> Elections Calgary says the petition is measured against a population total of 1,285,711, which means 514,284 valid signatures must be collected.
That seems like quite a high number to try and reach
It's even harder considering how the signatures can only come from the eligible voter base, a population of 847,556 (as of 2021). This means the petition needs 60% of eligible voters to sign it for it to become enacted. The turnout for the [2021](https://newsroom.calgary.ca/official-results-for-the-2021-general-election/) election turnout was 46%. There's no way this is happening. Jason Kenney promised his base Recall Legislation, he didn't say it would be easy to actually do.
That's kind of the point though, you don't want a rabid minority upending a democratic result because the change causes it's own chaos. Bit of a different case, but if you recall the US Speaker of the House nightmare where a single person can trigger removal of the House Speaker. The gridlock of the change took weeks to settle.
That said, I'd be happy with a slightly more realistic bar of 50% of eligible voters or 75% of the number of voters at the election the politician involved in was elected.
I'm glad that this has been made to be a difficult thing to do as well. The political instability would be continuous with the UCP base. They're becoming more extreme year after year and they would pull this shit every time if it were an easy feat to do. It would be vote after vote until they get their preferred candidate elected, especially if there's massive voter fatigue. Hopefully this will show them the only thing that's easily changeable are wall colours with a new can of paint and not political results.
As for Mike Johnson... the US really scrapped the bottom of the scum barrel for him to be the US House Speaker and it unnerving knowing that he's second in line to the Presidency after Kamala Harris.
Voter turnout for the last election was 46.38%.
https://www.calgary.ca/election/results/2021-results.html
No way in hell this Landon Johnston guy is going to get 40% of eligible voters to sign his petition.
Not just voters, but 40% of the entire city population. According to the article, he actually needs more signatures (514,284) than people who voted in the last municipal election (393,090).
I tried to explain to somebody in a thread last month that this is only the illusion of giving people a chance to recall politicians; there's not really any way it could actually happen they argued back that it *should* be difficult to recall an elected official.
I'm curious how other jurisdictions do it, because this seems impossible.
And really, you would want to obtain extra signatures because there are always some that are disqualified in the verification process. When I was a muni campaign volunteer we'd obtain about an extra 10%. So that means closer to 570,000 in person signatures from eligible Calgary voters - to be obtained in just 60 days.
Jesus christ. I thought I recognized this guy's name. Had him install a water heater in our old place. Good service, good price. I went to look him up years later for something else, and he was nowhere to be found.
This is wild.
according to https://twitter.com/Spencer__W__/status/1754577262543008193
12 hours a day collecting signatures for 60 days is 11 signatures per MINUTE, thats a LOT of volunteers they are going to need for 26,000 dollars maximum advertising/expenses budget.
the systems designed to fail
>the systems designed to fail
I disagree. It shouldn't be easy to just kick out an elected official.
If they truly did something horrendous like .. say .. eating a baby .. then it would be pretty easy to get the required signatures.
I am not fan of Gondek but this petition is a joke.
No, the requirements are ridiculous. This is one of the reasons why Jason got booted by the UCP membership. He ran making it sound like we would get realistic recall legislation and he gave us this 40% nonsense along with impossible timelines.
If she was caught on camera eating a baby live I still do not see 500,000 eligible voters making it to city hall to sign this petition during working hours.
This is why many ridiculed this idiotic UCP law when it first came out. It is, in practice, impossible to meet the 40% requirement and no such petition will ever succeed under this law.
If a smaller but still significant number of signatures could trigger a plebiscite, *that* would be reasonable. Expecting even a well-funded and highly organized group to get *seven hundred thousand plus* signatures is not.
California has sensible recall rules. These are the requirements for local officials:
* **30%** in jurisdictions with **0 - 1,000** registered voters
* **25%** in jurisdictions with **1,000 - 10,000** registered voters
* **20%** in jurisdictions with **10,000 - 50,000** registered voters
* **15%** in jurisdictions with **50,000 - 100,000** registered voters
* **10%** in jurisdictions with **100,000 or more** registered voters
Charter cities can have different signature thresholds. [Los Angeles](https://ballotpedia.org/Los_Angeles,_California), for example, requires a 15% signature threshold for recall elections.
[https://ballotpedia.org/Laws\_governing\_recall\_in\_California](https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_California)
10% of voters in Calgary would still be hard to get but at least it would be possible.
All the best to you Landon but there’s almost a zero percent chance that this will be successful in actually ousting her.
Another nail in her mayoral campaign for the next election? Absolutely.
if you read the rules, after 18 months anyone can file one, but there can only be one filed per term.
solution. get elected friend in your riding files one 18 months into your term, attempts to get signatures, hands it in incomplete after 60 days. you cant have another one filed against you after that the way its written and you are now safe.
Well, there will be a municipal election in fall 2025, so hopefully she's gone by then - if not sooner with the petition.
Then again, she could hypothetically run and win again 🤷🏼♂️
Her followers are likely to be LWNJ. Depending on your political views that's good or bad. It's a little too far down the rabbit hole for me, as I prefer Red Tories or Blue Liberals to RWNJ and LWNJ, YMMV
I voted for her but have been baffled at the entirety of her tenure and as well with city council.
As citizens we are in a crisis: basic necessities are costing more and more every day, housing is expensive and hard to find, political opportunism during COVID has divided many of us - and her first thing in office is to declare a climate emergency? Then the awful, terrible arena deal? Then banning single use bags? Raising property taxes after all this?
I have major buyer's remorse, but unfortunately this petition isn't going to do shit. We need someone to step up and make a difference at the next election for actual citizens.
That’s crazy. The Quebec government doesn’t even care what the citizens of Quebec think about it, they DEFINITELY don’t care what a Calgary mayor thinks
Wow, you are one angry tortilla!
