Alberta
The Chasm Between Pro and Anti Pipeline Debate in Two Opinions
In early January we published an opinion from a reader entitled:
Open letter to Canadians opposing Canadian Pipelines and Oilsands
It generated significant readership and response. You can click on the graphic to the left to read it now, or you can find it included later in this story. Reviewing it will give context to another opinion, this one from Neville Wells, a resident of British Columbia.
These two differing opinions illustrate the massive idealogical gap that exists in the debate around Canada’s energy industry. If you’d like to share your opinion we’d like to hear about it. Send us your thoughts at [email protected]
Open letter to Demian Newman, in response to his article appearing on “Todayville”.
Demian…
Thank you for putting out your thoughts and perspective on the pipeline issues that are on the top of everyone’s mind. I’d like to respond with a few thoughts of my own.
By way of background, I am someone who has, and is, opposing certain pipeline projects in western Canada. I am a native Calgarian who has over 25 years of professional environmental consulting experience and I have worked directly or indirectly for most of the majors on projects like Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, Trans Mountain Jasper National Park Looping, Georgia Straight Crossing, and many, many others. I know the oil and gas industry, its environmental practices, and effects. I have also worked for citizens, mostly farmers, First Nations and ENGOs who found themselves in conflict with the oil and gas industry. I have directly participated in dozens of regulatory hearings in front of the National Energy Board, the Alberta Energy Regulator, Joint Review Panels and other regulatory bodies. In the course of the last three decades I have taken both federal and provincial regulators to their respective courts of appeal on several occasions. Most recently, I challenged the TCPL Prince Rupert LNG pipeline and after being initially denied by the National Energy Board I was successful at the Federal Court of Appeal. As you may know that project did not proceed. I am currently challenging the TCPL Coastal GasLink pipeline in a National Energy Board regulatory proceeding that I initiated and I believe I’m solid legal grounds and that I will likely succeed in that challenge.
So I have a comprehensive understanding of most aspects of the oil and gas industry, in particular pipelines, and a good working knowledge of the rest. I have 25 years of professional environmental experience and am very familiar with the legislative, regulatory and public policy context in which the western Canadian oil and gas industry operates. In summary, I think I understand the industry, pipelines and more specifically its environmental consequences.
Please forgive my long winded preamble but I want to impress upon you that I am not your average tree hugger. My concerns about the oil and gas industry are hard earned over 30 years and are based on experience, facts, reason and good science. So with that said, I have the following to say about your open letter…
First, this is not a comprehensive review; instead I will focus on just a few highlights.
One of your major premises in your open letter is that Canada, and specifically the Oil and Gas industry, has world leading environmental standards and practices. This is simply not true.
For example we do not have an equivalent to the US Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act. Oh sure, we have the federal Species at Risk Act but the consensus is out – it doesn’t work. And why, because of intensive government lobbying by the powerful oil and gas industry to ensure any efforts to address endangered species do not have an adverse economic effect on industry.
I could go on at length about endangered caribou, sage grouse, westslope cutthroat trout and the list goes on and on., but I’ve made my point.
As for regulations, there are many problems with our current regulatory system, most notably that the government so-called “public interest” regulators, for example the National Energy Board, the Alberta Energy Regulator and the BC Oil and Gas Commission are literally and figuratively captive regulators whose credibility with the general public is near zero. We don’t believe anything they say and why should we.
Let’s not forget the weak environmental assessment legislation we have in this country and the efforts by government regulators and industry to block public participation in the environmental review process.
For example, in a recent Alberta Energy Regulator decision a SW Alberta land owner was denied a hearing on a Level 3 sour gas well where his land and residence was within the emergency response zone and where his only access and egress from his residence was by traveling over 7 km of low grade gravel road that was also in the emergency response zone. When the public lives in the emergency response zone of a Level 3 sour gas well and AER will not allow a public hearing, it’s hard to believe we have a world class environmental and regulatory system… I have many other examples as well.
