Pink Slips for Politicians: Assessing Recall in Canada

Home , Colin Gabelmann, Don McRae (politician), Ed Harper, Evelyn Gillespie, Helmut Giesbrecht, Jag Bhaduria

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Meredith McDonald

A THESIS

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DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JUNE, 2012

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ABSTRACT

Recall, the third, lesser-known member of the direct democracy triumvirate after the initiative and referendum, is a device that allows constituents to remove and replace an elected official before the next general election. Used almost exclusively in the United

States, recall has nonetheless left a faint footprint on Canada’s political landscape. From its introduction in Depression-era Alberta, to its sainted position among the tenets of the

Reform Party’s democratic reform agenda, to the spate of recent efforts to recall MLAs in

British Columbia who supported the unpopular HST, there is a pool of Canadian experience, albeit shallow, through which to wade and on which to reflect. What are the implications of transferring a device developed in the American system that permits representatives significant latitude to act independently to the Canadian parliamentary system that allows for far less autonomy?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Tom Flanagan, for his abiding patience (surely bordering on a world record at this point) and mentorship. The extraordinary journey that culminated in this thesis began over a decade ago when he tapped me on the shoulder in the department’s computer lab. I am also exceptionally grateful to my aunt, Nancy

McDonald, and dear friend, Gemma Collins, for their invaluable feedback and encouragement throughout the writing process. This thesis surely would not have been possible without my mother (Sandra), father (Bruce), sister (Alison), and grandmother

(Ethel). Thank you for your love and support, and for believing in me even when I did not.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...... ii Acknowledgements...... iii Table of Contents...... iv

PINK SLIPS FOR POLITICIANS: INTRODUCING RECALL...... 1 The Nuts and Bolts...... 2 California Dreamin’ in Canada? ...... 3

CHAPTER 1 – TOSS THE BUMS OUT! A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE ON RECALL...... 4 Overview...... 4 From Athens to Los Angeles and Beyond ...... 7 The Case for Recall...... 12 Continuous Accountability ...... 12 A Superior Alternative to Impeachment...... 13 A Better Class of Politician...... 14 Enhanced Political Participation...... 14 Franchise? What Franchise? ...... 15 Miscellaneous ...... 15 The Case Against Recall...... 15 An Inferior Class of Politician ...... 16 Misuse for Partisan Purposes and by Special Interests...... 16 Inadequate or Misguided Reason for Recall...... 17 Miscellaneous ...... 18 Recall in Primetime...... 18 The Peculiar Canadian Case ...... 22 The Verdict ...... 27

CHAPTER 2 – RECALL COMES TO THE DOMINION: THE OTHER SOCIAL CREDIT EXPERIMENT...... 29 Laying the Groundwork...... 29 The Rise of Social Credit...... 34 The Dawn of the New Order...... 39 Low Times in High River ...... 46 Aftermath ...... 53 Correcting the Record...... 55 Reflection...... 56

CHAPTER 3 – POPULISM RIDES AGAIN: THE RESURRECTION OF RECALL BY THE REFORM PARTY ...... 60 Disquiet on the Western Front ...... 60 A Caucus of One...... 63 The Barbarians Breach the Gate ...... 70 Enter Jag Bhaduria...... 73

Think Bigger ...... 77 It All Falls Apart ...... 81 Requiem for Recall ...... 83

CHAPTER 4 – RECALL IN REAL LIFE: THE BRITISH COLUMBIA EXPERIENCE ...... 86 Direct Democracy behind the Rockies ...... 86 No” to Social Credit, but “Yes” to Recall...... 90 Ready, Set … ...... 96 … Go! ...... 97 Success! (Sort of)...... 103 Post-Race Reflection...... 105 Tempers Soar North in Delta South...... 109 Results be Damned! Refighting the Election...... 112 Recall Revisited ...... 114 HST? Read My Lips – Recall!...... 117

CHAPTER 5 – SCOURGE OR SALVE: ASSESSING RECALL IN CANADA...... 121 How We Got Here ...... 121 A Square Peg in a Round Hole? ...... 122 Lessons Learned...... 127 Returning to Where it All Began? ...... 128

REFERENCES ...... 130

ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS CONSULTED...... 134

PINK SLIPS FOR POLITICIANS: INTRODUCING RECALL

“You’re fired!” There are few statements that can shake a person to his or her core quite the same way. With the exception of those who fall victim to restructuring or downsizing, employees are usually not shown the door without cause. Indolence, incompetence, unethical behaviour, these are among the most common reasons people are fired. The likeliness of one being let go, however, does depend on where he or she works. The employment environment in the private sector is more cut-throat than in the public sector where unions predominate. But what about those who enjoy better job security than most (for a set period of time anyway), and whom you, as long as you are

18 years of age or older, play a role in hiring? I speak, of course, of politicians.

