acs service work
00:04:28.800 um so last week i was able to install three air conditioners um you know so that that i made some
00:04:35.600 money last week and then this week i've had some service calls here and there uh but you know i just
00:04:40.340 find like i can if i do if i go to a house in calgary um i'll just go to like 10 or 11 neighbors
00:04:48.060 on either side of the house i'm doing a service call at and get signatures um and then if i go to
00:04:52.980 the grocery store i'll get signatures um and then any free time like i would normally have in the
00:04:59.040 winter i'd just be playing video games or um you know um you know dinking around in the garage and so
00:05:06.240 this has actually given me um a lot of purpose for what i would normally not be doing a lot in the
00:05:12.100 winter time so um this has been it's been fun for me like it's been stressful but um meeting people
00:05:18.180 and you know like listening to like people that also agree with what i'm doing has been a lot of
00:05:24.020 fun and very rewarding um like as an hvac guy like i go to a house and i troubleshoot an issue
00:05:31.560 and you know finding um you know a fix for a problem is very rewarding and so what this petition
00:05:40.400 to me is like i found an issue and i'm working on troubleshooting and and finding solution for it
00:05:46.700 um and there's a lot of other people out there that are are helping with me with that solution
00:05:51.560 and again that's rewarding to me like i enjoy fixing problems or how many other people are actually
00:05:56.960 like working on the campaign with you yeah it's impossible to know the exact number but i mean
00:06:02.280 um again it's just me and then all these other organizations had planned on doing this
00:06:08.660 and i had no idea until they contacted me the day that the petition was certified and they were
00:06:14.420 like hey landon we've got hundreds of volunteers and um we've got website developers and all this
00:06:19.760 stuff so i was like hey you have at it like you don't need my permission to get signatures just bring
00:06:25.640 the signatures to me when you're done um so it's in the hundreds probably five six seven hundred people
00:06:31.180 that have signed up um to volunteer either to canvas or do admin work or help on the website
00:06:36.820 um so it's it's a huge it's a huge amount of people that have been doing this for free like i don't
00:06:44.540 have any money like we're not all the money that's been spent on this is can't come from my bank account
00:06:50.140 at least on my end of it like these other organizations had the infrastructure in place
00:06:55.240 um and i just said you know what do whatever you guys got to do to get signatures and just make sure
00:07:00.560 it's illegal and uh yeah so far it's it's hundreds of people yeah you have hundreds of people working
00:07:07.400 to gather the signatures as i mentioned it's over 514 000 signatures that are needed that's more people
00:07:13.680 than even voted for a mayoral candidate in the 2021 election do you think that this is a fair parameter
00:07:19.580 and how certain are you that you guys are going to be able to get all those signatures
00:07:23.400 it's it's impossible it's just statistically impossible even if you had unlimited resources
00:07:30.760 unlimited helpers um the pool of signatures is like 630 000 potential um calgarians that can sign this
00:07:41.360 but that doesn't take into account um like there's like 30 40 50 000 calgarians who do not speak english
00:07:51.040 so like you have to find people that can communicate with those people to sign the petition um there's
00:07:59.280 elderly that you can't like ethically go into like a um a hospice house to get signatures like it's just
00:08:07.420 like the pool shrinks and shrinks and shrinks the more you think about it because the statistics came
00:08:12.380 from 2019 and those people like people have moved away since the last census or 2019 um and done
00:08:20.880 and then it doesn't include people that have lived here less than six months um you know you just
00:08:26.140 think about um just how diverse the city is like there's there's a lot of boundaries so i'm just
00:08:32.360 saying like that that 600 000 number shrinks down and down and down almost to below the 514 000
00:08:40.320 signature threshold right so it's it's impossible but that was my big mostly about sending a message at
00:08:46.240 this point yeah it's well it's to be honest it's about sending a message about the petition itself
00:08:50.700 because it's it's impossible it should it was never meant to be 40 of the entire population if you look
00:08:57.620 through the bill readings and the select committee's recommendations the recommendations were like 35
00:09:03.360 or 30 even of the uh eligible population that can actually vote and that's possible like that's easy 1.00
00:09:13.360 to do if you have someone who's um unfavorable enough 35 would be enough to recall that that elected
00:09:22.080 official but let's say you have um elected official who is favorable like 50 or something
00:09:30.480 so that threshold of 35 you could potentially file that petition but it would work that hey this is a
00:09:37.360 favorable mayor or favorable elected official so you're literally going to waste your time and money trying to
00:09:43.120 kick him out um but this was designed the petition was designed to get rid of mayors or elected
00:09:49.680 officials that were not doing their job um and if we have the the least favorable mayor in potentially the
00:09:56.720 history of calgary um we have unlimited resources potentially and unlimited helpers um because it turns
00:10:04.560 out people from outside of calgary can now volunteer um we were under the impression that only calgarians could
00:10:11.840 help us um but now the pool of volunteers has grown exponentially because yesterday we found out
00:10:17.680 people outside of calgary can come in and help us canvas get signatures um they just have to be
00:10:23.120 canadian citizen and over 18. um so like i said with all the resources and and um i'm like i just want to