Another point I want to make is this notion that some pro-pipeline advocates, yourself included, have that somehow it’s the industries God-given right to build pipelines regardless of other thoughtful citizens’ concerns. While that arrogance has worked very well for the oil and gas industry for the last 70 years, unfortunately Demian, to misquote Bob Dylan, “… the times they are a changing…”. And in my view it can’t happen quickly enough.
And don’t get me started on global warming… that an entire conversation on its own… Do you really think that the momentum around reducing global carbon emissions can be stopped or reversed? Sure you can fight a rear-guard action, like the lead, asbestos, and Tobacco industries did, but like them, the oil and gas industry will ultimately lose. Tell you what… let’s make a wager around the issue… lets touch base in 12 years and see who was right. You in?
You indicated in your open letter that you “…I desperately want to have a conversation with…” people who oppose pipelines. Well here is your chance.
I would like to invite you to meet with me to have an open, frank and respectful discussion about the nature of the problems facing us all with a view to finding common ground so that we can identify and work towards a solution that will serve all Canadian’s interest. That will certainly be an entertaining and sometime difficult discussion, but I will make myself available to meet with you at your convenience to start towards finding a solution. Your call…
Best regards,
Mike Sawyer
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Todayville published the following story on January 5th, 2019, with permission from Demian Newman, President of Newman Sales an Marketing in Calgary.
January 5, 2019
Dear fellow Canadians,
I’m writing this as an open letter to every Canadian who has protested the Canadian oil and gas industry. I’m writing this to ask – what if you win? What if you succeed and completely shut down Canada’s oil and gas industry? What happens next?
Obviously, if you’ve ever marched, protested or argued against Canadian pipelines or Oilsands, you must believe that you are financially insulated from the hundreds of billions this industry puts into the Canadian economy. Or you are OK with the crushing blow to the Canadian economy, because your heartfelt belief is that the Canadian oil and gas industry is so environmentally bad for the planet.
These are the people I desperately want to have a conversation with.
I write this letter, not as a Calgarian, Albertan, or even as a Canadian. But I write this as a human being. A human being with two young children, and one who doesn’t go a day without being concerned about how we’re leaving this planet.
So, let’s say that all the anti-Canadian pipeline and oilsands campaigns finally crippled this industry, to a point it can’t rebound. Which feels like a real possibility these days. But what is not just a possibility, but a reality, is that Canadians without their own oil and gas industry would still consume the same amount of energy.
And as Canadians continue to consume 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, the amount we need to import from foreign countries would rise from the current 56%, to 100%. And as completely confused as I already am that we currently import 850,000+ barrels of oil per day, while having the 4th largest reserves in the world. I have absolutely no idea how anyone can think importing an additional 650,000 barrels a day is better for Canada or the environment?
Let’s start with where it’s coming from, with Canada importing 61% from the US, 12% from Saudi Arabia, 6% from Azerbaijan, 5% from Norway, and 4% from Nigeria. I’m going to skip past each of these countries environmental, safety, employee and human rights track records, as there’s no point defacing them when Canada’s oil and gas industry is the world leader in all of these. And I’ll expand on this later, but I thought for arguments sake, we can pretend all these countries have the same standards as Canada.
How could it possibly be more environmentally positive to drill oil in the Middle East, pipeline it to their ports, tanker it 10,000+kms across the ocean, and then deliver it to Canada? Remembering that we have it right here.
So, you’ve won, and there’s no more of what you believe is “dirty oil”. And now we’re importing an additional 650,000 barrels a day into Canada. Let’s not forget, that the 5% of the world’s oil production which Canada currently produces daily, would need to be replaced, or prices would inflate and everyone across the globe would have to pay more at the pumps. And more for the 1,000’s of items manufactured from oil.
But don’t worry about the extra cost, as no other country has an anti oil industry campaign against them, that has stopped or slowed them down like Canada has. And with technology getting better every day, Canada’s 5% worldwide production amounts will be easily replaced.