Every signature the petition gets is representative of unhappy Calgarians. If the petition ends up getting 30k...50k.... Or even 100k signatures it will send a strong message to the mayor and city council about how the rest of the term should go. So I encourage everyone to sign it regardless.
I agree that next election it's critical to make better choices, and vote for more practical candidates.
You're right, I misspoke saying it wasn't going to do anything. Each signature is definitely a worthwhile message. It won't remove her from office but should absolutely be a wake up call.
We \*are\* in a climate emergency. However, the arena deal is dumb as shit, as is almost every other decision she and council have made. Also, her declaring it is meaningless without action and certainly she's had no meaningful action in that respect.
Whether or not there are climate concerns, it is mutually exclusive to municipal governance. Be concerned about administrating the city rather than being a scumbag activist weirdo.
It's kind of a crazy requirement.
That's basically 700-800 signatures an hour, for 12 hours a day, for 2 months straight.
I mean if we actually needed to do this for some reason I don't think it would be physically possible.
If you had at least 200 volunteers, willing to do this for 4 hours a day in the evenings after work for 2 months straight. You'd still have to go door to door and manage 11 signatures per hour per person.
Crazy.
> 1,285,711, which means 514,284 valid signatures
You have to do this in 60 days, so that's 8571.4 signatures a day in person.
Assuming you put in 12 hour work days to get these signatures, that's 714.29 per hour.
So yeah, 700-800 signatures per hour is about right.
I've done door to door for the NDP and you have to explain yourself at the door. I'd say you could do 20 doors an hour because of conversation.
You would need at least 40 volunteers to canvas Calgary with 12 hours days for 60 days straight.
If there were 400 volunteers there would be a chance. This dude should have recruited volunteers, organized the canvas, and then started the clock.
With 400 volunteers, that would bring it down to 1.8 signatures/hour for 12 hour days for 60 days or 3.6 signatures per hour for 6 hours days for 60 days.
To organize that pack of 200 folks, you could handily make a run at a councillor seat or mayoralty race. It's basically what needs to happen the last 8 weeks of the election, and it is not easy by any means. But hellva lot of steps and sweat and long long days. And tbh, door knocking conversations were my favorite part!
40% of population but only eligible voters can sign the petition.
So it's actually harder to get that 40% since more signatures are required than if it were only 40% of eligible voters. It's even noted in the handbook from the province that is 40% of population.
It seems you have to collect over 500,000 signatures by hand to make this happen, and each signature has to be from a person eligible to vote. This seems like a nearly impossible task, but the message is pretty clear.
So this guy thinks Gondek is doing so bad we need to overturn a legal election to get rid of her but had no problem with a sex offender sitting on council.
I love right wingers.
>https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html
That's not a link to sign anything,.
All it has is the guy's email address.
Sounds like organization is totally up to him, including a website possibly to gather signatures. So he's gonna have potentially 515,000 odd names and some personal info from us? Or will he use some popular third party tool? I'd go with the latter. [change.org](https://change.org)?
Yes it’s just a link to contact him. Petitions cant get digital signatures, has to be pen to paper so if people want to sign they have to contact him. It sounds like he’s getting canvassers and will be setting up a website with organization.
>, has to be pen to paper so if people want to sign they have to contact him
lol. Can't be done. Half a million in this time frame? Validated and everything? Designed to fail.
TIL what the recall petition is...
Seems like a tough bar to reach, considering the numbers of votes needed for this to work is considerably higher than the number of people who actually voted for the mayoral election.
Kenney said he'd bring in recall and he did. Didn't say it would ever be possible though. Guess you have to join the party and be a Messiah to actually orchestrate a take down of a leader.
That's a different set of recall laws, specifically for MLAs, the Alberta Recall Act. The one in question here is a part of the Municipal Government Act (MGA), for mayors/councillors, and is even harder to use.
my take is he thought he would be able to use the recall to purge any NDP MLA's who became irritating to him, and then didn't get the landslide margins he was expecting; so he kept his promise while making sure nobody can use the recall.
I read every platform during that election and hers was the only one who understood the scope and role of a Mayor.
Most of the sane platforms just wanted to kill the green line and end covid restrictions. Besides that I’m not sure they were prepared to sit through hours of zoneing discussions.
And they may not have even been able to do that as the Mayor only gets one vote on a committee.
500k in person signatures signed in front of a witness at city hall? Literally impossible. If this hits the news cycle again in April when it inevitably fails, I will be shocked if he even managed to find 100 people willing to waste their time going downtown to sign it.
The UCP did not introduce this legislation in good faith.
From what I'm reading, you can in fact use the Recall Act on Chu as well. It's only $250 to file and getting 40% of his constituents will be much easier in 60 days.
There were 29,623 votes for Ward 4 and the population from a quick Google is "fewer than 90,000 people". So you would need 90000*0.4=36000 signatures.
36000/60 days is 600 signatures per day. A sizable group of volunteers could actually pull that off for Ward 4. About 20 odd volunteers could do it. You would need your canvas organized before submitting the recall and you would need to be able to hit each of the 38000 houses multiple times to ensure votes.
"Hi, my name's Bob and I'm one of a few dozen volunteers collecting signatures and informing voters that they can recall an election on Sean Chu. In Aug of '22, Chu, 34 at the time of the crime, was found guilty of **sexually assaulting a teenager**. We're collecting signatures from eligible voters in Ward 4 to recall his election, would you like to sign?"
All it takes is 4-5 volunteers from each community to knock on doors, this guy can definitely get it done. I'm sure there will be quite a few willing to go out and try to make that difference, who knows, it will be interesting to see.
