Recall legislation and risk to good governance

There is, no doubt, a certain amount of schadenfreude in watching an ever-growing number of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party MLAs (including herself) face recall petitions.

After all, the United Conservatives, under then-premier Jason Kenney, put the ability to recall politicians into legislation, with Kenney saying the move would ensure “ordinary Albertans are the boss,” and make sure that politicians “work for you every day, not just during election campaigns.”

With, at last count, 17 Alberta UCP MLAs facing recall actions, there suddenly seems to be a feeling in Smith’s government that having ordinary Albertans be “the boss” might not be all it was cracked up to be. Apparently, the UCP didn’t factor in the idea that the public might not support a heavy-handed provincial government using the notwithstanding clause to force teachers to accept contracts or to pass legislation abridging the right of transgender Albertans.

They certainly didn’t foresee that there might be so many recall petitions that, if the recalls are successful, the government could fall.

The UCP is now openly musing that the recall legislation isn’t being used the way it was intended to be used (they foresaw it being used only against MLAs from other parties, perchance?) and therefore, the rules may need to be revisited.

The thing is, though, that while recalling MLAs may look like a great plan to ensure that governments do the things they’re elected to do, the constant threat of a populist backlash doesn’t make for good governance.

Every issue can’t be a popularity contest.

If it is, governments can face the reality that they might never be able to enact major policy changes that don’t meet with the constant support of voters. And that might not be anything like wise and measured policy.

Think about it this way.

The success of tax freezes and rollbacks, along with the acceptance of ever-growing deficits pushing payments for programs off into the future, have shown that the vast majority of the voting population is more concerned on any given day about their own personal finances than they are about either the circumstance we leave for future generations or the idea that we should all welcome paying for the services we actually all use.

When a government — municipal, provincial or federal — is elected, it lays out the policies that it intends to follow. Its platform may include cutting costs in its respective bureaucracy, it may be dealing with climate change risks, it may involve increasing defence spending in a rapidly changing world, especially while dealing with an unpredictable neighbour. It may be any number of things.

But things can also change during its mandate, and difficult, perhaps unpopular, decisions often have to be made.

The bar for recalling politicians, if it exists at all, should be very, very high. Otherwise, we’ll simply face the risk of a revolving door every time a government undertakes a necessary but unpopular course of action.

We elect governments to govern — in good times, in bad times, in tough times. They should be able to make the best decisions they can, for the whole of the population, without having to take those measures while watching their backs for a recall vote the entire time.

The Alberta UCP is perhaps demonstrating why we have to take elections as a serious matter, rather than accepting whatever glib and shiny promises seem to benefit us the most personally.

If a governing party lies about what they intend to do or strays far from their mandate, keep track and call in the receipts.

When the next election comes along, cast them so far out of office that they can’t even see the legislature’s lawn, let alone the inside of the building.