One would be hard pressed to find a less esteemed professional group. According to the

2012 Manning Centre Barometer, 77 per cent of Canadians hold either a somewhat unfavourable or very unfavourable view of politicians.1 Deceitful, self-serving, corrupt, lazy – the descriptors often attached to our elected officials are usually less than complimentary. They will tell you what you want to hear right up until election day, and then, according to popular thought, promptly forget about you until the next election is called. While there is little disgruntled constituents can do about this throughout most of

Canada and the United States, there are a few jurisdictions where recourse can be sought.

The device that allows voters to get rid of politicians who no longer have their confidence? Recall, the lesser known member of the direct democracy triumvirate (the other two being the initiative and referendum).

11 2012 Manning Centre Barometer Results: http://manningcentre.ca/conference/?page_id=1146 2

The Nuts and Bolts

What – to begin with the logical question – is recall? It is a procedure that allows constituents to remove and replace an elected official before the next general election.

While its lineage can be traced as far back as Athens and Ancient Rome, recall as we know it is the product of the political reform movements that swept through the western

United States in the early decades of the 20th century. Los Angeles adopted the device in

1903, with the first state, Oregon, following suit five years later. Today, 19 states provide for the recall of state officials,2 while scores more municipalities have provisions to boot local politicians from office. Federal officials in the United States can breathe easier (until the next general election anyway), as they are beyond the device’s grasp.

Although there is considerable variation in the procedures employed, the vast majority of states follow basically the same three steps. First, an application to circulate a recall petition must be filed, with some states stipulating the grounds on which dismissal can be sought. If the application is approved, a recall petition is circulated. The percentage of required signatures and timeframe in which they must be collected vary, but the typical threshold is 25 per cent of those voting in the last election for the position of the official to be recalled,3 while the modal time limit is 90 days. Second, if the petition is deemed successful, a recall election is held to determine whether a majority of the electors agree the targeted official should be recalled. Third, if yes, then a by-election is held to select a replacement for the recalled representative (some states hold the recall election and the

2 National Conference of State Legislatures: http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/recall-of- state-officials.aspx 3 Thomas Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 125. 3 by-election simultaneously, with the ballots only counted for the latter vote if the former is successful.4 Four states – Arizona, Nevada, North Dakota, and Wisconsin – use a two- step petition-to-by-election process, which, as we will see, is the model favoured by

Canadian proponents, as opposed to the three-step petition-to-recall-election-to-by- election process described above.

The vast majority of recalls in the United States occur at the local level. A few prominent state-level politicians, however, have fallen victim to the device, including a governor of the most populous state in the union. While recall campaigns at the state level were rare for a number of decades following the initial enthusiasm at the beginning of the last century, a new generation began to turn to the device in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In recent years, a number of high-profile efforts were launched in various states, suggesting Americans still very much see the value in recall more than a hundred years after its modern-day introduction in the Golden State.

California Dreamin’ in Canada?

At various times in our country’s history, recall has captured the imagination of reform- minded men and women. To these Canadians, past and present, the device is a panacea for the representational shortcomings of our political system. With lofty dreams of democratic reform, they look longingly to the political culture and system south of the border, but realize recall and the other members of the direct democracy triumvirate must yield to the structure and the traditions of our parliamentary system. The question, therefore, is what are the implications of transferring a device predominantly developed

4 Peter McCormick, “Provision for the Recall of Elected Officials: Parameters and Prospects,” Reforming Electoral Democracy: Final Report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991), p. 277. 4 and used in the American system of separation of powers to one in which the legislative and the executive branches are fused? From a system that allows representatives to act independently to one in which partisan affiliation essentially acts as a straightjacket?

