As a consequence of what might be deemed strategic ineptitude, the government left itself open to a direct popular challenge

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On Tuesday, Albertans learned (thanks to CP’s Jack Farrell) of an interesting data point in labour’s quiet voter-recall war against the United Conservative government. In October, the Alberta assembly passed a statute ordering striking schoolteachers back to work — something that was routine throughout Canada until 2015, when the Supreme Court discovered an unwritten and previously undetected right to strike in the Charter. The back-to-work bill invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, overriding the novel Charter right, in order to get schools open before autumn turned into winter.

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Teachers, Alberta New Democrats and the political apparatus around them devised a strategy to fight the constitutional override: they started a concerted effort to organize voter-recall campaigns against individual UCP legislators within their ridings. The UCP had introduced a Recall Act in 2021, requiring petitioners to gather signatures from 40 per cent of a riding’s registered voters within a 60-day period. This threshold, if met, would lead to a yes/no recall vote in the riding. (Only if “Yes” won in this vote would the Assembly seat be vacated and a by-election held.)

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