And let’s go full circle to the Canadian’s protesting new Canadian pipeline projects. If we eliminate our own industry, and we’re importing 650,000 extra barrels of oil daily, we’ll have no other choice but to build new pipelines and facilities to bring this additional oil from the US pipelines and foreign tankers.
So, wouldn’t that be an ironic punch in the face. Where Canadians protesting Canadian owned and operated pipelines, end up shutting down all the investment it takes to move Canadian resources through Canadian pipelines. Just so we are forced to build pipelines and facilities to move more foreign oil into Canada.
And I mentioned that we’d pretend all countries have the same environmental requirements and standards when exploring and developing their natural resources. But it isn’t even close.
You can Google articles with examples of Canada’s environmental standards in this industry, versus any other country. But instead, do yourself a favour and ask someone who’s worked in Canada’s oilpatch, and around the world. Every one of them has countless stories of horrendous environmental issues abroad, which haven’t been allowed in Canada in 30+years (or ever).
So, let’s look at what Canada’s environmental standards are for this industry. And by that, I mean you should go look it up. Don’t take my word for it, but find some reputable publications and factual documents, and not someone’s rambling blog.
Look it up, and please let me know if I’m wrong. Because as much as I needed to write this letter, to get a few things off my chest. I also wrote it, as I believe everyone needs to do better at having a conversation about climate change, the environment, and our responsibility to all do better.
So, I welcome the opposing opinion, as I don’t know why this topic has become a name calling divisive shouting match, where no one will listen to the other side.
But while I have you here, I did want to throw out a couple specific projects, and how protesting them doesn’t make any environmental sense to me. One is Energy East, and the other is BC LNG. The first one is dead, but my fingers are crossed that it can be revived. The second is still approved, for now.
If you look at a map of Canadian pipelines, there is no major pipeline going from Alberta to the east coast of Canada. This means that almost every drop of gas in every vehicle east of Winnipeg is from refined foreign oil. The amount of oil that would’ve travelled on the Energy East pipeline is almost the same amount of oil that we import from Saudi Arabia every day (roughly 100,000 barrels a day).
But what if we didn’t protest Energy East, and instead told the Premier of Quebec that he cannot block a national pipeline. Eastern Canadians would’ve paid (at a minimum) $10-$15 less per barrel than they are currently paying for Canadian oil versus foreign oil. But there was also the billions (not millions, but billions) in revenue that each province would receive from this pipeline running oil through their province.
And I know we’re focusing on the environment, and not the financial benefits of Canada’s oil and gas industry. But, the trick with clean energy and technology, is that it takes money to develop and get to market. So I could be wrong, but I’m almost certain that not one oil company would’ve been upset if Quebec hadn’t killed this pipeline, but instead, took their multi billions a year in revenue from it, and invested all of it into new clean energy technology.
Another thing I encourage you to Google, is the amount of new clean energy technology that has been developed by, and for, Canada’s oil and gas industry.
So, Energy East would’ve taken the amount of Canadian oil, which they are already buying from foreign countries, while generating a ton of money for Canada/Canadians. And then that money could’ve been invested into renewable green energy development. But, Climate Change is a world wide problem, not just a Canadian one. So, as crazy as this might sound, I do believe that BC building facilities to ship Canadian liquid natural gas (LNG) to the world, could have an incredibly positive carbon emissions net benefit.
Currently, China alone has over 700 super coal plants. Just one of them emitting almost as much CO2 as the entire Canadian Oilsands (this is easy to look up). So, what if we could help China get their energy from Natural Gas instead of Coal, as it’s WAY better for the environment. (Side note – also look up Natural Gas and its carbon footprint, as I find very few people realize that it has been unfairly lumped in as a dirty fossil fuel).
And very quickly, I would like to address how we got here in the first place. Why is the perception of Canada’s oil and gas industry so bad across the rest of Canada?
The industry really must start by looking inward, as it has done a very poor job of promoting itself and the strides it’s made over the years. And it can still improve. As can all of us individually.
