CORY： Alberta's toothless recall and referendum legislation.
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
210.49348
Summary
Jason Kenney is a former premier of Alberta and now the leader of the United Conservative Party of Canada. In this episode, we talk about the reasons why Jason Kenney failed to deliver on some of his promises, and why he should have done better.
Transcript
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There were many things that led to the collapse of support for Premier Jason Kenney, you know,
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within his own base. And a large factor in that demise was his tendency to promise big and deliver
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small. And Kenney promised many things while running for the leadership of the newly formed
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UCP. He promised to shore up provincial autonomy within Canada and to stand up against Ottawa.
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Upon becoming Premier, Kenney struck the Fair Deal panel, which traveled the province for months
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talking to Alberta about how to change Alberta's relationship with Ottawa. The Fair Deal panel
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came back with a bunch of recommendations and Premier Kenney didn't implement pretty much one
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of them. I think there were a couple of little things he did, but the big ones he didn't bother.
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It was just something to calm the people down. That was starting to frustrate a lot of supporters.
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He also promised democratic reform, and that's a promise that made me perk up because I've always
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been a strong believer in direct democracy and political accountability. Now, Kenney did deliver
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on his promised democratic reforms, but he did it in a way even worse than not tabling legislation at
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all. The Kenney government created the Recall Act, but they purposely made it completely unworkable.
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They did the same thing with their Citizens Initiative Act. What the Kenney government did
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in creating those acts was to tell Kenney's former supporters, the former now, I think you're stupid
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enough to accept this as a promise kept. But it turns out the supporters weren't that stupid,
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and Kenney is now a former Premier of Alberta due to that. I mean, a bar has to be set to initiate
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a recall or referendum. Fair enough, and it has to be fairly high. We don't need every elected
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person to be constantly fighting off recall campaigns, and we don't need a bunch of referendums
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held on trivial matters. The bar can't be impossible to meet, though, or the legislation's useless. And
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that's what the Kenney government set the bar at. They made it impossible. The reason we're hearing
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about it in the news now, even though this act is years old, is because the 18-month post-election
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waiting period to try and initiate a recall for municipal politicians has just passed. There's lots of
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people who have been eagerly awaiting the chance to recall municipal officials, and now they're
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looking into it and discovering they can't really do it. Think about it. To initiate a municipal
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recall in Alberta, a person or group has to garner witness signatures from 40% of the population of
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the ward within 60 days. And that number is often actually higher than the total number of people
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actually voted in the election. These are real petition signatures, by the way, not some online
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thing. You need to have the person sign the petition in person on a physical copy with a witness,
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and they have to provide their address and phone number so the signatures can be confirmed if
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they need be, and they have to be on the electoral lists. How many people are willing and trusting
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enough to provide that to a petitioner? I tell you what, going door to door, a person would have to
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work their ass off just to get 100 signatures a day. And they would somehow need to get tens of thousands
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of those signatures in 60 days. Yeah, right. Likewise, to initiate a referendum, the bar is ridiculous.
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A person has a 90-day window to collect signatures from 10% of the province's eligible voters,
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and that goes to 20% if it's a constitutional issue. Like, this is just beyond the pale. It's
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insulting, and it's a slap in the face to the people who elected them based on that. Now,
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you would have been better off just not tabling it at all. You know, to put out something,
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it's like giving somebody a gun and saying, but I'm not going to allow you to have the bullets.
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It can still be fixed. Daniel Smith has always shown a lot of support for things like direct
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democracy and items like that. Perhaps with some encouragement, she could be pushed into amending
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this bill. These bills don't have to be tossed out, but they need to be fixed. That bar needs to be
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set, and it needs to be realistic. Of course, no politicians ever like to put accountability
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legislation in that might actually impact them down the road, and I'm afraid Premier Smith might not
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even be an exception. So it's up to you guys. Get on her case. Push for that one. Push your MLAs.
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Get that moving because it's good legislation, but it needs to be, the teeth need to be put back
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into it that Premier Kenny took out of it when he first modeled it. Canadian Shooting Sports
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the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in
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Canada, and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong
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people. To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.
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