The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - NDP trying to recall 9 UCP MLAs will BACKFIRE!

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here.

00:00:02.800 So apparently the Alberta political left is attempting to blow itself up right now,

00:00:08.100 Wile E. Coyote style, because they just don't like Premier Daniel Smith and the UCB government.

00:00:15.940 Remember, when the NDP were in power in 2015 to 2019 in Alberta,

00:00:21.760 they never brought in recall legislation.

00:00:24.200 It took for former Premier Jason Kenney to bring in recall legislation,

00:00:28.100 which admittedly still made the threshold so high to recall someone,

00:00:31.980 it effectively just said you couldn't recall anyone.

00:00:34.400 But current Premier Daniel Smith has greatly reduced the amount of people

00:00:38.380 you need to sign a form in order to actually have a recall approved.

00:00:42.820 And now the NDP is exploiting it in order to thumb their nose at the UCP

00:00:47.660 because they gave a very generous offer to the Alberta Teachers Association.

00:00:52.940 The Alberta Teachers Association had two separate tantrums over the same

00:00:57.080 very generous offer.

00:00:59.040 Daniel Smith imposed the deal on the ATA.

00:01:02.920 And now this is apparently like the worst thing that's ever happened in Alberta's history.

00:01:07.020 And we need to recall nine separate MLAs because of it.

00:01:11.400 Now, they could actually end up recalling these MLAs.

00:01:15.280 You don't need that many signatures to actually do it.

00:01:18.260 But they would succeed in getting these recall petitions through at their own peril.

00:01:22.100 Now, the Alberta NDP isn't actually the ones carrying out the petitioning directly for the recalls.

00:01:28.980 They're not allowed to.

00:01:30.240 It must remain completely nonpartisan.

00:01:33.040 Only people from the riding itself are allowed to participate in the recall campaign.

00:01:38.440 They cannot be compensated.

00:01:39.700 There's a lot of reasonable rules around this.

00:01:41.640 But they could still conceivably get someone like Education Minister Demetrius Nicolaitis recalled,

00:01:47.960 and then he has to face a by-election.

00:01:50.640 But I think if they succeed on any of these,

00:01:52.920 they're going to get absolutely pummeled in the by-election,

00:01:56.360 that being the Alberta NDP.

00:01:58.600 Because you can maybe not like a government policy.

00:02:01.320 Or maybe you do think the teachers deserved more money.

00:02:04.100 I can tell you, the offer from the Alberta government was perfectly reasonable.

00:02:09.340 12% raises over three years, including 17% raises for certain positions

00:02:14.860 where their wages would be greatly keeping up because of some things holding them back.

00:02:19.000 3,000 new teachers, 1,500 more teacher assistants.

00:02:22.260 It was a perfectly reasonable offer.

00:02:25.600 The ATA just rejected it because they are an Alberta NDP front group

00:02:29.920 and are attempting to make Danielle Smith look bad.

00:02:32.420 Everything just roots back to the fact they do not like Danielle Smith,

00:02:37.200 and so now they're going after her MLAs to see if they can create bad headlines for her. 0.98

00:02:42.920 Let's just quickly go over the people that are attempting to recall.

00:02:45.880 Then I do want to go into some polling showing that

00:02:47.760 the position of the ATA and the Alberta NDP is not a strong one right now.

00:02:54.460 So Sean Imato from CTV News says,

00:02:57.640 Now some of these are pretty ridiculous because if you know where Angela Pitt or I think Jeff Sidgerton

00:03:21.280 is currently a MLA, they're very conservative rural ridings, 0.85

00:03:26.600 so that would be completely ridiculous to try and recall them there.

00:03:30.400 But again, the unions have nothing better to do but target a bunch of them

00:03:34.080 because they are not allowed to concentrate their forces in one riding to try and trip up that MLA.

00:03:39.380 You even need to have cards identifying yourself as being on the recall campaign.

00:03:45.480 You're a local.

00:03:46.360 You don't have your address there, but they have to verify that you indeed do live there.

00:03:51.460 Or else, again, it would be very easy to recall someone by just bringing in 300 volunteers

00:03:55.880 from around the province to get all the signatures in one day.