In the next five chapters, we will trace the device’s Canadian journey, from its introduction in Depression-era Alberta, to its sainted position among the tenets of the

Reform Party’s democratic reform agenda, to the spate of recent efforts to recall MLAs in

British Columbia who supported the unpopular Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), and attempt to answer the following question: is recall an effective complement to, or a harmful misfit for, Canada’s parliamentary system? Is the device a scourge or a salve? 5

CHAPTER 1 – TOSS THE BUMS OUT! A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE ON RECALL Overview

Perhaps the most striking feature of the literature on recall is its relative paucity compared to that devoted to the other members of the direct democracy triumvirate, referendum and initiative. Indeed, as Joseph Zimmerman, one of the few to seriously study recall, notes, “Surprisingly, relatively little has been published on the recall during the past seven decades.”5 The device’s modern-day debut in Los Angeles, and subsequent adoption by a number of American states in the early 20th century, spawned a spate of literature written by men and women who generally fell into one of two camps – proponents who viewed recall as an antidote to the corruption and mismanagement that plagued state politics, and critics who saw it as an unprecedented assault on representative government. Neither, as it turned out, proved particularly accurate, as the device was employed sparingly during those early decades.6 This desuetude led one academic, writing in the 1960s, to declare that “the question of the use of the recall is no longer very important.”7

In 1978, however, the much-publicized passage of an initiative – a device, which like recall, had fallen into disuse – to decrease property taxes in California jolted the moribund direct democracy movement to life. The success of Proposition 13 inspired others, particularly conservative groups, to pursue the initiative and recall processes,8 a

5 Joseph Zimmerman, The Recall: Tribunal of the People (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), p. vii. 6 Frederick L. Bird and Frances M. Ryan, The Recall of Public Officers: A Study of the Operation of the Recall In California (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930), p. 19 7 Charles R. Adrian, State and Local Governments (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1967), p. 172. 8 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 202. 6 development that sparked a revival in academic interest. The articles written about recall during this second wave, much like those from the first at the turn of the century, were almost exclusively qualitative. Quantitative studies were – and still are – difficult to conduct for two reasons: 1) state-wide recalls, owing to the tremendous number of signatures required, rarely make it to the ballot stage; and 2) no state in the union maintains central records for local recall data.9

The third and latest wave of academic material followed in the wake of the 2003 recall of

California’s Governor Grey Davis and his replacement with Hollywood star Arnold

Schwarzenegger. This high-profile political spectacle – the subject of intense media interest across the country and around the world – generated a flurry of articles focusing on California particularities, including the state’s negligible signature threshold, sophisticated initiative industry, and patchwork of voting systems. As proved the case in previous eras, however, this resurgence in interest soon dissipated, leaving recall to await a fourth catalyst to once again attract the spotlight of academic inquiry.

If the American literature on recall is limited, then its Canadian counterpart borders on non-existent. The diminutive canon of Canadian literature was largely written following the collapse of public confidence in the political system precipitated by the failure of the

Meech Lake Accord. As the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party

Financing observed in its final report in 1991, “Not since the 1920s and 1930s have

9 Charles M. Price, “Recalls at the Local Level: Dimensions and Implications,” National Civic Review 72 (April 1983): 199. 7

populist pressures in Canada been so strong.”10 Indeed, a Gallup poll commissioned by

Maclean’s that same year found that 55 per cent of Canadians thought they should be

able to recall their MP with a petition at any time.11

While a majority of Canadians may have been favourably disposed towards recall, the

same could not be said of the academics who examined the device in the Canadian

context. Aside from University of Lethbridge political scientist Peter McCormick, recall

has few Canadian champions. One of the earliest articles on the subject by Democracy

Watch founder Duff Conacher, for instance, concludes – despite an initial grand claim to

have devised 88 recommendations that could “form the basis of an I,R,R [initiative,

referendum, and recall] rights scheme within a parliamentary democracy”12 – that “the

difficulties of fitting recall into our parliamentary tradition are a result of problems with

that tradition. As a result I hesitantly conclude that the right of recall of an elected

official should not apply to the provincial and federal legislatures.”13 The overwhelming

majority of the Canadian literature, in a similar vein, focuses on the myriad ways recall is

a poor fit for Canada’s parliamentary system. Unlike Conacher, however, these authors

are not so hesitant to denounce the device.

10 Canada, “Direct Democracy in the Electoral Process,” Reforming Electoral Democracy: Final Report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991), p. 229. 11 Maclean’s, January 7, 1991, p. 12. 12 Duff Conacher, “Power to the People: Initiative, Referendum, and Recall and the Possibility of Popular Sovereignty,” University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review 49 (1991): 176. 13 Ibid., p. 208. 8

The following chapter will survey the literature, both American and Canadian, both supportive and critical, that has been written about the oft-overlooked member of the direct democracy family.