Because who outside of the industry knows that the Oilsands greenhouse gas emissions have dropped 29% since 2000. Or that a barrel of oil sent from the Oilsands to a refinery on the US Golf Coast has a smaller carbon foot print than a barrel of oil traveling from an oil well in California (it’s small difference, but it’s still better).
And to understand why it’s tough for this industry to promote itself – it is Canadian after all, which explains a lot about its uncomfortable feelings towards self-promotion. And I’ve met a ton of extremely intelligent and thoughtful engineers, geologists, accountants, and tradespeople in this industry, but I’ve never met a Public Relations person – and if there is one, they are very underfunded.
Who is not underfunded, are the groups who make an extraordinary amount of money from Canada not being able to get its natural resources to other customers (the US is our biggest customer at 99%, which is a percentage no business can survive with). And you can’t blame these people for making money off Canada’s inability to build pipelines. But, how they’ve done it, by spending hundreds of millions on PR campaigns to smear Canada’s industry, and pitting us against each other, is beyond is infuriating.
If you only look up one item, please do some research on how openly organizations have been about making donations in the name of the environment, which only target one country’s oil industry. This has made a lot of headlines lately, but I’ve read national Canadian media articles investigating this as far back as 2010.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that I tried my best to use as few statistics as possible, as I’ve seen arguments get derailed with debates on stats. As if the $80 million that Canada losses every day due to no pipeline capacity, is any different if its $40 million or $100 million. It’s a lot of millions, that have turned into billions. And it’s costing hundreds of thousands of good hardworking Canadians financial hardship.
And if it saves the environment, and the planet, then there certainly is an argument for it. But if it’s not helping at all, and potentially harming the planet. Then everyone needs to get educated on all the facts and start to talk to each other about a real solution. And get our industries, politicians, and every Canadian on board with a solution that works.
And please, please, please, don’t take your information from this subject off some rogue website, that’s for or against my stance. Take the time to get your facts from vetted and fact checked publications.
No one should get their facts from a nameless person shouting on the internet. So, my name is Demian Newman, and the two kids I’m leaving this planet to are Olivia and Liam. And both of them need to grow up in a country which is thriving as a world leader, both economically and environmentally – as anything less would be un-Canadian.
Sincerely,
Demian Newman
p.s. If you don’t have time to look up information on everything I’ve mentioned above. Here are a few links:
This first one is on personal energy use and personal accountability. Fun fact: If each of us does a better job to minimize our individual carbon footprint, the industries selling it won’t need to produce as much. Scary fact: literally every economist has said we will use more energy each and every year. This article does a good job expanding on that.
https://www.c2cjournal.ca/2018/12/03/we-have-met-the-carbon-enemy-and-he-is-us/
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/oil-sands/18091
https://ipolitics.ca/2014/07/18/how-clean-is-our-dirty-oil-youd-be-surprised/
Newman Sales and Marketing Inc is a full service sales and marketing firm representing independently owned and operated oilfield service companies.
If you enjoyed this story, you might also like this story from Sheldon Gron. Click the image below:
When Democratic Tools Become Weapons
A Canadian politician once kept his legislative seat while serving time in prison.
Gilles Grégoire, a founding figure in Quebec’s nationalist movement, was convicted in 1983 of multiple counts of sexual assault against minors, mostly girls between the ages of 10 and 14. He inhabited a cell yet remained a member of the National Assembly. A representative of free citizens could no longer walk among them.
Grégoire became the kind of figure who seems made for a recall law. His presence in office after conviction insulted the very notion of a democratic mandate. Yet Quebec lacked recall legislation, and the Assembly chose not to intervene. The episode lingers as a reminder that even robust democracies sometimes fail to protect themselves from rare, glaring contradictions.
Such cases hold powerful sway over the political imagination. They tempt reformers to believe that recall is the cure for democratic injustice, giving it exceptional weight it does not deserve. A constitution shaped by anomalies becomes a constitution shaped by distortion.