00:10:33.120 prove that this would be impossible i want to prove like even everything we have it's impossible to
00:10:38.320 to implement this at such a large scale and hopefully they'll change it so calgary mayor jody
00:10:44.480 gonick responded to these recall efforts she said it stings a little bit and she also warned calgarians
00:10:50.640 who signed the petition that she isn't sure whether their information will be kept private we're going to play that clip for you guys now
00:10:56.320 now you've got a recall opportunity where people will be disclosing their personal information
00:11:02.960 to an individual and i'm not really sure how confidentially that will be kept or what will
00:11:09.680 happen with that information landon what's your response to her i guess fear-mongering tactic here
00:11:15.600 yeah that's exactly what it is like that's that like she's she's basically pointing out the flaw of
00:11:22.240 the petition that was designed by the government like you know it is it is a lot of information we
00:11:27.520 need uh signature full name address either your phone number or your email address like that's
00:11:33.760 that's more information than i would want to give the government um because i've had my my identity stolen
00:11:41.520 and all i can tell people is like that's that's just the mayor being afraid and using fear to to
00:11:48.400 sow division because i have i i've had had people say landon i really want to sign this petition but
00:11:53.600 i don't want to give up my information and i'm just like i understand like that's that's scary but the
00:11:58.240 only people that are going to retain this information are going to be the people we hand it into right
00:12:03.840 because by law we have to destroy all records once it's handed into us and i have no intention of of
00:12:12.560 retaining anyone's information like that's that would be breaking the law and i don't want to go to jail so
00:12:18.320 all i can say is we have no intention of using anyone's data and it's actually the government
00:12:24.240 that you should be afraid of because we have to hand this into them and i don't know what they're
00:12:28.720 going to do with it because i asked for um the the records of the chain of custody once these are handed in
00:12:35.200 um and hopefully that they're destroyed because i i believe it says in the legislation that it will be
00:12:40.880 destroyed after the 45 days of certified certified certification is up um so again she's using the
00:12:50.320 fear of the rules against calgarians which isn't fair because you know the government already has all 1.00
00:12:58.160 that information like every like you're not giving us any information that you haven't already given up
00:13:03.040 to the government right like we're just that's just what they need to verify the signature so
00:13:09.440 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 or 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 gondec.com um and so that'll have the nearest locations uh where you can sign um so basically it'll
00:13:48.480 be updated hopefully every day and then the most important thing it'll have your nearest commissioner so
00:13:53.440 if you have finished petitions we're asking like even if it's just like 10 12 people that have signed
00:13:59.760 it hand it into a commissioner and then they'll give you more petitions or you can download more
00:14:04.480 petitions um it's just we can't really get an official count and stuff until people start handing
00:14:09.440 in petitions and we're asking people to do it regularly instead of waiting till the last week because
00:14:15.680 that's going to be a gong show for us trying to collect all the petitions that are out there um so yeah go
00:14:21.680 to the website there's um hopefully all the information you need um we're updating it and
00:14:27.120 refining it every day um there is a twitter account um recall gondec yyc um where we'll be posting like
00:14:34.160 updated locations um and i just want to say a lot of businesses have stepped up and it's that's it's
00:14:42.880 it's weird i never thought it would be brave but i feel like it's been brave of a lot of businesses and
00:14:47.840 individuals to step up um because a lot of people are scared they're scared of retribution by the city
00:14:53.280 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
00:15:06.080 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
00:15:20.320 like i've been getting calls from all over north america um people keeping an eye on this because
00:15:25.520 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
00:15:40.080 against um you know policies that are degrading and um destroying our way of life right like so like
00:15:49.040 it's it's huge like it can be huge it just takes a little bit of courage to to put yourself out there
00:15:54.560 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
00:16:05.920 thing just to sign it um but in in the end like it's gonna be huge like we're gonna have um a large
00:16:12.400 number of people like we're just getting started like it's taken time to put teams together and door
00:16:16.960 knockers and and businesses and i mean we have five weeks left which isn't a lot like we're up against
00:16:22.800 the clock but we're just kind of getting the ball rolling like it's it's now we're we're out there
00:16:27.760 we're at plus 15s we're um at grocery stores um you know getting kicked out of libraries and and really
00:16:34.720 pushing the the limits to where we can and can't get signatures because you know i think it's
00:16:39.440 important for the next people to file petitions to know what the boundaries are right like if you
00:16:44.080 can't go where the public congregates then again this just makes it that much harder to to get
00:16:49.280 signatures so right absolutely well we look forward to following this story with interest
00:16:54.400 over the next couple of weeks thank you so much for joining us today landon thanks rachel
00:16:57.920 all right everyone that's all we have time for today as always please like this video
00:17:02.000 and subscribe to true north we will be back with more content on saturday i hope you guys have a
00:17:07.440 great rest of your week god bless