MLA Report: Accountability to voters is paramount
By Medicine Hat News Opinion on January 15, 2021.
Let’s start off with understanding that I completely support recall legislation, term limits, and citizen initiate referendums. Accountability to the voters is paramount, always, and tools that can be added to ensuring that are important and should be brought in. As an elected person, that is who I am accountable to, and I always remember that. Recall is a tool for electors to have a currently elected representative at the provincial, municipal or school board level, removed and replaced with a new representative, in the event that the actions or inaction of the elected representative are not meeting the needs and expectations of the electors. In the UCP platform of spring 2019 election period, on page 89 “Alberta-Strong-and-Free-Platform-1.pdf” the following was committed to, “Introduce a Recall Act based on precedents in several jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, the United States, and in British Columbia…” Interestingly enough, recall legislation exists in over a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom. Alberta’s history surrounding this concept is intriguing as well. It is in fact intriguing that we do not have recall as part of our legislative body of work after 117 years in spite of several attempts. In B.C., the Recall and Initiative Act was adopted in 1991. Twenty-six recalls have been attempted since then. In 1998, B.C. Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma was caught writing letters to newspapers under a fake name, criticizing political opponents and praising himself. He decided to resign before becoming the first MLA to be recalled. Recall legislation and companion concepts, citizen initiated referendums and term limits are extremely important and valuable tools to create increased opportunities for voters to have their voices heard. Four years certainly can feel like a long time to voters that are unhappy with the actions of their elected representatives. I have always fully supported both these concepts and look forward to seeing them legislated and part of the voter toolbox. Grassroots is a term that we use frequently, and these tools are important to helping keep the grassroots philosophy in action. It’s so vitally important that we are held to account by the voters, as it them whose voices we represent. The right balance of requirements and other technical aspects must be set forth; it is of key importance that the requirements not be overly onerous nor overly vague. They must be achievable, but not open to frivolous actions. I hope that we will see this recall legislation introduced in the upcoming session. Alberta voters deserve to have this tool available to them, and it was part of our platform. 10-9