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Alberta’s own history proves the point, though the lesson has been forgotten. William Aberhart’s rise in 1935 owed more to spiritual magnetism and Depression-era desperation than to prudent reform. He promised Social Credit prosperity through monthly dividends to all citizens. The electorate believed that a new economic order would arrive at a cheerful pace. It did not. Within eighteen months of taking office, Aberhart found himself the target of what he himself had created. His government had passed recall legislation in its first session, fulfilling a campaign promise to democratize Alberta’s government. When the promised dividends failed to materialize, his own constituents in Okotoks-High River began gathering signatures for his removal. The charge was not misconduct but failure to deliver miracles.
Faced with this threat, Aberhart’s government retroactively repealed the recall legislation rather than allow him to be forced from his seat. He thus became the first Canadian politician to institute recall and to be threatened with it. History recorded the episode as a cautionary tale rather than a triumph of democratic vigilance. It showed how easily recall could slip from a tool for integrity to a weapon for frustration, revealing a truth that democratic societies often forget: mechanisms designed for exceptional cases seldom remain limited to them.
Those two stories frame Alberta’s problem today. The province revived recall legislation under Premier Jason Kenney in 2021, with the law taking effect later that year. The measure returned with assurances that high thresholds would prevent misuse. Its defenders claimed recall would restrain arrogance and encourage accountability, offering ordinary Albertans a way to hold politicians accountable between elections. Then, facing discontent within his own party over COVID mandates, Kenney himself became the subject of a different form of recall, a leadership review that undermined his power. Premier Danielle Smith, who succeeded him, amended the recall legislation in July 2025 to make it easier to use. She lowered the signature threshold and extended the collection period, changes that would soon work against her own government.
The result has been quite different from what either leader intended. On October 23, 2025, Alberta approved its first recall petition of the modern era, targeting Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides in Calgary-Bow. The applicant, Jennifer Yeremiy of a group called AB Resistance, told reporters that their goal was “to put forward enough recalls to trigger an early election.” This was not a response to corruption or criminality. It was an explicit strategy to overturn the results of the 2023 provincial election.
The floodgates opened from there. As of December 10, 2025, twenty-one MLAs face active recall petitions. The list now includes Premier Smith herself, as well as multiple cabinet ministers, backbenchers, and even one NDP opposition member. None confronts allegations of criminality. None confronts evidence of corruption. None resembles Gilles Grégoire. Their adversaries object to education funding decisions, the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause during a teachers’ strike, and various claims of insufficient constituent engagement. These are matters of policy disagreement, not grounds for judicial removal from office.
The principled case for recall legislation deserves some consideration. A democratic society must guard against officeholders whose conduct becomes so egregious that the public cannot wait for the next scheduled election. A mechanism for such removal, carefully designed and narrowly applied, reflects respect for citizenship and the dignity of democratic representation. The theory imagines a vigilant electorate using a sharp tool with care, meeting the rare case with a rare response.
Reality seldom matches this ideal. British Columbia has maintained recall legislation since 1995—thirty years during which not a single MLA has been successfully recalled, despite no shortage of controversial politicians and unpopular decisions. When recall petitions have been attempted there, they have almost exclusively targeted MLAs from close ridings over policy disputes rather than serious misconduct. The pattern is remarkably consistent. Recall becomes a tool for the sore losers of close elections, not a mechanism for removing the genuinely unfit.
This should not surprise us. Most political conflicts involve competing policy visions rather than breaches of trust. Legislators are elected precisely to judge the merits of those visions over a defined term. Elections confer authority because they settle disputes for a time, allowing governments to govern and oppositions to organize for the next contest. A recall mechanism that permits policy quarrels to trigger removal undermines the very purpose of elections. It invites factions to overturn results they dislike through extraordinary means, weakening the equilibrium that representative government tries to protect.
