Recall legislation ensures accountability

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/09/2023 (989 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every current and wannabe provincial politician is stepping up to microphones across the province and making promises about what they would do if they’re elected.

But, surprise, surprise, politicians often fail to keep even the simplest of promises and voters are stuck until the next election comes around.

If anyone else performs poorly at work, we get fired. But politicians only face their boss, taxpayers, at election time. In the four years in between elections, they can sit back and enjoy their generous taxpayer-funded paycheques with little to no consequences or accountability. Recall legislation would change that.

Recall legislation is a simple tool that allows voters to fire a politician who has fumbled the ball. Here’s how it works: any citizen can start a petition. If it gets the required number of signatures, voters then go to the ballot box to decide if they want to boot the politician in a byelection.

This already exists in both British Columbia and Alberta.

In B.C., recall legislation was used to push former MLA Paul Reitsma out of office. Reitsma was caught sending fake letters-to-the-editor and resigned after it was clear enough signatures were collected to recall him.

Alberta’s recall legislation is new but has already been used to get rid of a misbehaving politician. Nik Lee, the former mayor of the village of Ryley, was recalled by local voters after ballooning the village budget and expensing $5,000 to attend meetings without council approval.

How could recall legislation have been used in Manitoba?

In 2011, former premier Greg Selinger promised Manitobans that he would not raise the provincial sales tax. But shortly after being elected, he hiked the PST.

Former premier Brian Pallister launched a petition opposing the carbon tax before the 2019 election. After the election, his government floated the idea of creating its own carbon tax. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but if it did, no one could have stopped it until the next election.

If recall legislation had been in place, both Selinger and Pallister might have thought more carefully about breaking their promises.

And recall legislation makes politicians more likely to think twice before dipping into the taxpayer cookie jar or acting unethically. With recall legislation, politicians know they may have to explain their spending scandal to voters in a couple weeks instead of in a couple years during the next election.

When crafting its own recall legislation, the Manitoba government can improve on the rules in B.C. and Alberta.

In both provinces, voters must wait 18 months after an election before starting a recall petition and they need signatures from 40 per cent of eligible voters in the riding before a byelection is triggered.

In B.C., voters have only 60 days to collect the number of signatures required to trigger a byelection. Premier Heather Stefanson’s riding, Tuxedo, is home to about 17,000 eligible voters. To recall the premier, voters would need to collect at least 113 signatures a day to meet the threshold. That’s not impossible, but it is a lofty requirement to meet when voters also need to go to work and take their kids to hockey practice. They can’t spend all day playing politics.

The threshold shouldn’t be so onerous in Manitoba. In the United Kingdom, it’s 10 per cent. In the United States, most recall legislation sets the threshold to recall a politician at 25 per cent of eligible voters. Voters also shouldn’t have to wait to fire their politicians. If a newly elected MLA starts immediately charging taxpayers for five-star restaurant meals, voters should be able to launch a petition and force a byelection.

In a democracy, taxpayers are supposed to be the boss. Like a true boss, taxpayers should be able to fire politicians at any time, not only once every four years. Manitoba needs recall legislation.

Gage Haubrich is the prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.