The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - November 25, 2025


NDP trying to recall 9 UCP MLAs will BACKFIRE!


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

171.03154

Word Count

2,880

Sentence Count

160

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

The Alberta Teachers' Association is trying to recall nine MLAs, including Education Minister Demetrius Nicolaitis, because they don't like Premier Danielle Smith and the Alberta NDP government. I explain why this is bad news for the government and why they should be worried.


Transcript

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.
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,
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
00:04:39.420 for an objectively stupid reason,
00:04:42.100 you're going to have people backlash on you hard.
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
00:08:39.260 about how the UCP is hypocritical.
00:08:41.660 He's the one being hypocritical here.
00:08:44.260 So I'm bringing this back up on screen.
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.
00:10:20.240 Utterly pathetic.
00:10:21.160 And I don't think that the actual people of Alberta
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
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.
00:15:33.280 These people are ridiculous.
00:15:34.660 They just don't like people who don't agree with them ideologically.
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.