From Athens to Los Angeles and Beyond

The story of recall begins in the cradle of democracy, where displeased citizens had the power to banish wayward politicians from Athens by way of a vote. This rather extreme form of recall, as Cronin notes, “sometimes had the effect of excluding talented but intimidating would-be leaders from participating in Athenian civic life.”14 The second chapter unfolds in ancient Rome, where Tribune Octavius was removed from office by way of a vote of the citizenry for vetoing an important senate bill in 133 B.C.15 In this case, as Zimmerman notes, all the “essential elements of a recall were employed … a charge was made, there was no judicial procedure, and the tribune was removed from office by a vote of the people.”16

Switzerland, Europe’s most steadfast adherent of direct democracy, is where the story leads us next. Although recall was not a formal part of Swiss law until the 1850s, the country had a long-standing tradition of allowing a specified number of citizens to requisition a vote for the discharge of a canton official before his or her term had expired.

In spite of its availability to potentially disgruntled constituents, however, the device was rarely used.17

14 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 128. 15 Frank Frost Abbott, “The Referendum and the Recall among the Ancient Romans,” The Sewanee Review 23 (January 1915): 92-94. 16 Zimmerman, The Recall: Tribunal of the People, p. 6. 17 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 129. 9

From Switzerland, the story of recall picks up half a world away in the United States, where the novel device made its New World debut in the laws of the General Court of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631.18 Following its incorporation into the constitutions of Pennsylvania and Vermont during the Revolutionary War, a form of recall whereby a state could replace any or all of its delegates to Congress was included in the Articles of

Confederation.19 The availability of the device at the national level was short lived, for while recall was included in the first draft presented to the Constitutional Convention in

1787, the provision was stricken from the document so as to give federal legislators more independence from the states.20

The founders were wary of direct democracy, particularly its potential implications for minority rights. While they were unanimous in their opinion that they wanted a more representative system than that which they had shed, they were, as Cronin notes, “of mixed minds about what kind of representative system would serve them best.”21 As the founders moulded their nascent republic, they were faced with two possibilities: the trustee model of representation, formulated and favoured by the noted Anglo-Irish political theorist and politician Edmund Burke, in which representatives must be free to exercise their own best judgement and accountable to their constituents only at certain intervals; and the delegate model in which representatives must make decisions solely on the basis of the wishes of their constituents. Strongly influenced by Burke’s views,

18 Robert Luce, Legislative Principles (Boston: Riverside Press, 1930), p. 488. 19 Herbert S. Swan, “The Use of the Recall in the United States,” The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall Ed. William Bennett Munro (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1913), p. 298. 20 Vikram David Amar, “Adventures in Direct Democracy: The Top Ten Constitutional Lessons from the California Recall Experience,” California Law Review 92 (May 2004): 943. 21 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 23. 10

James Madison, who essentially served as the campaign manager for ratification, was adamant that public opinion needed to be filtered and modified so as to defend against tyranny. As Cronin notes:

He [Madison] did not question that the consent of the people was a valid concept and the power ‘flowed’ from the people to those temporarily in power. Yet the ‘people’ could not govern wisely and involve themselves on a regular basis in government operations. How could citizens express their consent? The solution was the representational device. Through prudent representation the public voice would be tempered.22

The founders, therefore, opted for a representational system in which the consent of the people would be manifest through vigorous, open debate and free and fair regularly scheduled elections.

The United States transformed from a largely rural, agricultural society at the end of the

Civil War to an increasingly urban population engaged in industry and commerce in the early decades of the 20th century. This economic and cultural metamorphosis, and its attendant upheaval, gave rise to a number of movements, including the populist and progressive movements23 in the western United States that sought to wrest local and state governments from the hands of the corrupt party bosses who had become unfortunate fixtures of the political landscape.

The progressive movement, as Bird and Ryan note, was “a crusade of the common people of the United States to recover their government from a limited class which had appropriated it for their private benefit,” out of which “came a vitalizing of democracy

22 Ibid., pp. 18-19. 23 The populist movement, which rose to prominence in the late 19th century and declined shortly thereafter, was primarily an agrarian-based movement, whereas the progressive movement was led by middle- and upper-class leaders in urban areas. In effect, the two movements became one in the early 20th century. 11 and a new social philosophy, which constituted a real revolution in the popular estimate of the role of government and the right of the people to direct its good for the general good.”24 The initiative, referendum, and the recall were among the weapons the progressives wielded in their war to vanquish corruption and improve the quality of governance and representation.

