Fix Recall And Referenda:
In 2021, the Alberta government passed Bill 51, the Citizen Initiative Act and Bill 52, the Recall Act.
At the time, we were pleased about the introduction of the Bills, as they were both a big step forward for democracy in Alberta.
However, we also noted that both Bills contained major flaws that needed correcting before being passed into law.
In particular, we expressed serious concern that the thresholds and other rules governing how Recall and Citizen Initiative efforts operate would make it impossible to successfully achieve any Recall or Referenda initiative.
We proposed a series of changes to both pieces of legislation to fix these issues but, unfortunately, the changes were rejected.
Now, three years later, it's clear that we were right and that both the Recall and Referenda laws need fixing.
We've included a short summary of our proposed changes to the Citizen Initiative Act and the Recall Act below.
Once you've signed the petition, please spread the word to your friends, family, co-workers, and every Albertan!
The Current Rules:
Recall:
- No Recall efforts in the 18 months after or 6 months before an election
- 40% of eligible voters (about 80% of those who actually voted last time) must sign a petition for a Recall for provincial representatives
- 40% of the population (more than 100% of those who actually voted last time) must sign a petition for a Recall for municipal representatives
- Signatures must be collected within a 60-day period
- A successful petition removes a municipal representative automatically, but for a provincial representative, it just sets up another public vote to Recall the representative or not
Referenda:
- 10% of eligible voters (about 20% of the number who actually voted last time) must sign a petition for Legislative or Policy Referenda
- 20% of eligible voters (about 40% of the number who actually voted last time) must sign a petition for Constitutional Referenda
- Signatures must be collected within a 90-day period
Our Proposed Changes:
Recall:
- Recall efforts permitted any time (they would take a minimum of 6 months anyway, while in the last 6 months there would just be no by-election)
- 20% of the number who actually voted last time must sign a petition for a Recall to be successful when there are more than 50,000 eligible voters
- 30% of the number who actually voted last time must sign a petition for a Recall to be successful when there are fewer than 50,000 eligible voters
- Signatures must be collected within a 180-day period
- A successful petition should remove municipal and provincial representatives automatically, triggering a by-election which the representative could run in, if they wish
Referenda:
- 10% of the number who actually voted last time must sign a petition for Legislative or Policy Referenda
- 20% of the number who actually voted last time must sign a petition for Constitutional Referenda
- Signatures must be collected within a 180-day period
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Raising taxes to support her environmental goals rather than for the betterment of Calgary as a whole, is inexcusable.
I hope the citizens of Calgary will remember the mess of the past few years come Election Day. The mishandling of the feeder main break, the 4% raised property taxes, which she’ll point out that more than half are from provincial increases, but then not include the administration and infrastructure fees for water, sewer, electricity, garbage removal, etc., that are 3x, 4x, and more the cost of electricity or water consumed. Then the citywide zoning changes that now allow for a house on a corner lot across your street, to be bought by a developer and replaced with a 6 unit multi-family residence, with no place to park the 8 or 10 vehicles those families bring with them. What does that do to the resale value of your home that you spent 20 years building equity in?
New developments, sure go ahead and line the feeder streets into the new neighborhoods with row housing, people at least know what they are buying and what will be around the corner or across the street from them.
The city used to be great, people wanted to move here, vacation here, shop here, because it was clean, crime was low, homelessness wasn’t visible on every major interception, and you could go for a walk without worrying about being caught in stray gunfire, could take the LRT or buses without being afraid of being mugged, or have some person with fentanyl fold, suddenly tweak and attack you or your kids.
The city needs a reset; council needs a complete replacement from the Mayor down. It might not be better but it sure cannot be worse.