00:03:58.880 It must be locals only getting signatures from locals,

00:04:02.380 and if you get too many signatures from outside the riding,

00:04:04.720 they will just completely reject the whole petition

00:04:07.140 because, hey, you're just trying to mass sign people up

00:04:09.640 and hope enough of them are from the area.

00:04:11.620 That's not fair.

00:04:13.080 But again, everyone still knows this is being backed up by the NDP.

00:04:18.100 And the main prize in all this is probably Demetrius Nicolaitis

00:04:21.780 because he is the education minister.

00:04:24.360 Now, his election in 2023 was pretty close.

00:04:27.920 He only beat his NDP opponent by, like, 400 or 500 votes,

00:04:31.980 which isn't the biggest margin ever in Alberta provincial politics.

00:04:36.020 But the thing is, once you force people to go back to the polls 0.98

00:04:39.420 for an objectively stupid reason, 0.98

00:04:42.100 you're going to have people backlash on you hard. 0.99

00:04:45.140 Now, I want to show you who people sympathize more with

00:04:48.160 when it came to the deal with the ATA.

00:04:50.600 These numbers are going to seem a little bit odd to you at first

00:04:54.480 because it seems like the government's in a bad position.

00:04:57.040 But with some historical context,

00:04:59.940 you'll know why the government's actually in a very good position here.

00:05:03.140 This is from Angus Reid.

00:05:04.420 And the question here was,

00:05:05.880 in this dispute between the Alberta government and the teachers,

00:05:08.740 what do you say your sympathies are more with,

00:05:11.580 and it's the teachers or the government, neither or not sure?

00:05:16.640 Now, UCP is obviously mostly on the side of the government,

00:05:20.660 although it's actually not that obvious if you know anything about politics,

00:05:23.960 but 40% of people who voted UCP or say that they voted UCP in 2023

00:05:29.360 say their sympathies are with the government.

00:05:32.460 Only 28% are with the teachers.

00:05:34.320 28% are neither.

00:05:36.080 NDP, 8% are with the teachers.

00:05:38.640 I believe it was like 2% with the government,

00:05:41.020 89% with the teachers,

00:05:45.420 which is really just the NDP front group, the ATA.

00:05:47.620 But if you go to school-aged children,

00:05:51.360 people with school-aged children,

00:05:52.740 22% are with the government,

00:05:55.780 56% are with the teachers.

00:05:59.500 And when you go to people without kids,

00:06:01.020 it is obviously greatly reduced the amount of people

00:06:03.340 who sided with the government.

00:06:05.240 Now, this doesn't look good for the UCP.

00:06:07.700 Look how underwater they are.

00:06:09.500 The difference is,

00:06:10.500 in every single other union dispute,

00:06:13.580 maybe except for the recent Canadian postal worker strike,

00:06:16.600 usually it's like 90-10.

00:06:19.160 It's like 85-15 in terms of people with the teachers

00:06:24.220 compared to people with the government

00:06:25.600 or people with the something-something union

00:06:28.660 or with the government.

00:06:29.760 If you did the Air Canada strike,

00:06:32.260 most people would have been in favor

00:06:33.540 of the flight attendants and everyone else.

00:06:36.680 And pretty much nobody would be in favor

00:06:38.620 of what Carney's government had done,

00:06:40.600 even if, in fact,

00:06:42.180 the flight attendants were kind of acting unreasonable

00:06:44.020 if you had the full nuanced view of what was going on.

00:06:46.420 Didn't mean the government was being reasonable.

00:06:48.460 It's just more so bad regulations

00:06:50.400 from the government have forced a situation

00:06:52.500 where the airlines have to underpay flight attendants.

00:06:56.460 And so the flight attendants strike against the airlines

00:06:58.560 when really the government's at fault.

00:07:00.460 That's another story for another day, though.

00:07:02.460 But typically speaking,

00:07:03.800 the vast, vast majority of people,

00:07:05.400 including conservative voters,

00:07:06.800 will always be in favor of the teachers

00:07:08.520 because, hey, it's the sympathetic group.

00:07:10.920 Who wants to say they sympathize

00:07:12.480 with the government here?

00:07:13.460 But I've talked to a lot of UCP MLAs.

00:07:17.760 None of them are getting letters about this.

00:07:20.020 Outside of obvious forum letters

00:07:22.080 coming in from teacher union members themselves,

00:07:25.360 they're not getting any parents saying,

00:07:27.000 I can't believe you guys

00:07:28.420 didn't give a better offer to the teachers.