The Aberhart episode illustrates this tendency with clarity. His opponents did not claim he had abused office or engaged in corruption. They claimed he had failed to conjure prosperity, which was entirely true; his promise of monthly dividends proved impossible to deliver. Their frustration stemmed from disappointment rather than betrayal, from unmet expectations rather than broken trust. Yet they seized on the recall mechanism to express that disappointment, nearly removing him on that basis alone. The effort had nothing to do with the integrity of public office and everything to do with the volatility of public expectation during desperate times.
The contemporary Alberta law requires signatures from sixty percent of voters who participated in the last election, collected within 90 days. This appears to be a significant threshold designed to prevent frivolous attempts. The appearance misleads in several ways. First, the threshold is lower than it sounds because it requires sixty percent of actual voters rather than eligible voters—a crucial distinction that substantially reduces the number needed. Second, even petitions that fall short of this threshold can inflict severe political damage. The mere existence of an active recall petition marks an MLA with the taint of public disapproval, regardless of whether the petition succeeds.
The scale and coordination of current efforts reveal something more troubling than isolated expressions of constituent dissatisfaction. A website called Operation Total Recall provides organizational infrastructure for a systematic campaign targeting all 44 MLAs who voted to use the notwithstanding clause during the teachers’ strike. This is not spontaneous grassroots democracy. It is coordinated political warfare using recall as a weapon to overturn electoral outcomes. The effort aims not at removing individual members for cause, but at destabilizing an elected government through mass petitions. Analysis of the 2023 election results shows that five UCP MLAs won by fewer than 1,000 votes, with roughly a dozen more winning by fewer than 2,000. Multiple successful recalls could topple a government with only an 11-seat majority, precisely the outcome the organizers openly seek.
Each successful petition would trigger not just a referendum but also, if that referendum passes, a by-election costing taxpayers between $500,000 and $1 million. This is public money spent not to address disqualifying conduct but to re-litigate policy disagreements that voters already decided in 2023. The financial cost alone should give pause. But the deeper costs run to the foundations of representative government itself.
Prudence counsels caution here. Stable institutions exist precisely to restrain public passions rather than reflect them in every heated moment. Legislators must make decisions that sometimes contradict immediate popular sentiment, particularly when facing complex policy files or managing competing interests across diverse constituencies. A system that keeps them in constant survival mode, forever fighting off recall petitions over unpopular but necessary decisions, cannot foster the kind of judgment that good governance requires. Hayek warned that societies often overestimate their ability to redesign the political order according to the impulses of the moment, mistaking the intensity of feeling for the wisdom of action. Recall legislation embodies exactly this temptation, pretending to offer precise accountability while producing disorder and instability.
The concerns of those organizing these recall campaigns may well be sincere. Many genuinely believe that government policies on education funding or the use of constitutional override powers represent serious failures deserving extraordinary remedy. But sincerity of belief does not make the remedy appropriate. These matters played out during the 2023 election campaign. Voters heard the arguments on both sides. They weighed the competing visions. They made their choices. Those choices produced a government with a mandate to govern according to its platform, which included the education policies and approach to constitutional questions now under attack through recall petitions.
A representative who steals public funds or breaks criminal law betrays the trust voters placed in him. Recall aimed at such behaviour may have genuine merit, providing a necessary safeguard against serious malfeasance. But a representative who supports an unpopular policy does not betray his office—he exercises the judgment he was elected to exercise. That is the political job. Voters who disagree may vote him out at the end of his term. They ought not demand his eviction for legislative disagreement over education funding levels or the appropriate use of constitutional tools in labour disputes.
The shift that recall produces goes beyond individual cases. It fundamentally alters the character of political engagement, moving energy away from long-term relationship building and toward short-term confrontation. Petition campaigns demand signatures rather than solutions. They mobilize resentment rather than reflection. They organize anger rather than deliberation. The timing of the first modern recall petition makes this dynamic clear—it launched during a province-wide teachers’ strike, piggybacking on existing mobilization and emotion. But teachers’ strikes happen. Contract negotiations sometimes get contentious. Should every education minister facing difficult bargaining face recall? Should every healthcare minister dealing with doctors’ disputes become a petition target? This path leads to governance by perpetual crisis, where every unpopular but necessary decision triggers a removal campaign.