While the initiative and referendum were adopted by South Dakota in 1898, it was not until Los Angeles incorporated the device into its new municipal charter five years later that recall, as Spivak notes, “made its reappearance on the American scene.”25 It was

California’s northern neighbour, Oregon, that first provided for recall at the state-wide level in 1908.26 By 1933, 11 other states (with the vast majority doing so between 1911 and 1914) had adopted recall. The nation-wide progress slowed considerably at this point, with only three states – Alaska, Montana, and Georgia – embracing the device from the time Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in the White House until the year

California’s Proposition 13 ushered in a new era of direct democracy in the United States.

Since 1992, four more states – Rhode Island, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Illinois27 – have similarly adopted recall.

24 Bird and Ryan, The Recall of Public Officers: A Study of the Operation of the Recall In California, pp. 1-2. 25 Joshua Spivak, “California’s Recall: Adoption of the ‘Grand Bounce’ for Elected Officials,” California History 82 (2004): 23. 26 James D. Barnett, “The Operation of the Recall in Oregon,” The American Political Science Review 6 (February 1912): 41. 27 The Illinois law, which was largely inspired by the 2009 impeachment of Rod Blagojevich, only allows for the potential recall of the governor. 12

In addition to acquiring new devotees in the Midwest and on the Eastern Seaboard, a

string of recent high-profile recalls,28 a conservative estimate of at least 2,000 recalls of

country and municipal officials since recall’s modern-day re-emergence in 1903,29 and

the fact that no state has repealed recall once it has been established,30 demonstrate the

appetite for the device has outlived the populist and progressive movements of the early

20th century. While the device undeniably still has its proponents, so too does it have its

fair share of detractors. In the following section, we will examine the arguments the two

sides brandish to bolster their respective cases.

The Case for Recall

Continuous Accountability

With the sword of Damocles hanging precariously over their heads, politicians cannot

help but remember whose interests they were elected to represent. Summary dismissal is

not just a shimmering threat, but a well-sharpened blade capable of excising unwanted

politicians from the body politic. In the literature, this point is often conveyed in the

form of an employer-employee analogy. For instance, “Adoption of the recall,” as

Bourne writes, “is nothing more than the application of good business principles to

government affairs. Every wise employer reserves the right to discharge an employee

whenever the service rendered is unsatisfactory.”31

28 Examples of high-profile recalls include the 2011 recall of a Arizona senator who sponsored a controversial anti-illegal-immigrant bill, two Wisconsin senators that same year who fell victim to a highly unpopular budget bill, and, of course, California Governor Gray Davis in 2003. 29 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 128. 30 Peter McCormick, “Bring Back the Recall,” Policy Options (December 1992): 27. 31 Jonathan Bourne Jr., “Functions of the Initiative, Referendum and Recall,” Selected Articles on the Recall Ed. Edith M. Phelps (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1915), p. 35. 13

Do officials not, however, have the right – if not in law, at least in principle – to serve out the terms to which they were elected? Employing another analogy from the workplace,

Davis argues this is not the case, “If a man employs an agent for a term of years by contract, and that agent betrays his principal, the principal may terminate the contract and get rid of the faithless one. Officeholders stand in the same position to the public as the agent does to the principal.”32

In short, the power to recall elected officials is a remedy to our imperfect representative system. Through its threat of unceremonious expulsion from office, the device increases the responsiveness of elected officials to the will of the men and women whom they are meant to serve.

A Superior Alternative to Impeachment

Impeachment is a cumbersome process that only addresses acts of malfeasance in office, not those of misfeasance and nonfeasance. Recall, on the other hand, recognizes, as

Gilbertson notes, a “new kind of un-officerlike conduct.”33 As Wilcox further explains,

“The Recall does not involve removal for cause in the legal sense, but removal purely in the discretion of the people for any reason which may appear to them sufficient.”34

32 Thomas A. Davis, “The Recall as a Measure of Popular Control,” The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall Ed. William Bennett Munro (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1913), p. 314. 33 H.S. Gilbertson, “Popular Control under the Recall,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 38 (November 1911): 833. 34 Delos F. Wilcox, Government by all the People: The Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall as Instruments of Democracy (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912), p. 175. 14

This reason may be good, bad, or downright ugly. In a 1971 decision concerning the removal of a local official in Florida, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected a due process attack on recall: “Any governmental body is required to act fairly, but that is not true as to the voter. Insofar as the United States Constitution is concerned, an elector may vote for a good reason, a bad reason, or for no reason whatsoever. The principle applies to recall elections as it does to all other elections.”35 The rightful arbiter of an elected official’s fate, in other words, is not a court of law, but the court of public opinion.