00:07:30.400 People hearing about it on the news don't care.

00:07:32.720 People having these petitioners come to their door

00:07:35.060 and saying we need to recall Demetrius Nicolaitis

00:07:37.840 are going to be frankly offended

00:07:39.700 that someone thinks that their MLA needs to be recalled

00:07:42.520 and they need to hold a new election

00:07:43.900 because they didn't get another $2 billion

00:07:46.720 on top of the $4.9 billion

00:07:49.160 the government was already giving to the ATA teachers.

00:07:53.420 I guarantee if most teachers

00:07:54.740 really understood the deal in detail,

00:07:58.600 they would have supported it.

00:08:00.160 It's just the NDP activists at the top of the ATA

00:08:04.000 who convinced 89% of their members

00:08:06.480 to reject the deal that the government had put forward.

00:08:09.200 It was perfectly reasonable

00:08:10.940 and Daniel Smith was absolutely right

00:08:13.120 to make them go back to work with Bill 1

00:08:15.760 and enforce her ruling with the notwithstanding clause.

00:08:19.260 No, you do not have a right to strike

00:08:21.600 on the taxpayer dime

00:08:23.320 because you thought you needed the ultra generous offer

00:08:26.940 instead of the very generous offer.

00:08:29.820 Not going to work here.

00:08:31.420 But let's jump over to NDP leader Naheed Nenshi

00:08:35.560 who is trying to make some sort of hay

00:08:38.200 out of this whole thing 0.99

00:08:39.260 about how the UCP is hypocritical. 0.99

00:08:41.660 He's the one being hypocritical here. 0.94

00:08:44.260 So I'm bringing this back up on screen. 0.88

00:08:47.300 So this is Nenshi speaking in the legislature

00:08:50.380 trying to call out Daniel Smith's apparent hypocrisy.

00:08:54.560 Now, a couple of days ago,

00:08:57.240 the government's minister said

00:08:58.600 that this legislation was only meant

00:09:01.600 to be used to get rid of criminals in elected office.

00:09:04.600 But the premier has said,

00:09:06.240 quote,

00:09:06.300 I would hazard a guess

00:09:07.560 that if recall legislation were in place right now,

00:09:10.060 there would be a number of cabinet ministers

00:09:12.180 who would have a hard time keeping their seats, unquote.

00:09:14.920 She surely wasn't calling

00:09:15.980 those cabinet ministers criminals.

00:09:17.500 So who's right here?

00:09:18.440 What does today's premier think of recall?

00:09:20.200 Yeah, so what's his point, though?

00:09:24.260 The NDP never brought in recall into place.

00:09:26.800 Her only thing is that recall would be used

00:09:29.680 to unfairly target cabinet ministers

00:09:31.800 for no real purpose.

00:09:34.060 The NDP is trying to make a lot

00:09:35.380 out of Daniel Smith's comments

00:09:36.680 about how the NDP and their activists

00:09:38.700 are abusing recall.

00:09:40.780 She's not gone back on recall.

00:09:42.560 She's the one who lowered the petition threshold.

00:09:45.380 She's just lamenting the fact

00:09:46.740 that the NDP are going to make this

00:09:47.980 a political process

00:09:49.060 rather than a grassroots nonpartisan process

00:09:52.340 like your MLA was stealing money

00:09:55.460 or your MLA went on a luxury cruise

00:09:58.320 and had billed taxpayers for it

00:10:00.620 and it was deeply inappropriate.

00:10:02.440 That would be fine.

00:10:03.580 Like during COVID,

00:10:04.560 there was probably people

00:10:05.420 who should have been recalled

00:10:06.480 both from the UCP and the NDP in Alberta

00:10:09.620 for going on vacations and traveling

00:10:11.900 while everyone was locked up at home.

00:10:13.800 That would have made sense at the time.

00:10:15.780 You're going to go after Demetrius

00:10:17.220 because the ATA didn't get everything it wanted. 0.99

00:10:20.240 Utterly pathetic. 0.97

00:10:21.160 And I don't think that the actual people of Alberta 0.99

00:10:23.860 are going to put up with this.

00:10:24.840 If you look at the current polling,

00:10:26.660 the UCP is still winning widely

00:10:28.500 with Albertans when it comes

00:10:30.500 to just provincial voter preference.

