Recalling politicians not easy: experts
‘Devil’s in the details,’ says councillor about UCP’S planned recall legislation
Alberta could soon become the second province to allow voters to remove elected officials, as the provincial government opens the door to recalling MLAS, city councillors, mayors and school board trustees.
Recall legislation was a campaign promise for the UCP in 2019, and the government announced in Tuesday’s throne speech that a law would be tabled during the legislature’s spring session. Premier Jason Kenney has previously said recalls could be an accountability measure for elected officials “if they totally violate the trust of voters.”
British Columbia is the only province with recall legislation, which has been in effect for nearly 30 years, but applies only to MLAS. To recall a B.C. MLA, valid signatures must be collected from at least 40 per cent of eligible voters in their electoral district to trigger a byelection.
None of the 26 recall attempts between 1997 and 2015 has been successful. The only one that might have hit the 40 per cent threshold ended prematurely when the MLA in question, Paul Reitsma, resigned.
Doug Mcarthur, a public policy professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said recall legislation isn’t seen as very effective in B.C.
“Now it just seems to be a real anachronism,” he said. “I don’t think MLAS even really think about it anymore.”
Recall campaigns have typically needed organized and well-funded backing to get anywhere, he added, and voters have more options now to make their opinions known if they don’t like the way they’re being represented.
In Alberta, plans for recall legislation cast a much wider net than in B.C., including school boards and municipal councils.
University of Calgary political scientist Lisa Young said details about the threshold for recalling an official are critical.
“Poorly designed recall legislation just puts political systems in chaos,” she said. “When you apply it to municipalities and school boards, then all of a sudden the people who run those elections have to be ready at a drop of a hat to run a recall election.”
Voter turnout for Calgary’s most recent municipal election in 2017 was about 58 per cent. Young said if Alberta uses B.C.’S model, convincing 40 per cent of eligible voters to sign a petition aimed at turfing a municipal or school board official could be a serious uphill climb.
On the other hand, if the threshold is too low, Young said, organized political groups could use the threat of recall to mobilize people against sitting politicians.
Coun. Ward Sutherland said he’s in favour of recall legislation, but he also worries about being targeted by groups who don’t like how he’s pushed privatization.
“The Devil’s in the details,” he said. “There could be consequences people haven’t thought out and we have to ensure that it’s a fair process.”
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said that, for now, he’s “shrugging his shoulders” at the upcoming changes.
“My experience has been that governments that institute this deliberately — or not deliberately — set the threshold so high that they will never, ever be recalled, but they can say they did it,” he said.