A Better Class of Politician

Only the corrupt, contemptuous, and feckless have reason to worry. Upright, publicly spirited men and women who wish to serve their community or state through conscientious service have nothing to fear. As Wilcox argues, “With the control of government by special interests broken down, with corrupt men deterred from seeking office by reason of unprofitableness for them, the two principal difficulties that have stood in the way of the selection of truly high-class men for public positions would be removed.”36

Enhanced Political Participation

Awash in an epidemic of political disengagement, we desperately need to take steps to stem the tide of voter apathy. The power to recall those who abuse the public trust would invigorate a hitherto uninterested electorate to keep informed and hold their officeholders

35 Gordon v. Leatherman, 450 2d 562 (5th Cir. 1971). 36 Wilcox, Government by all the People: The Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall as Instruments of Democracy, p. 191. 15 to account. Analyzing data from the 2003 gubernatorial recall campaign in California,

Arbour and Hayes found that turnout was 10 per cent higher than it was for the general election the year previous,37 with significant increases among younger voters, independents, and third-party supporters.38 While unable to explicitly test the hypothesis at the individual level, the authors attribute this uptick in participation to “a rise in the amount of media attention paid to the recall,”39suggesting that novelty combined with the ability to try to pass judgement on unpopular elected officials at the ballot box can enhance political participation.

Franchise? What Franchise?

A deeper concern, according to the proponents of recall, is that of sovereignty. With whom does power ultimately lie? In the United States, the answer is as powerful as it is simple – the people. In order to rightfully govern, a government must secure the consent of the people. If consent is the people’s to grant, is it not also theirs to revoke?

Proponents of recall answer this question in the affirmative. As Swan notes, “So long as the voter may not at any time recall his chosen representative his franchise is only a remnant … a full and complete electoral franchise includes both.”40

Miscellaneous

Other reasons cited by supporters include curtailing the influence of special interests by making politicians responsible first and foremost to their constituents, providing a safety

37 Brian K. Arbour and Danny Hayes, “Voter Turnout in the California Recall: Where Did the Increase Come From?” American Politics Research 33 (March 2005): 188. 38 Ibid., p. 192. 39 Ibid., p. 204. 40 Swan, “The Use of the Recall in the United States,” p. 306. 16 valve for intense feelings, and allowing jurisdictions to permit officials to serve longer terms (albeit a more pertinent concern at the turn of the last century when the set terms of the American system were shorter than they are today).

The Case Against Recall

An Inferior Class of Politician

Faced with the prospect of partisan harassment masked by a manufactured grievance, men and women of ability and virtue will forgo running for office to avoid an affront to their dignity. For those not put off altogether, the omnipresent means of intimidation will temper the traits necessary for good governance, including courage, independence, and far-sightedness. As Ellis Oberholtzer, an early critic of the device, argues, “The exercise of such a right [recall] will be infectious, and we may be quite certain that it will be indulged in frequently with the result, of necessity, of reducing the influence and subtracting from the honour of public office. It is a blow aimed at the dignity of all public life.”41

Misuse for Partisan Purposes and by Special Interests

Recall provides a recently defeated candidate with a means to refight the battle. Writing of Oregon’s experience with recall, McCall argues:

[I]t very rarely happens that there is an election in which the defeated candidate does not receive twenty-five per cent of the vote, and not infrequently he received nearly one-half of it. It would be a matter of no difficulty for him to initiate a Recall and practically to have the election over again: and so we should have perpetual warfare over the holding of office.42

41 Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, The Referendum in America Together with Some Chapters on the Initiative and the Recall (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911), p. 470. 42 Samuel W. McCall, “Representative as Against Direct Government,” Selected Articles on the Recall Ed. Edith M. Phelps (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1915), p. 41. 17

In a similar vein, the device, in the words of Bird and Ryan, can be “used against the public by the interests that seek to use government for the promotion of selfish and sordid ends.43 Drawing attention to the possibility of a minority undoing the will of the majority, Tawney argues:

