Western Standard - CORY： Alberta's toothless recall and referendum legislation.

00:00:00.000 There were many things that led to the collapse of support for Premier Jason Kenney, you know,

00:00:03.960 within his own base. And a large factor in that demise was his tendency to promise big and deliver

00:00:08.600 small. And Kenney promised many things while running for the leadership of the newly formed

00:00:12.380 UCP. He promised to shore up provincial autonomy within Canada and to stand up against Ottawa.

00:00:18.000 Upon becoming Premier, Kenney struck the Fair Deal panel, which traveled the province for months

00:00:22.000 talking to Alberta about how to change Alberta's relationship with Ottawa. The Fair Deal panel

00:00:26.760 came back with a bunch of recommendations and Premier Kenney didn't implement pretty much one

00:00:30.780 of them. I think there were a couple of little things he did, but the big ones he didn't bother.

00:00:34.040 It was just something to calm the people down. That was starting to frustrate a lot of supporters.

00:00:39.000 He also promised democratic reform, and that's a promise that made me perk up because I've always

00:00:43.000 been a strong believer in direct democracy and political accountability. Now, Kenney did deliver

00:00:47.640 on his promised democratic reforms, but he did it in a way even worse than not tabling legislation at

00:00:53.000 all. The Kenney government created the Recall Act, but they purposely made it completely unworkable.

00:00:58.640 They did the same thing with their Citizens Initiative Act. What the Kenney government did

00:01:02.300 in creating those acts was to tell Kenney's former supporters, the former now, I think you're stupid 1.00

00:01:06.840 enough to accept this as a promise kept. But it turns out the supporters weren't that stupid, 1.00

00:01:11.500 and Kenney is now a former Premier of Alberta due to that. I mean, a bar has to be set to initiate 0.99

00:01:16.860 a recall or referendum. Fair enough, and it has to be fairly high. We don't need every elected

00:01:21.040 person to be constantly fighting off recall campaigns, and we don't need a bunch of referendums

00:01:25.380 held on trivial matters. The bar can't be impossible to meet, though, or the legislation's useless. And

00:01:30.800 that's what the Kenney government set the bar at. They made it impossible. The reason we're hearing

00:01:35.400 about it in the news now, even though this act is years old, is because the 18-month post-election

00:01:40.720 waiting period to try and initiate a recall for municipal politicians has just passed. There's lots of

00:01:47.140 people who have been eagerly awaiting the chance to recall municipal officials, and now they're

00:01:50.720 looking into it and discovering they can't really do it. Think about it. To initiate a municipal

00:01:54.440 recall in Alberta, a person or group has to garner witness signatures from 40% of the population of

00:02:00.140 the ward within 60 days. And that number is often actually higher than the total number of people

00:02:05.560 actually voted in the election. These are real petition signatures, by the way, not some online

00:02:10.360 thing. You need to have the person sign the petition in person on a physical copy with a witness,

00:02:16.260 and they have to provide their address and phone number so the signatures can be confirmed if

00:02:19.340 they need be, and they have to be on the electoral lists. How many people are willing and trusting

00:02:23.560 enough to provide that to a petitioner? I tell you what, going door to door, a person would have to

00:02:27.680 work their ass off just to get 100 signatures a day. And they would somehow need to get tens of thousands

00:02:32.940 of those signatures in 60 days. Yeah, right. Likewise, to initiate a referendum, the bar is ridiculous.

00:02:39.060 A person has a 90-day window to collect signatures from 10% of the province's eligible voters,

00:02:43.340 and that goes to 20% if it's a constitutional issue. Like, this is just beyond the pale. It's

00:02:53.440 insulting, and it's a slap in the face to the people who elected them based on that. Now,

00:03:00.860 you would have been better off just not tabling it at all. You know, to put out something,

00:03:05.360 it's like giving somebody a gun and saying, but I'm not going to allow you to have the bullets.

00:03:08.440 It can still be fixed. Daniel Smith has always shown a lot of support for things like direct

00:03:14.160 democracy and items like that. Perhaps with some encouragement, she could be pushed into amending

00:03:19.100 this bill. These bills don't have to be tossed out, but they need to be fixed. That bar needs to be

00:03:22.940 set, and it needs to be realistic. Of course, no politicians ever like to put accountability

00:03:27.160 legislation in that might actually impact them down the road, and I'm afraid Premier Smith might not

00:03:32.740 even be an exception. So it's up to you guys. Get on her case. Push for that one. Push your MLAs.

00:03:37.500 Get that moving because it's good legislation, but it needs to be, the teeth need to be put back

00:03:43.160 into it that Premier Kenny took out of it when he first modeled it. Canadian Shooting Sports

00:03:47.440 Association. Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago. These guys are on

00:03:53.600 the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in

00:03:59.960 Canada, and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong

00:04:05.380 people. To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

00:04:11.040 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month, or $99 a year for unlimited access.

Western Standard - March 15, 2023

CORY： Alberta's toothless recall and referendum legislation.

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