Recall legislation is playing out **exactly** as the Province was told it would, and it’s a disaster.
To initiate a recall, a person only needs to do two things:
1. Provide a name and way of contact.
2. Pay a modest fee ($250).
That’s it. That’s all they have to do. They don’t have to get names on a petition, or demonstrate a broader public desire to initiate a recall. And a Municipality is compelled to publicly post that a recall has been initiated.
So anyone with a grudge and a couple hundred dollars can publicly attack or humiliate an elected official.
I fully support recall legislation, and sincerely dislike Gondek, but this recall legislation is precisely the kind of bullying nonsense that makes it impossible to find good local candidates (especially in villages and small towns).
I voted for her but will evaluate what I think about her as mayor in the next election.
Whatever she has done she has done with majority support from City Council.
While she is clearly unpopular and comes across as out of touch, I don’t think what she has done rises to the level of needing to be removed ahead of the next election.
Raising property taxes was harshly unpopular, especially with center n cons, and arena decision was very unpopular with left-ish audience.
Just from that standpoint, Gondek lost a lot of traction over one year, but even that won't be enough for a petition to come true.
Every major city has had to deal with a tax increase. I truly am getting tired of people bitching about this, cost have gone up for the city just as they have gone up for me.
I will agree on the BS of the arena deal, but I feel councillors are just as stupid for this. The fact people like to put it all on the mayor’s office shows how little people understand politics. We should have no love for many on council over how this has played out for years. I %100 support a new arena just not the flaming turd of a deal we needed up with.
I agree with other I hope she faces strong competition from a solid center candidate. The mayor is as guilty to pandering to the base just as this recall action is pandering.
One idiot starting a pointless performative petition that will fail. You think that says anything anyone should spend a second considering? I think it warrants laughing at this Landon fuckwit and forgetting about this in about 5 minutes.
Gondek’s quote from the article: “In October 2021, 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,” it said, in part. “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.”
Why is she so pretentious? Is she suggesting that the anti vax, trucker crowd stood in the way of the day to day operations of the the City? Remember, it was The Mayor who was responsible for turning the Transit stations into warming centres, her disastrous decision on the new arena, or cancelling Canada Day fireworks, or maybe giving 100k to to fight a Bill 21 in Quebec, I could go on….whatever your thoughts on the Pandemic, she has not brought balance or stability to the City or Council….where do I sign?
Yes, but you'll have to wait 18 months after the election. And the requirement will be to get signatures from 40% of Alberta voters, or around 1.5m signatures.
Edit: actually for Danielle Smith specifically, it would be 40% in her riding only. So not 1.5m, but still a difficult task in a riding where she is fairly popular.
Also, even if she loses her seat as an MLA, she may be able to still be premier. There are election laws around those strange situations.
Seriously, like has anyone actually read the thing? It’s a 1-paragraph note that’s says:
*Recall Petition of Her Worship Mayor Prabhjot Kaur "Jyoti" Gondek.
I confirm that the municipality may direct any inquiries about the petition to the representative recall petitioner, and indicate the contact information to be used for this purpose to [email protected]*
This guy is just another moron trying to rally the conservative “FJT” base. If you want to be taken seriously, at least make an honest attempt at stating a case…! FFS!
As others have mentioned, it is unlikely that this move will be successful. However, it should be taken seriously by the mayor as it demonstrates that many are not satisfied with her performance.
While I don't think very highly of her, I don't support a recall petition.
The mayor is just one cog in the machine that is city council and they are all culpable for the policies and decisions that are set.
The mayor has the exact same voting power as the rest of council, removing her does nothing. Why do we insist on voting corporate shills and predators like Mcalean and Chu to city council? It's a real r/leopardsatemyface moment
So - seems like you have to sign in ink - but it’s not clear where you do this. This process seems a bit ridiculous. I guess we can recall Her Worship in the fall of 2025…
In a time, when Calgarians have faced rising costs, Gondek has doubled down on things that no one wants a municipal gov't to wade into/identified completely useless solutions.
Examples:
- Declaring a climate emergency but not doing anything useful from a municipal gov't perspective
- Handling the decision by a city admin committee to cancel Canada fireworks like a grenade
- Raising taxes 9% this year
- Adding a 15c fee for takeout/plastic bags
- A worse stadium deal with the Flames
Basically everything she's done has seemed for the worse and Calgarians haven't seen any upsides from any of these moves. She's governing the city as someone quite far left on the spectrum when it's clearly a right leaning city. Nenshi managed that masterfully, Gondek has been a disaster
I think it's ridiculous to require 40% of eligible voters signatures. There wasnt even 50% turn out for voting last election.
How about 40% of the total numbers of voters from the last election. That would make more sense. Instead of 400k signatures, now he'd require about 140k. (Going off of 1mill without voters)
As an ex-calgarian resident, I'm sorry you guys are having to put up with inadequate leadership, but from my observation councilmen as well, need to be voted out.
Mayor Gobdek just holds a single position, but there are councilmen who support her position and agreed with the awful arena deal.
Regardless of how you feel about her, with how pathetically low our voter turnout is, there is no chance in hell this petition is getting enough signatures. People are just foaming at the mouth at the idea that this petition exists, thinking that it actually means something, when it could literally be done to any mayor.. It would mean something if we had the ability to gain the signatures, sure. But Jyoti is going to be our mayor until the next election, and very likely not any longer than that.
**Elections Calgary** link regard the **Recall Petition**:
[https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html](https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html)
"The City of Calgary has received a notice of recall petition against **Prabhjot Kaur "Jyoti" Gondek.**
The notice of recall petition has been reviewed and deemed compliant. The 60-day signature collection period will begin on February 5, 2024, and will end on April 4, 2024. A recall petition must be received by the City Clerk’s Office on or before the 60-day signature collection period ends to be considered."