00:10:33.500 I'll show you guys here

00:10:35.240 with the overall polls that we've had

00:10:37.640 over the last couple of months or so.

00:10:39.980 This is the current numbers

00:10:41.600 that we're seeing out of Alberta.

00:10:44.420 We have, ignoring the Cardinal poll

00:10:49.120 because Cardinal's been a bit iffy these days,

00:10:51.680 but we have Leger showing the Conservatives,

00:10:54.020 the UCP beating the NDP by five points.

00:10:57.680 We'll throw Cardinal in there anyways.

00:10:59.560 They're beating them by seven points on Cardinal.

00:11:02.420 Angus Reid has the Conservatives

00:11:04.500 beating the NDP by 11 points.

00:11:07.100 Leger has them beating the NDP by 14 points.

00:11:11.620 And I think the one below that,

00:11:12.800 if the Fulpin ads would get out of my way,

00:11:15.140 is beating them.

00:11:16.540 Is it there?

00:11:18.420 Janet Brown, who's like one of the most accurate pollsters

00:11:20.780 in the entire country,

00:11:22.760 had the UCP like destroying the NDP by eight points

00:11:26.800 or like nine points.

00:11:27.920 Now that's not as big as 14 points,

00:11:30.100 but Janet Brown's extremely accurate.

00:11:32.160 If she says you're winning by eight or nine points,

00:11:34.360 you are winning by eight or nine points.

00:11:36.080 And eight or nine points would be another large majority.

00:11:39.000 And when you actually went through the regionals,

00:11:40.680 the Conservatives would be picking up more seats in Calgary

00:11:43.320 and maybe able to peel off a seat in Edmonton

00:11:46.280 because a lot of parts of Edmonton

00:11:47.680 are actually becoming more Conservative,

00:11:49.760 not less Conservative,

00:11:51.120 especially on a federal level.

00:11:53.420 But again,

00:11:54.940 all this is because Daniel Smith is actually succeeding.

00:11:58.860 I am going to be going to the UCPA GM this weekend.

00:12:02.580 And I actually voted against Daniel Smith

00:12:05.260 at the last leadership review

00:12:06.820 at the UCPA GM in 2024.

00:12:09.920 Now there's not another leadership review this year,

00:12:11.820 but if there was,

00:12:12.660 I'd vote for her this time.

00:12:14.860 Previously,

00:12:15.300 I knew she was going to pass her leadership review.

00:12:17.420 And I just didn't like that the government

00:12:18.620 was on certain files going in the wrong direction

00:12:21.180 or being too sluggish with getting policy proposed.

00:12:23.740 And so I voted no as a symbolic gesture to say,

00:12:27.120 you guys have room for improvement.

00:12:29.020 I don't want this room to be 100% in favor of Daniel Smith

00:12:31.720 when the UCP still needs to cut taxes.

00:12:34.640 They still need to actually pass their reforms

00:12:37.920 when it comes to,

00:12:39.460 you know,

00:12:41.020 it was all like the SOGI type gender policies

00:12:45.680 in the classroom.

00:12:46.800 They need to actually start actually opposing

00:12:49.320 the federal government on mass immigration.

00:12:51.180 And they started doing all that stuff

00:12:52.780 and I'm happy with it.

00:12:54.240 It's been quite good.

00:12:55.120 The provincial police has gotten much more in shape.

00:12:58.540 They've actually turned it into more of a real thing

00:13:01.000 rather than a concept.

00:13:02.440 So I'd vote for her in all this now.

00:13:05.100 But it's funny how now that Daniel Smith's doing a good job,

00:13:08.700 you have more people than ever actually criticizing her.

00:13:12.340 You have people like Peter Guthrie

00:13:14.640 and Scott Sinclair trying to restart the Alberta,

00:13:17.400 like the progressive conservatives,

00:13:18.860 because apparently Daniel Smith's too right wing now.

00:13:22.600 Too right wing in Alberta terms

00:13:24.500 really just means you're doing a good job

00:13:26.180 and the left doesn't like it.

00:13:29.260 Do I have even anything here?

00:13:31.140 It doesn't even matter.

00:13:31.800 I'm trying to find...

00:13:33.280 Guys, look, the NDP is very hard at work here.