The effect on the dignity and effectiveness of public work deserves particular attention. Legislators must confront complex files that rarely offer clearly correct answers. They must choose among imperfect options while balancing competing demands from local constituents and provincial interests. Recall turns these unavoidable difficulties into personal liabilities. Taking a principled but unpopular stand risks triggering a petition. The pressure to remain popular at all times can overwhelm the responsibility to remain principled, inverting the proper relationship between representative and constituency.
If Albertans are genuinely dissatisfied with their government’s direction, a perfectly functional mechanism exists to express that dissatisfaction: the next general election, scheduled for October 2027. That is less than two years away—hardly an eternity in democratic terms. In the meantime, voters retain numerous other tools for making their voices heard. They may contact their MLAs directly, organize politically through parties and interest groups, attend town halls and constituency meetings, and build support for the opposition. These traditional channels require patience and persuasion. They require building actual majority support rather than mobilizing intense minorities. Recall petitions short-circuit this democratic process, allowing well-organized groups to force expensive special votes over disputes that were already litigated during the last election. The NDP opposition, which came close but ultimately fell short in 2023, appears in a hurry to open a back door to reverse its electoral fortune through extraordinary means.
The case of Gilles Grégoire illuminates a genuine weakness in democratic systems—the inability to remove someone whose continued presence in office becomes morally intolerable. This reveals a fundamental flaw. But the solution lies in targeted remedies: clear rules for automatic expulsion upon conviction for serious offences, for instance, rather than a broad recall system that allows every policy grievance to become a removal campaign. Such targeted measures would correct specific defects without inviting the broader turmoil that comprehensive recall legislation produces.
Alberta’s present situation echoes the Aberhart lesson with remarkable fidelity. Recall laws seldom remain tied to their original purpose. They drift toward unintended uses, shifting from instruments of moral accountability to weapons of political agitation. They reward passion rather than judgment at precisely the time when there is already far too much passion and not nearly enough good political judgment. They trade stability for drama and substitute the illusion of democratic empowerment for the reality of weakened institutions that guard freedom.
When Jason Kenney introduced recall legislation in 2021, Alberta had twenty-six years of British Columbia evidence showing how these laws function in practice. That evidence pointed clearly in one direction. Yet the UCP proceeded anyway, and in July 2025, the Smith government made recalls even easier, lowering thresholds and extending signature periods precisely when the government enjoyed a comfortable majority. Now, multiple petitions target UCP cabinet ministers and backbenchers while organizers openly seek to force an early election. The NDP leader’s response captured the irony perfectly: “Hoisted on your own petard.”
A healthy political community requires transparent elections that produce precise results, firm mandates that allow governments to govern, and representatives who can exercise judgment with appropriate stability between electoral contests. It requires citizens who understand that disagreement over policy, much less tit for tat, does not warrant removal. It requires carefully designed safeguards against genuine abuse of office rather than mechanisms that allow temporary frustration to masquerade as a permanent principle. Recall legislation promises a swift cure for democratic ailments while delivering turbulence and rewarding radical impatience.
Democracy depends on accepting election results even when we disagree with them. It depends on waiting for our turn to make our case to voters at the next scheduled opportunity. The recall weapon undermines these basic norms in the service of immediate partisan advantage, encouraging precisely the kind of political mischief that corrodes public trust. This is not democratic vitality expressing itself through new channels. It is democratic exhaustion, the permanent campaign that prevents anyone from governing.
