{"id":320202,"date":"2025-12-02T09:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T09:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/320202\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T09:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T09:11:16","slug":"albertas-smith-only-has-herself-to-blame-for-recall-petitions-labour-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/320202\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s Smith only has herself to blame for recall petitions: Labour leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president of the Alberta Federation of Labour says Premier Danielle Smith only has herself to blame for her United Conservative Party caucus facing more than a dozen recall petitions.<\/p>\n

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While Smith has credited Gil McGowan and other labour leaders for the recent outburst of campaigns and accused them of abusing the process in an attempt to overthrow her government, McGowan says his involvement to date has been minimal.<\/p>\n

McGowan told reporters Monday that while he had previously promised to get involved after the government invoked the Charter\u2019s notwithstanding clause to end a provincewide teacher\u2019s strike, he quickly learned the law largely prevents organizations like his from engaging in the recall process.<\/p>\n

He said claims made by the premier and some of her ministers in recent weeks that the federation has been organizing, funding and even busing people into ridings to aid what are now 14 active petitions, are false. McGowan said his involvement to date has been limited to spreading the word about where people can sign and how they can get involved.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUnion members in this province do support recall campaigns, but we also follow the letter of the law, and the letter of law makes it very clear that the recall campaigns have to be organized independently,\u201d McGowan said.<\/p>\n

He added the premier\u2019s accusations, especially busing people in, also \u201cdidn\u2019t make sense\u201d as the law prohibits those who don\u2019t live in a riding from signing a petition or canvassing for signatures.<\/p>\n

If either was happening, he agreed that it would be caught by Elections Alberta when it comes time to verify signatures and that petitions would likely be invalidated.<\/p>\n

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McGowan said he thinks Smith is trying to paint him and the labour movement as the reason changes need to be made to the Recall Act.<\/p>\n

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\u201cShe knows that it\u2019s pretty indefensible, so she\u2019s looking for a fig leaf. We in the labour movement are the fig leaf,\u201d McGowan said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is not about protecting Albertans. This is not about protecting democracy. This is simply about the UCP protecting themselves and everyone should see it for what it really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith has recently said they are consulting on making changes to the Recall Act. She brought it up with grassroots party members at the UCP\u2019s annual convention over the weekend.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tFive more Alberta UCP legislature members facing recall, bringing total to 14\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Smith undertook a straw poll with those in attendance Friday, judging the crowd\u2019s support for tightened recall rules or support for leaving the process alone and betting that petitioners would fail.<\/p>\n

The second option received \u201ca little bit less clapping,\u201d as Smith assessed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people are a bit frustrated that it\u2019s being used this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Smith didn\u2019t immediately respond to questions about McGowan\u2019s comments, but the premier told reporters Monday that there will be changes tabled to \u201celection legislation\u201d later this week.<\/p>\n

Heather Jenkins, a spokesperson for Justice Minister Mickey Amery said those changes won\u2019t include any amendments to the recall process.<\/p>\n

\u201cCabinet and caucus discussed this further and are not planning any changes to the Recall Act at this time,\u201d Jenkins said in an email.<\/p>\n

Many petitioners behind the ongoing signature campaigns to remove members of Smith\u2019s caucus have cited the use of the notwithstanding clause as a driving factor, while others have said it was their representative\u2019s lack of communication and advocacy for local issues that sparked their campaigns.<\/p>\n

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Most of the legislature members have answered back, rejecting the claims they are not listening while listing the local projects and initiatives accomplished on their watch.<\/p>\n

Those behind the 14 campaigns have three months to collect signatures equal to 60 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the constituency in the 2023 election.<\/p>\n

If successful, a vote is held on whether the representative gets to keep their seat. If the member loses, a byelection is held.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta MLA recall rules\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The president of the Alberta Federation of Labour says Premier Danielle Smith only has herself to blame for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[116193,142246,53105,142247,43,44,714,41,39,42,40,53112],"class_list":["post-320202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta-federation-of-labour","tag-alberta-recall-legislation","tag-danielle-smith","tag-gil-mcgowan","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ucp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320202","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=320202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}