The recall … if adopted, would instantly change the title of every elective officer from that of a fee simple title to that of a title at will. That is, where an elective officer who now has a fixed term established by the will of the majority, it is proposed to limit that term, dependent on the will of a small minority, who, for any reason or no reason, except perhaps political advantage or the gratification of personal malice, may petition for his recall.44

A concomitant concern is the role money plays in recall campaigns. In its 1988 decision in Meyer v. Grant, the U.S. Supreme Court stuck down Colorado’s prohibition on paid circulators, declaring the statute unconstitutional, which opened the way for individuals and special interest groups to spend as they please.45 The ability of money to distort the process, therefore, is an issue of considerable concern to critics. For while the forum of a town hall gives each side an equal chance to speak, “money and court rulings permitting unlimited spending,” as Cronin argues, “promote a system in which the better-financed side can, and often does, outspend the other by a dramatic margin.”46

43 Bird and Ryan, The Recall of Public Officers: A Study of the Operation of the Recall In California, p. 351. 44 James A. Tawney, “Proposed Reforms of the So-Called Progressives,” Selected Articles on the Recall Ed. Edith M. Phelps (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1915), p. 46. 45 Elizabeth Garrett, “Democracy in the Wake of the California Recall,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 153 (November 2004): 241. 46 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 226. 18

Inadequate or Misguided Reason for Recall

The reason prompting a recall election may, as Zimmerman notes, “not be of such a magnitude as to warrant the removal of a public officer.”47 To illustrate this point, he offers the example of a school committee in Massachusetts all of whose members were recalled when they passed over the assistant principal, appointing instead a person from out of state.

There is also the risk that a public unversed in what level of government is responsible for which policy decisions may result in an innocent public official being targeted for the perceived misdeed of another. In Los Angeles, for instance, a school board chairman was recalled because he helped to implement a controversial federal court order concerning school integration.48

Miscellaneous

The miscellany of additional arguments offered by the critics of recall include charges that the device increases government costs, allows voters to compound one bad choice with another, leads to unintended and unpleasant consequences, and bitterly divides and polarizes communities.

Recall in Primetime

The 2003 campaign to topple California’s sitting governor through the ballot box was without a doubt the most intensely covered recall campaign in American history. The

Golden State was the logical setting for this historic election, for, as Gerston and

47 Zimmerman, The Recall: Tribunal of the People, p. 145. 48 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, pp. 138-139. 19

Christensen note, California is where direct democracy has reached its “apogee.”49 The campaign itself featured a cast of characters Hollywood would have been hard pressed to concoct. From an Austrian-born former Mr. Universe turned A-list movie star, to a porn mogul famous for using the First Amendment to defend the right of Americans to produce smut, to the Judas-like figure of Cruz Bustamante, the Democratic lieutenant governor, the campaign offered a host of compelling personalities and storylines that made for first-class entertainment.

The troubles for the tragic figure in the story, Governor Gray Davis, began long before his 2002 re-election. A botched attempt to deregulate the electricity industry that predated Davis’s arrival in the governor’s mansion had led to rolling blackouts. Davis’s contribution to the debacle was an ill-considered “solution” that involved long-term contracts with power suppliers at inflated prices and purchasing the state’s power transmission lines for a bank-busting $12 billion. This, alas, was not a stand-alone instance of profligacy. Indeed, in just four years, the governor permitted spending to increase by $27 billion and the bureaucracy to grow by 15 per cent.50 When the economy soured, the inevitable happened – the surplus disappeared and the deficit exploded.

Davis was not the first governor targeted for recall in the state. Over the years, as Garrett notes, “groups had attempted to qualify a gubernatorial recall for the California ballot thirty-one times, including a previous attempt aimed at Gray Davis in his first term, but

49 Larry N. Gerston and Terry Christensen, Recall! California’s Political Earthquake (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 5. 50 James Q. Wilson, “A Guide to Schwarzenegger Country,” Commentary (December 2003): 46. 20 all those efforts had been unsuccessful.”51 The first and only governor to have been recalled was Lynn Frazier of North Dakota in 1921.52 At the outset, therefore, the odds did not look favourable. Two factors, however, came together to turn the tide – the unusually low number of signatures needed to trigger an election, and money.

