{"id":265074,"date":"2025-11-06T07:27:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/265074\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T07:27:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:27:17","slug":"no-changes-coming-at-the-moment-for-albertas-recall-legislation-danielle-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/265074\/","title":{"rendered":"No changes coming \u2018at the moment\u2019 for Alberta\u2019s recall legislation: Danielle Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government has no plans to change provincial recall legislation<\/a> \u2014 at least, for the moment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The legislation has been brought to the forefront lately, as two petitions were recently given the green light by Elections Alberta<\/a>, kick-starting efforts to unseat members of Smith\u2019s United Conservative caucus, with more petitions potentially on the way.<\/p>\n

Smith, during question period Wednesday, said she\u2019s concerned such petition drives aren\u2019t using the legislation in good faith but instead are trying to overthrow her government.<\/p>\n

Facing heckles and questions from the Opposition NDP about the framing of the petitioners\u2019 goals, one of Smith\u2019s ministers pointed to Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan last week advocating for recalls to \u201ctopple this government\u201d as payback for the government\u2019s use of the Charter\u2019s notwithstanding clause to end a provincewide teachers strike.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can tell you that kind of language does not say to me that they\u2019re engaging in the recall process in good faith,\u201d Smith told the house.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat being said \u2026 there is no legislation on the table at the moment to make any changes, so the members are going to wait and see if any of these petitions end up getting the number of signatures and then we\u2019ll deal with it at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two petitions approved so far are for Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides and backbencher Angela Pitt. In both cases, the applicants behind the recall efforts have said their motivations aren\u2019t aimed at toppling Alberta\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

The applicant behind Nicolaides\u2019 petition has said the ministers\u2019 lack of support for public education is what motivated her to take action, while the Airdrie, Alta., resident behind Pitt\u2019s petition has said he wants a more responsive representative who can take action on the community\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n

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Pitt\u2019s petitioner, Derek Keenan, also said Tuesday he didn\u2019t want the NDP to move in and pick up the seat, citing the community\u2019s conservative values.<\/p>\n

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said in question period that Smith\u2019s disregard for the petitioners\u2019 concerns flies in the face of the government\u2019s proclaimed support for direct democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlbertans are wondering what rights this government will trample on next, what freedoms they will take away next, and this government is worrying about who will be recalled next,\u201d Nenshi said.<\/p>\n

Those behind the petition drives have three months to collect signatures in the riding that are equal to at least 60 per cent of the votes cast in the 2023 election.<\/p>\n

If the petition drives are successful and the signatures are validated, a vote would be held within four months in each riding. If more than half the voters cast a ballot to remove either Pitt or Nicolaides, they would be unseated as members of the legislature.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government has no plans to change provincial recall legislation \u2014 at least,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7611,111707,43,44,714,122321,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-265074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alberta-legislature","9":"tag-elections-alberta","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-recall-legislation","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}