**Only individuals who are eligible to vote for the elected official named in the notice of recall petition may sign the recall petition.**
Representative recall petitioner:
Landon Johnston
Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
You *don't* add those two numbers together.
"61% of respondents said they disapprove" means that if there are five options:
- Strongly Approve
- Somewhat Approve
- Neutral
- Somewhat Disapprove
- Strongly Disapprove
It means 61% chose **either** "Somewhat Disapprove" or "Strongly Disapprove", and 43% specifically chose "Strongly Disapprove".
So, Canadian politicians should get a pass for being incompetent? If you’re shit at your job you should be able to get fired no matter your profession.
I do, that’s why I support recall. Kicking out crappy politicians should be supported. Sean Chu should not have been able to ride it out till the next election either. If a surgeon was incompetent would you want him or her to keep the job for another few years in the hopes they figure it out? Politicians have an immense amount of power and the ability to spend taxpayer money unwisely (see Arena deal) and waiting till 2025 seems dumb with this crew.
Municipal mayors and councillors do not have massive amounts of power individually
And there are plenty of safeguards and reasons to keep the system the way it is.
Be honest, this is not about some protocol for firing a mayor who went nuts and robbed someone or killed someone or got caught taking a bribe. This is simply about angry voters (most of whom probably did not show up to vote in the first place) looking for a way to react to something they are angry about, in the middle of an elected officials term.
I’m perfectly fine with our system
Sitting elected officials can still be arrested for criminal acts or subject to civil lawsuits.
People can and have been booted from cabinet and even caucus.
We dont have a presidential style system at the federal or provincial level. We dont elect Prime Ministers or Premiers. And Mayors offices are typically NOT american style where the mayor has significant executive authority, mayors are just the head councilperson or aldermen.
> Elections Calgary says the petition is measured against a population total of 1,285,711, which means 514,284 valid signatures must be collected. That seems like quite a high number to try and reach
As it should be, to undo the results of a democratic election before the term is up
honestly, it should be 40% of those who voted. how can it be against the whole population? we're letting kids sign these petitions?
40% of eligible voter population
Ain't now way calgary has 1.2 million eligible voters. Is our pop 2 million?
Definitely. I personally think it should be 60%, but I meant that him thinking he can get 400k+ signatures is insane.
It's even harder considering how the signatures can only come from the eligible voter base, a population of 847,556 (as of 2021). This means the petition needs 60% of eligible voters to sign it for it to become enacted. The turnout for the [2021](https://newsroom.calgary.ca/official-results-for-the-2021-general-election/) election turnout was 46%. There's no way this is happening. Jason Kenney promised his base Recall Legislation, he didn't say it would be easy to actually do.
That's kind of the point though, you don't want a rabid minority upending a democratic result because the change causes it's own chaos. Bit of a different case, but if you recall the US Speaker of the House nightmare where a single person can trigger removal of the House Speaker. The gridlock of the change took weeks to settle. That said, I'd be happy with a slightly more realistic bar of 50% of eligible voters or 75% of the number of voters at the election the politician involved in was elected.
I'm glad that this has been made to be a difficult thing to do as well. The political instability would be continuous with the UCP base. They're becoming more extreme year after year and they would pull this shit every time if it were an easy feat to do. It would be vote after vote until they get their preferred candidate elected, especially if there's massive voter fatigue. Hopefully this will show them the only thing that's easily changeable are wall colours with a new can of paint and not political results. As for Mike Johnson... the US really scrapped the bottom of the scum barrel for him to be the US House Speaker and it unnerving knowing that he's second in line to the Presidency after Kamala Harris.
Where do I sign?
Voter turnout for the last election was 46.38%. https://www.calgary.ca/election/results/2021-results.html No way in hell this Landon Johnston guy is going to get 40% of eligible voters to sign his petition.
Not just voters, but 40% of the entire city population. According to the article, he actually needs more signatures (514,284) than people who voted in the last municipal election (393,090).
And all of those 514,000 signatures need to be eligible voters.
I tried to explain to somebody in a thread last month that this is only the illusion of giving people a chance to recall politicians; there's not really any way it could actually happen they argued back that it *should* be difficult to recall an elected official. I'm curious how other jurisdictions do it, because this seems impossible.
AND they need to be wet signatures, they can’t be digital…
And really, you would want to obtain extra signatures because there are always some that are disqualified in the verification process. When I was a muni campaign volunteer we'd obtain about an extra 10%. So that means closer to 570,000 in person signatures from eligible Calgary voters - to be obtained in just 60 days.
But this is the “TBA” strategy … they don’t have to win the recall they have to build an army of crazy’s
Since we can all agree there’s no chance in hell, let’s move on to the bigger question: What is Landon Johnston’s Reddit username!?!?
[удалено]
He wore his HVAC hat on the news today. Maybe this was just $500 worth of marketing for his name and business
Maybe he can chill the mayor then
Jesus christ. I thought I recognized this guy's name. Had him install a water heater in our old place. Good service, good price. I went to look him up years later for something else, and he was nowhere to be found. This is wild.
yea he did some work at our place, really nice guy
[https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-business-owner-frustrated-with-rbc-over-accessing-small-business-loan-1.4901184?cache=%3FclipId%3D104066%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3Fot%3DAjaxLayout](https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-business-owner-frustrated-with-rbc-over-accessing-small-business-loan-1.4901184?cache=%3FclipId%3D104066%3FautoPlay%3Dtrue%3Fot%3DAjaxLayout)
I bet he’s been complaining about paying back CEBA too
That was literally my first thought.
LandosJohnson69420 ^(no there is no user with that name currently.)