00:13:37.360 The NDP, this is the NDP opposing Daniel Smith right now.

00:13:41.520 Janice Irwin taking photos with cosplayers.

00:13:45.740 Janice Irwin retweeting this.

00:13:47.280 But there's really nothing to say here.

00:13:53.300 The NDP, when you actually go through their policies,

00:13:55.960 of course, Janice Irwin, the MLA from whatever riding she's from in Edmonton,

00:14:02.740 retweeting Times of Gaza.

00:14:05.600 Because she, in fact, is basically retweeting the UNRWA,

00:14:09.420 the Hamas Front Group,

00:14:11.020 trying to go after Daniel Smith for apparently spending too much.

00:14:15.140 Here's another tweet about Gaza from July.

00:14:19.160 They also basically never use X other than to whine about Israel 0.99

00:14:22.280 because these people don't actually care about Alberta.

00:14:25.200 They only show up to whine about international things

00:14:27.340 and then whine at Daniel Smith for, again,

00:14:30.360 not giving the teachers everything they want.

00:14:32.060 But I think if we see any of these by-elections go forward as a result of recall,

00:14:37.140 you're going to see the NDP get absolutely shellacked,

00:14:40.720 and they should.

00:14:41.820 It's an abuse of recall.

00:14:43.240 They're allowed to do it,

00:14:44.480 but they are also allowed to suffer the consequences

00:14:46.820 of average Albertans saying,

00:14:49.160 you're forcing me into a by-election,

00:14:50.620 so I'm just going to re-elect the same person even harder this time.

00:14:53.520 And if you're a UCP member and somebody gets recalled in your area

00:14:57.280 or even in the next riding over,

00:14:59.800 volunteer your time and make sure to push back hard on this nonsense.

00:15:03.100 We actually have a recall situation in British Columbia, too.

00:15:05.920 I work at the BC legislature for 1BC,

00:15:08.220 and I think I showed you guys in a previous video,

00:15:11.100 we have Premier David Evey calling for the two MLAs I work with,

00:15:15.600 Dallas Brody and Tara Armstrong,

00:15:18.540 to be recalled because of their bigotry and racism

00:15:22.340 in opposing land acknowledgements

00:15:24.460 and the Truth and Reconciliation Day

00:15:27.720 based on the lie of mass graves in Kamloops

00:15:30.000 and wanting DRIPA repealed. 1.00

00:15:33.280 These people are ridiculous. 0.98

00:15:34.660 They just don't like people who don't agree with them ideologically. 0.98

00:15:38.440 Anyways, that should be it for me today, guys.

00:15:41.040 Thank you all for watching.

00:15:42.520 Like, share, and subscribe,

00:15:43.940 and I'll see you guys next time,

00:15:45.800 or if you're at the UCP AGM,

00:15:47.700 I will also see you on the weekend

00:15:49.580 where there will be thousands of people there

00:15:51.780 because UCP AGMs are absolutely stuffed to the brim.

00:15:56.020 I genuinely actually think that UCP needs to reform

00:15:58.480 the way they do AGMs.

00:15:59.820 I don't like having only, like, 10 people per riding.

00:16:03.240 Sometimes it makes the conventions pretty small

00:16:05.200 on a provincial level

00:16:07.520 when parties with only 90 ridings

00:16:09.380 only have up to 10 people who can each attend.

00:16:12.400 I think that there should be a cap still, though,

00:16:14.460 because in Alberta you'll have, like, 300 people

00:16:16.660 from a single riding show up,

00:16:18.440 which isn't really democratic

00:16:20.600 in the sense that obviously you're going to have ridings

00:16:23.440 where people are more passionate

00:16:25.060 about UCP internal politics

00:16:27.240 than people in ridings in Calgary

00:16:30.060 where you actually need them to win,

00:16:31.960 but they're only going to send 25

00:16:33.640 compared to 300 from, like, Didsbury.

00:16:35.860 I think you have to cap it off.

00:16:38.080 Have more than 10 per riding,

00:16:39.600 but maybe cap it off at, like,

00:16:41.500 30 or 50 people per riding are allowed to show up.

00:16:45.460 Anyways, with that all being said,

00:16:47.600 again, thank you all for watching.

00:16:49.520 See you all later.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - November 25, 2025

NDP trying to recall 9 UCP MLAs will BACKFIRE!

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript