Petition to recall Calgary's mayor officially deemed insufficient

During a special meeting of council on Monday, the City of Calgary officially determined the effort to recall Mayor Jyoti Gondek not only fell short of the required threshold, but all 369 signatures selected at random for verification were invalid.

The process began in late January when local HVAC business owner Landon Johnston filed a petition to recall the mayor because he was unhappy with the city's leadership.

Following provisions in the Municipal Government Act — the provincial legislation that allows for recall petitions — Johnston was given 60 days starting Feb. 5 to collect 514,284 hand-written signatures, equal to 40 per cent of Calgary's 2019 population.

That total was more than the number of residents who voted in Calgary's last municipal election.

Johnston submitted the final signatures before the April 4 deadline. At the time, he told reporters he had counted 72,271.

According to the city clerk, 69,344 signatures were received, or 444,940 shy of the target.

What's more, a random sample of 369 signatures were taken into a verification process to determine if they met the provisions outlined in the provincial recall legislation. 

All 369 signatures sampled were declared to be invalid due to missing information.

"The statistically significant random sample size was 369, and after verification, the number of valid signatures in the sample is zero. This is because the notice of recall petition was not included on any petition pages as required by the Municipal Government Act, Sec. 240.7(3)(c)," reads a news release from the City of Calgary.

In an interview, Johnston told Radio-Canada that he's still feeling frustrated by the petitioning process.

"Halfway through the process, I figured out that was missing on my petition," he said. "I decided not to include it because that would have been a whole other piece of paper to include, knowing that we weren't going to get the signatures."

The petitioner is satisfied with the experience and says part of his goal, if not to successfully recall the mayor, was to "expose" what he calls inefficiencies and confusion with the recall legislation.

"We got people talking about it. We got people aware that their voice can be heard," he said. "One voice is good, but 69,000 voices is even better, right? So we accomplished a lot, even with an invalid petition."

Johnston says he's also concerned about the lack of guidance given to him from the Albertan government throughout the process.

Mayor Gondek says it's up to the province to make the recall petition process easier to understand for people who wish to engage with it. 

"And that's about all I can weigh in on. It's not my legislation."

Petition processing costs city over $30,000

Gondek called the recall effort a distraction, and says she's glad it's over. Despite the outcome, she says the city is still left to foot the bill for processing the petition.

The recall effort has cost the City of Calgary a total of $30,559.

CBC News previously reported the city was looking to hire as many as 10 clerks who would be paid between $24.96 and $33.38 per hour to take on the recall petition process.

"Cost is always a concern for taxpayers, and I think when we have expended a little over $30,000 to verify a process where the sample size tells us that every submission was missing information, that's something that we need to reflect on as well," Gondek told reporters Monday following the special meeting of council.

"The provincial government needs to think about what it just cost us to verify that none of those signatures is valid."

Gondek says if the legislature approves Bill 20, the proposed provincial legislation on municipal governance, the cost of any future recalls would be covered by the province. 

"The one good thing about Bill 20 is that it indicates that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs would be the one to do this verification process and also to absorb any of the costs. That's definitely something that should be within their responsibility."

In an email statement sent to CBC News, Heather Jenkins, press secretary for the office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, says the recall petition form on the government's website has been updated "to be more clear."

"If passed, Bill 20 will transfer the responsibility for validating recall petitions from the chief administrative officer to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to make the process less onerous on municipalities," reads the statement. 

"Municipal Affairs is better suited to administer and report the results of these petitions."

The Municipal Government Act was updated by the provincial government in 2022 to allow eligible voters to file petitions to recall politicians, including mayors, municipal councillors and school board trustees. 

Johnston's effort is the first recall petition that has been received in Calgary since the legislation took effect. A copy of the original recall notice can be found on the Elections Calgary website.