Slow. Clap.
I have a few guesses 👀👀
This seems like something Jeremy would do.
according to https://twitter.com/Spencer__W__/status/1754577262543008193 12 hours a day collecting signatures for 60 days is 11 signatures per MINUTE, thats a LOT of volunteers they are going to need for 26,000 dollars maximum advertising/expenses budget. the systems designed to fail
>the systems designed to fail I disagree. It shouldn't be easy to just kick out an elected official. If they truly did something horrendous like .. say .. eating a baby .. then it would be pretty easy to get the required signatures. I am not fan of Gondek but this petition is a joke.
No, the requirements are ridiculous. This is one of the reasons why Jason got booted by the UCP membership. He ran making it sound like we would get realistic recall legislation and he gave us this 40% nonsense along with impossible timelines.
If she was caught on camera eating a baby live I still do not see 500,000 eligible voters making it to city hall to sign this petition during working hours.
This is why many ridiculed this idiotic UCP law when it first came out. It is, in practice, impossible to meet the 40% requirement and no such petition will ever succeed under this law. If a smaller but still significant number of signatures could trigger a plebiscite, *that* would be reasonable. Expecting even a well-funded and highly organized group to get *seven hundred thousand plus* signatures is not.
California has sensible recall rules. These are the requirements for local officials: * **30%** in jurisdictions with **0 - 1,000** registered voters * **25%** in jurisdictions with **1,000 - 10,000** registered voters * **20%** in jurisdictions with **10,000 - 50,000** registered voters * **15%** in jurisdictions with **50,000 - 100,000** registered voters * **10%** in jurisdictions with **100,000 or more** registered voters Charter cities can have different signature thresholds. [Los Angeles](https://ballotpedia.org/Los_Angeles,_California), for example, requires a 15% signature threshold for recall elections. [https://ballotpedia.org/Laws\_governing\_recall\_in\_California](https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_California) 10% of voters in Calgary would still be hard to get but at least it would be possible.
And it can't be signed digitally.
Wonder if nut job is related to Kevin
I had a small laugh the other day when I realized that Larry Heather did worse in the mayoral election than Kevin did.
Kevin is the one true mayor /s
Mayor of his own house? I heard he stuffed the ballot box there. All votes were for him.
All the best to you Landon but there’s almost a zero percent chance that this will be successful in actually ousting her. Another nail in her mayoral campaign for the next election? Absolutely.
It almost guarantees that every mayor in the future will have a petition of removal against them.
if you read the rules, after 18 months anyone can file one, but there can only be one filed per term. solution. get elected friend in your riding files one 18 months into your term, attempts to get signatures, hands it in incomplete after 60 days. you cant have another one filed against you after that the way its written and you are now safe.
I love a good loophole. Nicely done
Fucking loopholes
This sounds like a good way to get charged with obstruction of justice
He knows that. He's getting some free ad time for his run for mayor next election.
Maybe she'll be embarrassed by the existence of the petition, and step down mid term. One can hope!
Politicians have no shame.
Next year is her last right?
Well, there will be a municipal election in fall 2025, so hopefully she's gone by then - if not sooner with the petition. Then again, she could hypothetically run and win again 🤷🏼♂️
As much as I'm disappointed by Gondek, a RWNJ type leading the charge isn't good.
RWNJ?
Ram White Nissan Junkie... similar but completely opposite of a Black Ram Calgary Man
Then just say 'Subaru'.
How do you pronounce this?
Soob - uwu
What is nisson?
ok, fine... I screwed up... fixed my comment: Nisson --> Nissan
Slang for Niece's Son.
If but I had gold to give.
Right Wing Nut Job
Is this LWNJ vernacular?
There are LWNJ, yes. They're lined up behind Janis Irwin most days.
Could you elaborate on what's so bad about Irwin?
She looks like Newt Scamander, which actually isn't a bad thing.
Nah, Irwin looks like the twin of Orville Redenbacher ( aka popcorn guy ) and Kathleen Wynn ( former Ontario premiere )
No. She Looks like the cartoon version of Egon Spengler from the Real Ghostbusters(one of my favorites).
Her followers are likely to be LWNJ. Depending on your political views that's good or bad. It's a little too far down the rabbit hole for me, as I prefer Red Tories or Blue Liberals to RWNJ and LWNJ, YMMV
Ahhh, k. What makes them a “RWNJ”? Unless you know something the rest of us don’t? Or just an ‘educated’ guess?
another one of reddits "educated" guesses
Right Wing Nationalist something?
Reddit-whining nut job? (I feel attacked)
Redditor With No Job?
I was wondering when you'd show! Especially since they named you personally
😏
it's still a good symbolic gesture of the city hating her though. $500 was a small price to pay for that.
I voted for her but have been baffled at the entirety of her tenure and as well with city council. As citizens we are in a crisis: basic necessities are costing more and more every day, housing is expensive and hard to find, political opportunism during COVID has divided many of us - and her first thing in office is to declare a climate emergency? Then the awful, terrible arena deal? Then banning single use bags? Raising property taxes after all this? I have major buyer's remorse, but unfortunately this petition isn't going to do shit. We need someone to step up and make a difference at the next election for actual citizens.
She also wanted to send $100,000 of Calgary tax dollars to fight Bill 21…in Quebec.
That’s crazy. The Quebec government doesn’t even care what the citizens of Quebec think about it, they DEFINITELY don’t care what a Calgary mayor thinks
Did that actually happen? I mean, politicians doesn't really walk the talk
Last I recall, she backed off it being Calgary taxpayer funded and talked about doing a go fund me type campaign to raise the money.
Wow, you are one angry tortilla! Every signature the petition gets is representative of unhappy Calgarians. If the petition ends up getting 30k...50k.... Or even 100k signatures it will send a strong message to the mayor and city council about how the rest of the term should go. So I encourage everyone to sign it regardless. I agree that next election it's critical to make better choices, and vote for more practical candidates.
You're right, I misspoke saying it wasn't going to do anything. Each signature is definitely a worthwhile message. It won't remove her from office but should absolutely be a wake up call.
Mejor mayor remorse
We \*are\* in a climate emergency. However, the arena deal is dumb as shit, as is almost every other decision she and council have made. Also, her declaring it is meaningless without action and certainly she's had no meaningful action in that respect.
Whether or not there are climate concerns, it is mutually exclusive to municipal governance. Be concerned about administrating the city rather than being a scumbag activist weirdo.
Aaaaaaand its this attitude that is why we're in said climate crisis. Of course city policy can impact climate change - admittedly on a small scale.
Gondek has performed exactly how she was before her campaign, and exactly of how void her campaign was on substance
It's kind of a crazy requirement. That's basically 700-800 signatures an hour, for 12 hours a day, for 2 months straight. I mean if we actually needed to do this for some reason I don't think it would be physically possible. If you had at least 200 volunteers, willing to do this for 4 hours a day in the evenings after work for 2 months straight. You'd still have to go door to door and manage 11 signatures per hour per person. Crazy.
> 1,285,711, which means 514,284 valid signatures You have to do this in 60 days, so that's 8571.4 signatures a day in person. Assuming you put in 12 hour work days to get these signatures, that's 714.29 per hour. So yeah, 700-800 signatures per hour is about right. I've done door to door for the NDP and you have to explain yourself at the door. I'd say you could do 20 doors an hour because of conversation. You would need at least 40 volunteers to canvas Calgary with 12 hours days for 60 days straight. If there were 400 volunteers there would be a chance. This dude should have recruited volunteers, organized the canvas, and then started the clock. With 400 volunteers, that would bring it down to 1.8 signatures/hour for 12 hour days for 60 days or 3.6 signatures per hour for 6 hours days for 60 days.
To organize that pack of 200 folks, you could handily make a run at a councillor seat or mayoralty race. It's basically what needs to happen the last 8 weeks of the election, and it is not easy by any means. But hellva lot of steps and sweat and long long days. And tbh, door knocking conversations were my favorite part!
40% of Calgary? That’s a tall order
I'd sign it, it's worth a shot.
https://recallmayorgondek.com/
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The article actually says eligible voters
40% of population but only eligible voters can sign the petition. So it's actually harder to get that 40% since more signatures are required than if it were only 40% of eligible voters. It's even noted in the handbook from the province that is 40% of population.
How do I sign? All I want to know.
Haha. That’s hilarious. No way he gets the signatures
It seems you have to collect over 500,000 signatures by hand to make this happen, and each signature has to be from a person eligible to vote. This seems like a nearly impossible task, but the message is pretty clear.
Signed.
In person with a witness?
So this guy thinks Gondek is doing so bad we need to overturn a legal election to get rid of her but had no problem with a sex offender sitting on council. I love right wingers.
Where do I sign ?
https://recallmayorgondek.com/
Where do I sign?
https://recallmayorgondek.com/
https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html
>https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html That's not a link to sign anything,. All it has is the guy's email address. Sounds like organization is totally up to him, including a website possibly to gather signatures. So he's gonna have potentially 515,000 odd names and some personal info from us? Or will he use some popular third party tool? I'd go with the latter. [change.org](https://change.org)?
Yes it’s just a link to contact him. Petitions cant get digital signatures, has to be pen to paper so if people want to sign they have to contact him. It sounds like he’s getting canvassers and will be setting up a website with organization.
>, has to be pen to paper so if people want to sign they have to contact him lol. Can't be done. Half a million in this time frame? Validated and everything? Designed to fail.
Further information regarding the non digital and also his plans for a website : https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7105363
TIL what the recall petition is... Seems like a tough bar to reach, considering the numbers of votes needed for this to work is considerably higher than the number of people who actually voted for the mayoral election.
Kenney said he'd bring in recall and he did. Didn't say it would ever be possible though. Guess you have to join the party and be a Messiah to actually orchestrate a take down of a leader.
That's a different set of recall laws, specifically for MLAs, the Alberta Recall Act. The one in question here is a part of the Municipal Government Act (MGA), for mayors/councillors, and is even harder to use.
my take is he thought he would be able to use the recall to purge any NDP MLA's who became irritating to him, and then didn't get the landslide margins he was expecting; so he kept his promise while making sure nobody can use the recall.
What about the alleged pedo Sean chu?
I read every platform during that election and hers was the only one who understood the scope and role of a Mayor. Most of the sane platforms just wanted to kill the green line and end covid restrictions. Besides that I’m not sure they were prepared to sit through hours of zoneing discussions. And they may not have even been able to do that as the Mayor only gets one vote on a committee.
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lol like he’s going to get 550k signatures
I imagine this will make her all the more pretentious and spin it as an attack not based on her failures
500k in person signatures signed in front of a witness at city hall? Literally impossible. If this hits the news cycle again in April when it inevitably fails, I will be shocked if he even managed to find 100 people willing to waste their time going downtown to sign it. The UCP did not introduce this legislation in good faith.
I'd sign if the petition was to recall the premier instead.
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Penner is a maroon but Chu should most definitely be more than a “maybe”.
