Total Recall: Nine UCP MLAs now facing recall petitions in their ridings
MLA Dale Nally lashed out at constituent organizing recall effort in Morinville-St. Albert
A quick note before today’s column: Nominations for the Best of Alberta Politics 2025 Survey close at 8:00 p.m. tonight. Voting for the top choices in each category begins later this week. Thank you to everyone who has submitted their picks.
And then there were nine.
Elections Alberta approved the start of six additional MLA recall campaigns yesterday, adding to the list of three already ongoing recall efforts against United Conservative Party MLAs Demetrios Nicolaides in Calgary-Bow, Angela Pitt in Airdrie-East, and Nolan Dyck in Grande Prairie.
The local organizers now have until February 22, 2026 to collect in-person signatures to recall UCP MLAs Myles McDougall in Calgary-Fish Creek, Ric McIver in Calgary-Hays, Muhammad Yaseen in Calgary-North, Rajan Sawhney in Calgary-North West, RJ Sigurdson in Highwood, and Dale Nally in Morinville-St. Albert.
Actually removing an MLA through recall is a three step process.
Organizers have 90 days to collect the in-person signatures of at least 60 per cent of the number of people who voted in the riding in the previous election.
If the petition is successful then a recall vote would then be held within four months asking voters whether the MLA should be recalled.
If more than 50 per cent of voters vote yes then the MLA is removed and a by-election is called within six months of the removal.
If all nine recall petitions and ensuing recall votes were successful then the UCP could lose its majority in the Legislature.
It’s a very high bar to reach and a long and drawn out process, as any mechanism designed to overturn a free and fair election should be, but the reaction of some UCP MLAs shows that recall efforts are making them nervous.
Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally lashed out at the local organizer of the recall effort in Morinville-St. Albert, claiming in his official response that he is being targeted by left-wing activists and that he has Elections Alberta data showing recall organizer Joshua Eberhart doesn’t vote in provincial elections.
“I have no connections to any groups. This is just me as a citizen, stepping forward, being tired with some of the policies and then the use of something very extreme to take away the rights of citizens. It’s bothersome to me,” Eberhart told CityNews while referring to the UCP government’s now frequent use of the Notwithstanding Clause.
When asked by a reporter how he could possibly know his constituent’s voting record, a visibly rattled Nally refused to answer the question and said he didn’t want to get into details. Eberhart says he does vote and doesn’t know why Nally would claim otherwise.
MLAs like Nally would have access to the official voters list in their riding and using their privileged access to that list to publicly attack a constituent would be extremely inappropriate and perfectly reasonable grounds to recall an MLA.
Nally was re-elected in his riding just north of Edmonton with a 6.7 point margin of victory over NDP candidate and former Sturgeon County Councillor Karen Shaw in the last election, making it one of the closest races in the capital region.
McDougall, McIver and Sigurdson were much more reasoned in their official responses to the recall campaigns in their ridings and all refrained from making personal attacks against their constituents. Sawhney and Yaseen did not submit official responses to Elections Alberta.
The Recall Act was passed by the UCP government in 2021 and proclaimed into law in 2022. Despite having examples of recall laws in other countries that limit the reasons why a politician can be targeted for recall, the UCP chose to leave the law open ended as part of its 2019 election promise to “give voters the power to fire their MLAs if they break promises.”
Premier Danielle Smith is facing intense pressure from UCP MLAs to amend or repeal the Recall Act before the end of the fall sitting of the Legislature to block these campaigns. The government’s introduction of a motion to extend the fall sitting until December 11 — beyond the short 16-day sitting that was scheduled to end on November 27 ahead of the UCP annual general meeting — gives Smith plenty time to change the recall law.
Smith appears to be starting to build the case to place limits or repeal the recall law altogether by claiming groups like the Alberta Federation of Labour are behind efforts to bus supporters into ridings where recall efforts are underway.
“Contrary to the claims made by Premier Smith, the AFL is not busing people to volunteer on recall campaigns. We have never done this, and we have no intention of doing so,” AFL President Gil McGowan responded.
While the UCP was unwise to not include any restrictions in their law about why an MLA could be targeted for recall, they did implement strict rules limiting third party involvement and financial support of recall and citizen initiative campaigns.
Despite claims of a left-wing conspiracy against the UCP, most of these recall efforts appear to have been started by normal non-political Albertans who are just unhappy with UCP government decisions and the performance of their local UCP MLAs.
These populist measures were cheered by UCP MLAs and activists when the law was passed three years ago, but they likely expected at the time that these tools would be used against MLAs in any future NDP governments — and not against UCP MLAs a few short years later.
The recall tool has turned into an avenue where a growing number of Albertans unhappy with an increasingly radical and arrogant UCP government can channel their frustrations.
The high threshold makes me think that it is unlikely that most or any of these recall campaigns will collect enough signatures to actually trigger recall votes. But I also had my doubts about the Forever Canadian citizen initiative and that campaign ended up blowing past their 300,000 signature target to collect a stunning 456,000 signatures — inspiring a Calgary teacher Alicia Taylor to launch a petition to end public funding of private schools and musician Corb Lund to start a petition to stop coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
Whether or not these recall petitions lead to any politicians actually being recalled, the fact these local campaigns have been launched in the first place has already proven to be enough to rattle UCP MLAs like Dale Nally.
Five additional recall campaigns were approved by Elections Alberta this morning targeting UCP MLAs Glenn van Dijken in Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock, Jackie Lovely in Camrose, Nathan Neudorf in Lethbridge-East, Jason Stephan in Red Deer-South, and Searle Turton in Spruce Grove-Stony Plain. That brings the total number of current recall campaigns to 14.
MLA Nally should absolutely be recalled with that response showing he used privileged info from Elections AB on voting records.... these UCP clowns truly think they are untouchable....love the fact they are feeling rattled - would like to see them rattled right out of office.