Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek speaks at an announcement in Calgary on April 25, 2023.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek is facing a recall petition, marking the first time the mechanism has been used to try to unseat a prominent elected official in Alberta and adding to the roiling political division blanketing the province.
The petition, launched by Calgary resident Landon Johnston and disclosed by Elections Calgary on Monday morning, is a long shot. In order to remove Ms. Gondek from office, Mr. Johnston will have to collect signatures from more than half a million eligible electors in the city, which exceeds the number of people who voted in the 2021 municipal election.
The fight over Ms. Gondek’s future reflects Alberta’s increasingly fractured politics, as well as how easy it is to launch a recall campaign in the province. Ms. Gondek and Premier Danielle Smith frequently clash, on everything from plastic straws to public safety. Ms. Gondek, for example, at a rally on Saturday spoke out against Ms. Smith’s proposed rollback of rights for transgender residents. Ms. Smith, meanwhile, waded into the debate over a city bylaw on single-use items, like napkins and condiments. Calgary council last week repealed this policy, with Ms. Gondek on the losing side of the vote.
Calgary is dependable for neither the left nor right. The provincial New Democratic Party won 14 of the city’s 26 ridings in the 2023 provincial election, up from three in the prior campaign. Calgary, a traditional conservative stronghold, is expected to be a campaign hot spot for NDP leadership hopefuls looking to prove they can solidify and expand the party’s support in the city. The NDP leadership race officially launched on Monday.
Elections Calgary received the recall paperwork Jan. 30. Mr. Johnston now has 60 days, ending April 4, to collect signatures and return the necessary documents to the city.
The barriers to launching a recall petition are low. The petitioner must live in the jurisdiction and submit a $500 fee. To unseat Ms. Gondek, the petition must include signatures from 40 per cent of the city’s population, but only people who are eligible to vote can sign the recall effort. The removal campaign against Ms. Gondek will be measured against Calgary’s 2019 population of 1,285,711.
This means Mr. Johnston must collect 514,284 signatures from eligible electors to remove the mayor from office. By way of context, 393,090 eligible voters cast ballots in Calgary’s 2021 municipal election. That represented 46 per cent of the city’s 847,556 enumerated electors.
Kate Martin, Calgary’s city clerk, in a statement said digital signatures are not permitted.
Ms. Gondek ascended to the mayor’s office in October, 2021. Since then, her popularity has plummeted. She was widely criticized for pulling out of Calgary’s Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony in December because she felt the gathering had been politicized.
In a statement on Monday, the mayor said she will press forward.
“Calgarians put their faith in me to be a mayor who could bring balance and stability to this city at a time when polarized ideologies stood to divide us,” Ms. Gondek said. “I remain steadfastly committed to the work of building a future that holds opportunity and prosperity for everyone who lives here. We have work to do. Onward.”
Mr. Johnston did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Modern recall legislation is far more common in the United States than it is in Canada, where it exists only in Alberta and British Columbia.
Jason Kenney, Alberta’s former premier, campaigned on a promise to institute recall legislation ahead of the 2019 provincial election. A backbencher introduced the bill and it came into force in April, 2022. The United Conservative Party designed the legislation to make it onerous to remove someone from office through a recall petition.
It was first tested in June, 2023, when residents in Ryley, a village with a population of about 460, used a recall petition to remove Nik Lee from council, according to local media reports.
In British Columbia, Paul Reitsma resigned as an MLA in 1998, a day before a recall effort would have punted him from the legislature. He was forced out after it was revealed he used pseudonyms to write letters to newspapers about his political rivals.
More recently, an attempt was made last fall to oust B.C. education minister Rachna Singh. But the petitioner failed to collect the needed signatures by the January, 2024, deadline, and Elections BC dismissed the application.