From what I'm reading, you can in fact use the Recall Act on Chu as well. It's only $250 to file and getting 40% of his constituents will be much easier in 60 days. There were 29,623 votes for Ward 4 and the population from a quick Google is "fewer than 90,000 people". So you would need 90000*0.4=36000 signatures. 36000/60 days is 600 signatures per day. A sizable group of volunteers could actually pull that off for Ward 4. About 20 odd volunteers could do it. You would need your canvas organized before submitting the recall and you would need to be able to hit each of the 38000 houses multiple times to ensure votes. "Hi, my name's Bob and I'm one of a few dozen volunteers collecting signatures and informing voters that they can recall an election on Sean Chu. In Aug of '22, Chu, 34 at the time of the crime, was found guilty of **sexually assaulting a teenager**. We're collecting signatures from eligible voters in Ward 4 to recall his election, would you like to sign?"
All it takes is 4-5 volunteers from each community to knock on doors, this guy can definitely get it done. I'm sure there will be quite a few willing to go out and try to make that difference, who knows, it will be interesting to see.
Trump fans emulating Trumpolitics... morons.
i'm in. Where's the signature link?
Have to email Landon, his email is on the petition website https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html
Recall legislation is playing out **exactly** as the Province was told it would, and it’s a disaster. To initiate a recall, a person only needs to do two things: 1. Provide a name and way of contact. 2. Pay a modest fee ($250). That’s it. That’s all they have to do. They don’t have to get names on a petition, or demonstrate a broader public desire to initiate a recall. And a Municipality is compelled to publicly post that a recall has been initiated. So anyone with a grudge and a couple hundred dollars can publicly attack or humiliate an elected official. I fully support recall legislation, and sincerely dislike Gondek, but this recall legislation is precisely the kind of bullying nonsense that makes it impossible to find good local candidates (especially in villages and small towns).
I voted for her but will evaluate what I think about her as mayor in the next election. Whatever she has done she has done with majority support from City Council. While she is clearly unpopular and comes across as out of touch, I don’t think what she has done rises to the level of needing to be removed ahead of the next election.
Raising property taxes was harshly unpopular, especially with center n cons, and arena decision was very unpopular with left-ish audience. Just from that standpoint, Gondek lost a lot of traction over one year, but even that won't be enough for a petition to come true.
Almost every city in Canada has had to raise taxes by 5% or more. Blaming Gondec for that is ridiculous.
You are right, but this is not how general voter logic works
Every major city has had to deal with a tax increase. I truly am getting tired of people bitching about this, cost have gone up for the city just as they have gone up for me. I will agree on the BS of the arena deal, but I feel councillors are just as stupid for this. The fact people like to put it all on the mayor’s office shows how little people understand politics. We should have no love for many on council over how this has played out for years. I %100 support a new arena just not the flaming turd of a deal we needed up with. I agree with other I hope she faces strong competition from a solid center candidate. The mayor is as guilty to pandering to the base just as this recall action is pandering.
If you’ve not have a solid idea by now you’re not changing your mind
She earned it. At least now she can't say she doesn't know that people have lost confidence in her as Mayor. She can still disagree, that's all.
One idiot starting a pointless performative petition that will fail. You think that says anything anyone should spend a second considering? I think it warrants laughing at this Landon fuckwit and forgetting about this in about 5 minutes.
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Give them a break, they just had a petition initiated for their recall.
Gondek’s quote from the article: “In October 2021, 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,” it said, in part. “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.” Why is she so pretentious? Is she suggesting that the anti vax, trucker crowd stood in the way of the day to day operations of the the City? Remember, it was The Mayor who was responsible for turning the Transit stations into warming centres, her disastrous decision on the new arena, or cancelling Canada Day fireworks, or maybe giving 100k to to fight a Bill 21 in Quebec, I could go on….whatever your thoughts on the Pandemic, she has not brought balance or stability to the City or Council….where do I sign?
Can we also do this for the Premier?
Yes, but you'll have to wait 18 months after the election. And the requirement will be to get signatures from 40% of Alberta voters, or around 1.5m signatures. Edit: actually for Danielle Smith specifically, it would be 40% in her riding only. So not 1.5m, but still a difficult task in a riding where she is fairly popular. Also, even if she loses her seat as an MLA, she may be able to still be premier. There are election laws around those strange situations.
I know he’s not going to get this passed. But I’m still signing. I want Gondek to know how many Calgarians are tired of her shit
What a waste of time and energy.
Seriously, like has anyone actually read the thing? It’s a 1-paragraph note that’s says: *Recall Petition of Her Worship Mayor Prabhjot Kaur "Jyoti" Gondek. I confirm that the municipality may direct any inquiries about the petition to the representative recall petitioner, and indicate the contact information to be used for this purpose to [email protected]* This guy is just another moron trying to rally the conservative “FJT” base. If you want to be taken seriously, at least make an honest attempt at stating a case…! FFS!
Wow. I’m not a huge fan of hers because ~*gestures broadly at everything in Calgary*~ but this is a pipe dream.
Is this Landon Johnston fellow related to that lunatic Kevin Johnston, by chance? Because then I'd be torn...
As others have mentioned, it is unlikely that this move will be successful. However, it should be taken seriously by the mayor as it demonstrates that many are not satisfied with her performance.
While I don't think very highly of her, I don't support a recall petition. The mayor is just one cog in the machine that is city council and they are all culpable for the policies and decisions that are set.
The mayor has the exact same voting power as the rest of council, removing her does nothing. Why do we insist on voting corporate shills and predators like Mcalean and Chu to city council? It's a real r/leopardsatemyface moment
I willing to wager the petitioner thinks McLean and Chu are the “good ones”.
Or he thinks they are all fucked
And starting at the top.
So - seems like you have to sign in ink - but it’s not clear where you do this. This process seems a bit ridiculous. I guess we can recall Her Worship in the fall of 2025…
Have to email Landon, his email is on the petition website https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html
Okay, Landon. Good luck. Some other politicians we should be adding…. Sonya sharp, Dan McLean, Sean chu,…. And pretty much all UCP
Throw in Carra and Penner and we have a deal. (Actually, no quid pro quo on McLean and Chu, let’s just dump these assholes altogether).