Alberta stands at a point where history speaks with unusual clarity. The Grégoire case shows us the moral outlier who truly deserved immediate removal from office. The Aberhart episode shows us the grave danger of using recall for anything less serious. The voters of this province should draw the correct lesson from both stories. They should protect democracy by resisting the recall illusion—not by eliminating all accountability mechanisms, but by insisting that extraordinary remedies be reserved for truly remarkable circumstances rather than routine policy disputes. That distinction makes all the difference between a legitimate tool and a partisan weapon.
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From the Fraser Institute
By Tegan Hill and Austin Thompson
According to Calgarians for Thoughtful Growth (CFTG)—an organization advocating against “blanket rezoning”— housing would be more affordable if the mayor and council restricted what homes can be built in Calgary and where. But that gets the economics backwards.
Blanket rezoning—a 2024 policy that allowed homebuilders to construct duplexes, townhomes and fourplexes in most neighbourhoods—allowed more homebuilding, giving Calgarians more choice, and put downward pressure on prices. Mayor Farkas and several councillors campaigned on repealing blanket rezoning and on December 15 council will debate a motion that could start that process. As Calgarians debate the city’s housing rules, residents should understand the trade-offs involved.
When CFTG claims that blanket rezoning does “nothing” for affordability, it ignores a large body of economic research showing the opposite.
New homes are only built when they can be sold to willing homebuyers for a profit. Restrictions that limit the range of styles and locations for new homes, or that lock denser housing behind a long, costly and uncertain municipal approval process, inevitably eliminate many of these opportunities. That means fewer new homes are built, which worsens housing scarcity and pushes up prices. This intuitive story is backed up by study after study. An analysis by Canada’s federal housing agency put it simply: “higher residential land use regulation seems to be associated with lower housing affordability.”
CFTG also claims that blanket rezoning merely encourages “speculation” (i.e. buying to sell in the short-term for profit) by investors. Any profitable housing market may invite some speculative activity. But homebuilders and investors can only survive financially if they make homes that families are willing to buy or rent. The many Calgary families who bought or rented a new home enabled by blanket rezoning did so because they felt it was their best available option given its price, amenities and location—not because they were pawns in some speculative game. Calgarians benefit when they are free to choose the type of home and neighbourhood that best suits their family, rather than being constrained by the political whims of city hall.
And CFTG’s claim that blanket rezoning harms municipal finances also warrants scrutiny. More specifically, CFTG suggests that developers do not pay for infrastructure upgrades in established neighbourhoods, but this is simply incorrect. The City of Calgary charges an “Established Area Levy” to cover the cost of water and wastewater upgrades spurred by redevelopment projects—raising $16.5 million in 2024 alone. Builders in the downtown area must pay the “Centre City Levy,” which funds several local services (and generated $2.5 million in 2024).
It’s true that municipal fees on homes in new communities are generally higher, but that reflects the reality that new communities require far more new pipes, roads and facilities than established neighbourhoods.
Redeveloping established areas of the city means more residents can make use of streets, transit and other city services already in place, which is often the most cost-effective way for a city to grow. The City of Calgary’s own analysis finds that redevelopment in established neighbourhoods saves billions of taxpayer dollars on capital and operating costs for city services compared to an alternative scenario where homebuilding is concentrated in new suburban communities.
An honest debate about blanket rezoning ought to acknowledge the advantages this system has in promoting housing choice, housing affordability and the sustainability of municipal finances.
Clearly, many Calgarians felt blanket rezoning was undesirable when they voted for mayoral and council candidates who promised to change Calgary’s zoning rules. However, Calgarians also voted for a mayor who promised that more homes would be built faster, and at affordable prices—something that will be harder to achieve if city hall imposes tighter restrictions on where and what types of homes can be built. This unavoidable tension should be at the heart of the debate.
CFTG is promoting a comforting fairy tale where Calgary can tighten restrictions on homebuilding without limiting supply or driving up prices. In reality, no zoning regime delivers everything at once—greater neighbourhood control inevitably comes at the expense of housing choice and affordability. Calgarians—including the mayor and council—need a clear understanding of the trade-offs.
Tegan Hill
Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute
Austin Thompson
Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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