Knock knock...
Calgary is a busy place this week -- who might be showing up at your door?
This Week in AB
Naheed Nenshi officially enters Alberta NDP leadership
Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi jumped in with both feet and it seems he’s made a bit of a splash.
One thing that really caught my ear in his messaging is focusing on some of the Alberta NDP values that are, easily, Alberta values. While people have been more willing to show their support for the Alberta NDP since 2015, there’s still been a reluctance, I feel, to show up for them in the way a provincial party needs.
Whether Nenshi has what it takes to go all the way, he’s going to reach those people and that will be good — “for all of us”.
Going, going, Gondek?
Premier Danielle Smith has long-touted the need for recall legislation because she believes the public should be able to force out elected officials they are no longer happy with.
You’d have a difficult time convincing me that recall legislation, which came into effect in 2022, was not part of the reason behind Smith’s refusal to run in the open constituency of Calgary Elbow, holding out instead for a seat in no-contest rural. The Brooks-Medicine Hat seat was “fortuitously” vacated by former MLA Michaela Glasgo the day after Smith won the UCP leadership race.
Alberta’s current recall legislation requires the signatures of 40 per cent of electors in a given constituency, gathered within a 60-day period, to force a resignation. For provincial-level elected officials, receipt of a petition would require a vote but that is not the case with municipal-level petitions.
Landon Johnstone — a person whose name is nowhere near as familiar as those who are popping up inside of the campaign — filed the notice of recall against Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek on February 5, 2023.
Rumour has it that the campaign has been running smoothly and signatures collected so far could be either as low as 60,000 or as high as 300,000. If the petition is successful in obtaining the necessary 531,000 signatures, there would be a 45-day review, and, if the signatures are considered genuine, council would vote to accept the petition and the Mayor would be forced to resign.
If the petition is not successful in obtaining the necessary 531,000 signatures, the group will still have an impressive dataset from which to seek support for their chosen candidate in October 2025.
Party politics in the next municipal election
“This is not in competition to the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincially or the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) federally, as we support both Premier Danielle Smith and future Prime Minister Pierre Poillieve [sic]. Simply put, we are a municipal version of these parties and our only focus is Councils and School Boards throughout Alberta.”
Alberta United webpage, accessed 03-13-2024
Getting in before any legislation is passed is an interesting tactic. Alberta United is holding founding meetings in Calgary-area wards beginning next week, ostensibly to secure the role of gatekeeper in next year’s municipal elections.
There’s nothing against running slates of candidates, as was done in Calgary’s school board elections in 2017, but the province has yet to approve the inclusion of a “party name” on the ballot.
It will be interesting to see how a municipal “party” will manage its priorities “throughout Alberta”. Will a central board from Calgary be telling councillors in Taber what they are and are not allowed to do for their municipality? A reminder that funding for municipal expenses are dispersed by the Alberta government, not the municipality itself. The government of Alberta collects property tax on behalf of municipalities and returns funding in the form of grants.
Will municipal leaders be less likely to ask for funding if their “party” decides to align with cost-saving measures provincially? Will municipalities lose out if they do, or do not, elect “a municipal version” of the provincial/federal party?
I’ll go back to my comments not so long ago when I said municipal parties seem determined to provide a safe space for mediocre representatives to hide behind a good branding exercise.
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Alberta announces plan to expand provincial police services; government to take over monitoring offenders
Smith said things like the pension plan and replacing the RCMP can be revisited after the election.
“We have said that we’re going to do consultation on a number of these issues. I think our sheriffs, for instance, are doing a great job,” she said.
“The other ones, we are waiting for a couple of reports. And I’ve said as soon as those reports are available, we’ll make them public.”
Yes, in the lead up to the 2023 election, a number of UCP candidates said they would not be implementing a provincial police force without consultation, but Danielle Smith said she’d rather not talk about the party’s less popular priorities until after they were in a position to claim they had a mandate to implement said priorities — and that was that.
Consultation doesn’t mean a government will make your priorities their priorities and reports don’t mean facts are suddenly more important than costly, ideological pet projects.
However, this announcement, that the UCP is creating an “independent”, “police-like agency”, still came as a bit of a shock. Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis said that the Bill was being introduced in case the RCMP severed their contract with the province in 2032 because “the RCMP just do not have enough human beings to police Canada”.
The premier, however, has suggested that the benefit of a provincial police force is that it could be directed by her government to ignore federal gun laws.
Smith became a gun rights enthusiast after the 2013 floods when the RCMP was tasked with securing temporarily abandoned homes in High River and confiscated weapons that were both “in plain view” and properly secured. The key point is “temporarily abandoned”.
In any case, the premier has been clear that she believes her government should be able to pick and choose which laws are applicable in this province and I’m not sure I trust them to ignore just one they don’t like. That an elected official wants to set up a “police-like agency” to take direction from an appointed Minister shouldn’t really sit well with anyone.
Almost forgot!
The RCMP has concluded their investigation into allegations of fraud during the UCP’s 2017 leadership race and they said that the investigation found fewer than 200 “suspicious” votes, it was nowhere near enough to change the outcome, and “while RCMP suspected potential instances of identity fraud, there wasn’t enough evidence to tie them to any suspects or lay charges.” Fun times.
Final thoughts
Yesterday on Alberta@Noon there were a number of conservatives voicing their dissatisfaction with premier Smith. Someone with more connections than I should start a recall petition to have Smith removed.