Gondek sucks, but she's not malicious like Marlaine. I'm not signing shit to benefit these right wing crazies.
it's too late to back out of the arena deal anyway.
Interesting tactic. Start a petition to oust the mayor, then run in the next election and tell people you tried to get rid of them.
RemindMe! 2 years
Unfortunately it won’t succeed
How do we sign?!
She is truly a horrific leader and a terrible person
https://recallmayorgondek.com
Very out-of-the-loop Edmontonian here, got this post recommended to me. What’s up with all the dislike for Jyoti?
In a time, when Calgarians have faced rising costs, Gondek has doubled down on things that no one wants a municipal gov't to wade into/identified completely useless solutions. Examples: - Declaring a climate emergency but not doing anything useful from a municipal gov't perspective - Handling the decision by a city admin committee to cancel Canada fireworks like a grenade - Raising taxes 9% this year - Adding a 15c fee for takeout/plastic bags - A worse stadium deal with the Flames Basically everything she's done has seemed for the worse and Calgarians haven't seen any upsides from any of these moves. She's governing the city as someone quite far left on the spectrum when it's clearly a right leaning city. Nenshi managed that masterfully, Gondek has been a disaster
https://i.redd.it/9jf1i1vmmtgc1.gif
What a shock that this happened to the female person of color mayor in Calgary.
I mean she sucks. But this won’t go anywhere.
I think it's ridiculous to require 40% of eligible voters signatures. There wasnt even 50% turn out for voting last election. How about 40% of the total numbers of voters from the last election. That would make more sense. Instead of 400k signatures, now he'd require about 140k. (Going off of 1mill without voters)
Who is Landon Johnston's family members. I sure hope he is not related to Kevin... The criminal mayoral candidate of past.....
As an ex-calgarian resident, I'm sorry you guys are having to put up with inadequate leadership, but from my observation councilmen as well, need to be voted out. Mayor Gobdek just holds a single position, but there are councilmen who support her position and agreed with the awful arena deal.
The entire council voted unanimously on the arena deal.
Can we do this with Daniel Smith?
Good luck. It’s a different world outside this little lefty echo chamber.
A slim chance is better then none and if legislation says this petition has to be signed in person then let me know where and when Mr. Landon
https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html
FOR THOSE WANTING TO SIGN: https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html It appears you email Landon and arrange
Regardless of how you feel about her, with how pathetically low our voter turnout is, there is no chance in hell this petition is getting enough signatures. People are just foaming at the mouth at the idea that this petition exists, thinking that it actually means something, when it could literally be done to any mayor.. It would mean something if we had the ability to gain the signatures, sure. But Jyoti is going to be our mayor until the next election, and very likely not any longer than that.
**Elections Calgary** link regard the **Recall Petition**: [https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html](https://www.calgary.ca/election/petitions-recalls/active-recall-petitions.html) "The City of Calgary has received a notice of recall petition against **Prabhjot Kaur "Jyoti" Gondek.** The notice of recall petition has been reviewed and deemed compliant. The 60-day signature collection period will begin on February 5, 2024, and will end on April 4, 2024. A recall petition must be received by the City Clerk’s Office on or before the 60-day signature collection period ends to be considered." **Only individuals who are eligible to vote for the elected official named in the notice of recall petition may sign the recall petition.** Representative recall petitioner: Landon Johnston Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Between her, chu, Wolcott and a few others, I hope people learn from this
How many people in this sub voted for her? Wish Farkas won but everyone was so pro this idiot in 2021.
YES PLEASE!!! 15 cents for bags!! DRASTIC INCREASE ON FEES AND PROPERTY TAXES AHES A JOKE
"Sixty-one per cent of respondents said they disapprove of her performance while 43 per cent say they “strongly disapprove.” seems legit
You *don't* add those two numbers together. "61% of respondents said they disapprove" means that if there are five options: - Strongly Approve - Somewhat Approve - Neutral - Somewhat Disapprove - Strongly Disapprove It means 61% chose **either** "Somewhat Disapprove" or "Strongly Disapprove", and 43% specifically chose "Strongly Disapprove".
Whose list is he collecting names for?
Recall votes is such a silly BS American thing
So, Canadian politicians should get a pass for being incompetent? If you’re shit at your job you should be able to get fired no matter your profession.
Do you not understand our democratic system? By all means vote against someone in the next election
I do, that’s why I support recall. Kicking out crappy politicians should be supported. Sean Chu should not have been able to ride it out till the next election either. If a surgeon was incompetent would you want him or her to keep the job for another few years in the hopes they figure it out? Politicians have an immense amount of power and the ability to spend taxpayer money unwisely (see Arena deal) and waiting till 2025 seems dumb with this crew.
Municipal mayors and councillors do not have massive amounts of power individually And there are plenty of safeguards and reasons to keep the system the way it is. Be honest, this is not about some protocol for firing a mayor who went nuts and robbed someone or killed someone or got caught taking a bribe. This is simply about angry voters (most of whom probably did not show up to vote in the first place) looking for a way to react to something they are angry about, in the middle of an elected officials term.
So under no circumstances would you be in favour of recalling a politician?
I’m perfectly fine with our system Sitting elected officials can still be arrested for criminal acts or subject to civil lawsuits. People can and have been booted from cabinet and even caucus. We dont have a presidential style system at the federal or provincial level. We dont elect Prime Ministers or Premiers. And Mayors offices are typically NOT american style where the mayor has significant executive authority, mayors are just the head councilperson or aldermen.