For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare)
It is almost impossible not to smile when reading what has happened recently to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her merry band of right-wing Conservatives. Apparently ignorant of their own history, never mind what has transpired elsewhere, they are the authors of their own misfortune, inevitably leading many observers to recall Shakespeare’s iconic play Hamlet, where the prince tells his mother how his enemies’ schemes will backfire on them. [i]
That is precisely what has befallen Smith’s United Conservative party (UCP) government. Having defended to the teeth the recall legislation introduced by her predecessor, Jason Kenney, in 2021, the premier is now watching in annoyance and disbelief as her own party falls victim to the measure. As of November 4, Elections Alberta had already approved two recall petitions, for Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides and UCP backbencher Angela Pitt, and several more were known to be in the works. One website suggests up to 22 UCP MLA’s could be targeted.
This could actually prove to be more than an inconvenience for Smith. Her party’s electoral win in 2023 was achieved with the smallest majority in provincial history. With only 49/87 seats, or 14 less than the party held at the time of dissolution, she cannot afford to lose very many of her MLA’s, never mind cabinet ministers, if she wants to hold on to power and avoid a general election.
In Smith’s case, it appears that the straw that broke the camel’s back is the government’s recent draconian handling of the teachers in the province, but there are many earlier measures which also have raised the ire of those progressives who did not support the party in the last election. Since that constitutes 1 in 2 Albertans, the potential problem is obvious. Smith herself has argued quite vigorously that the bill was never intended to be used to overthrow a duly elected government, and of course technically she is correct. But this is irrelevant. She, and the UCP, have opened this Pandora’s Box and opponents of her government are taking advantage. It is certainly no accident that organizers are first using the law against the Education Minister, but it is unlikely, if they are successful in having more attempts authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer, that they will stop with there. Smith may well find herself in the crosshairs before long.
Of course Kenney, like other populists before him, had considered the recall bill to be a clever measure, one which would make his own party look, if not squeaky clean, then certainly transparent and accountable. At the same time he obviously hoped that members of the opposition party(ies) would be the targets of convenient attempts to unseat them. Certainly his decision to introduce the legislation was far from altruistic, despite his arguments that this would make his government, and all politicians, far more accountable to voters. (Exceptionally, the bill also covered municipal politicians and school board officials.)
Instead, in Kenney’s case the bill was actually a last-ditch measure to placate an angry populace who had recently learned about the various misdeeds of the premier and his cabinet during COVID, including foreign travel, the infamous ‘Sky Palace’ dinner and the failure to follow other pandemic rules and regulations that had been imposed on ordinary Albertans.[ii] But despite his efforts to defuse the growing scandal, so reminiscent of the one that ultimately doomed British prime minister Boris Johnson, Kenney’s bill made it clear that underneath the populist language (“the voter is the boss”) of direct democracy, successful recall efforts would be difficult to achieve. He also made it clear that he fully expected the device to be used against others, not his own caucus and government.
Obviously he was wrong. But the real question is why on earth he, or Smith, should have been surprised. As Winston Churchill’s tried and true dictum warns, “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”[iii]
Where was Kenney when every school child in Alberta was learning about the exploits of those earlier populist premiers, William Aberhart and Ernest Manning? (Yes, the father of Preston) Was he absent the day they learned that Aberhart introduced a recall bill with great fanfare in 1936? In doing so Aberhart was keeping a campaign pledge made during the 1935 election, one that saw Aberhart’s bizarre Social Credit party defeat the scandal-plagued United Farmers of Alberta after 14 years in office. It was a pledge made to contrast his new party with the old guard by highlighting direct democracy ideals, and it worked.
But who could forget what happened immediately afterwards? No sooner had Aberhart tabled the recall bill than two Social Credit backbenchers, Joseph Beaudry and James Hansen, were targeted by disgruntled constituents. However neither was actually dislodged, one having had the recall effort fail to meet requirements, and the other having left the caucus to sit as an independent. But these minor debacles were nothing compared to the crisis that ensued shortly after, when the premier himself was the next target of a recall effort in September 1937. Needless to say, the man who less than a year earlier had boasted on his weekly radio program “When I have been in office for six months you can banish me if you like” wasted no time in tabling a bill to repeal the recall bill. It was gone by October, having been in force for less than 18 months. (Note that Manning, in Aberhart’s cabinet, had been instrumental in ensuring its defeat, although he and Aberhart symbolically voted against the repeal bill to keep up appearances.)
Apparently Smith, too, was either unaware of or unperturbed by this less than stellar history of recall in her province, although she might have looked westward to BC, which also has recall legislation, for a few pointers. There, a Social Credit government in difficulty, (which subsequently lost an election) introduced a bill in 1995 that covered both recall and citizen initiatives. Although successive NDP and Liberal governments have not repealed the legislation, they have made several changes to procedure over time, so that the likelihood of success is very low indeed. Perhaps most importantly, these governments (most recently the NDP government of premier Dave Eby) have added significant limitations to any financing of repeal campaigns. As a result, although some 29 petitions of recall have been launched, all have failed. Most importantly, due to more detailed and precise language in the legislation there, all of these efforts have been directed at individual MLA’s regarding the performance of their duties, rather than the policies of the government.
Perhaps Smith is now aware of these developments in the neighbouring province, since her most recent ploy has been to frame her response in terms of what the repeal bill is meant to do. For example, a recent UCP Caucus Statement declared the measure is specifically intended to address “breaches of trust, serious misconduct, or a sustained failure to represent constituents, not political disagreements.” [iv] Although she has maintained there are no plans to actually amend the legislation to reflect this, it is clear that her government is considering this move.[v]
It may be too late. The idea of using the bill against its creators is obviously gaining steam, and only a humiliating decision to repeal it, a la Aberhart, may stop the train coming down the track.
[i] “Hoist with their own petard” essentially means being harmed by a plan or trick that someone intended to play on others. A petard was a medieval bomb used to breach walls, but if the fuse failed, the person who set it would be blown up or “hoisted” into the air.
[ii] https://globalnews.ca/news/7919509/kenney-sky-palace-dinner-covid-19-rules/ and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/04/canada-politicians-ignore-holiday-travel-advice
[iii] Speech in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, 1948
[iv] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-albertas-conservatives-introduced-recall-now-theyre-the-targets/
[v] https://calgary.citynews.ca/2025/11/06/premier-smith-recall-act/