At 12 per cent of the vote for office in the last election, California has the second lowest signature threshold in the country.53 Davis’s re-election the previous year marked the lowest turnout in the state’s history for a governor race,54 which translated into the unusually and helpfully low threshold of just under 900,000 votes. By late April and early May, however, the grassroots effort to oust Davis was hundreds of thousands of signatures short.55 Into the breach stepped Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, whose game-changing contribution of $1.8 million to the Rescue California committee enabled the hiring of paid signature gatherers. As Bowler and Cain note, “The reliance on professionals is not unique or even unusual in California’s initiative process, but extending it to the recall was innovative.”56 By late July, the investment paid off, and the requisite number of signatures (and then some) were handed over to the secretary of state.

California’s simultaneous choice structure (i.e. the recall vote and replacement vote are held at the same time) was the subject of much debate and concern. While Davis had to get 50 per cent plus one to defeat the recall, his successor could win with considerably

51 Garrett, “Democracy in the Wake of the California Recall,” p. 240. 52 Gerston and Christensen, Recall! California’s Political Earthquake, p. 7. 53 Ibid., p. 7. 54 Mark Baldassare, “The Role of Public Opinion on the California Governor’s Recall in 2003: Populism, Partisanship, and Direct Democracy,” American Politics Research 33 (March 2005): 167. 55 Shaun Bowler and Bruce Cain, “Recalling the Recall: Reflections on California’s Recent Political Adventure,” PSOnline (www.apsanet.org) (January 2004): 7. 56 Ibid., p. 8. 21 less than a majority, which would pose a problem of democratic legitimacy. Another fear was that the state’s patchwork of voting systems would skew the results. Heavily leaning on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit

Court of Appeals postponed the election until the voting systems in a number of counties could be replaced. The Court argued that the notoriously flawed Votomatic-style voting system violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. An 11-judge en banc panel of the same court overturned the decision on the grounds that the concerns about the punch-card ballots were outweighed by the harm that would be done by postponing the election.

In both instances, the worst-case scenario failed to materialize. On election day, a comfortable majority voted to recall Davis. Out of a field of more than 130 candidates,

Davis’s successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, secured nearly 49 per cent of the vote, which was more than the 44.6 per cent who essentially voted for Davis by voting “no” on the recall question. As Gerston and Christensen note, “By the campaign’s end, the only surprise was the size of Davis’s defeat and the extent of Schwarzenegger’s victory in the replacement election.”57

The fear that the Votomatic-style voting system could throw the outcome of the election into doubt also proved unfounded. As Brady notes:

As it turned out, each of the four questions [two propositions were also on the ballot] on the October 7th ballot was decided by almost a million votes or more – substantially more than [the] estimate of 40,000 lost votes. The En Banc panel won its gamble that the use of the Votomatic style punch cards

57 Gerston and Christensen, Recall! California’s Political Earthquake, p. 81. 22

would not affect who won even though the performance of the pre-scored punch cards turned out … to be worse than expected.58

In the end, the 2003 gubernatorial recall looked very much like the ideal campaign

envisioned by the device’s early 20th century proponents. In spite of concerns about the

unseemly influence of money and a flawed voting system, a Republican candidate was

able to secure a convincing victory in a usually true-blue Democratic state.59 The

election transcended partisan divisions, with many erstwhile Davis supporters supporting

the recall. “The recall of former-Governor Davis,” Baldassare notes, “was an example of

a special interest group that was able to reach beyond partisan and ideological lines and

tap into public discontent with an elected official and change public policy.”60 The leader

of Rescue California perhaps best explains what happened in the Golden State: “It [the

recall] didn’t qualify because the threshold was low, but because the governor wasn’t

performing.”61 Despite its circus-like attributes, this recall episode in California

ultimately proved that a device easily subject to abuse can – even in our cynical times –

still be used for all the right reasons.

The Peculiar Canadian Case

If the recall device were to be tried in a Canadian court, it would face a host of hostile

prosecutors with only a lone defender to come to its aid. Of the handful of Canadian

academics who have written about recall, only Peter McCormick supports the device.62

58 Henry E. Brady, “Postponing the California Recall to Protect Voting Rights,” PSOnline (www.apsanet.org) (January 2004): 30. 59 Walter J. Stone and Monti Narayan Datta, “Rationalizing the California Recall,” PSOnline (www.apsanet.org) (January 2004): 21. 60 Baldassare, “The Role of Public Opinion on the California Governor’s Recall in 2003: Populism, Partisanship, and Direct Democracy,” p. 182. 61 Gerston and Christensen, Recall! California’s Political Earthquake, p. 153. 62 While Norman Ruff of the University of Victoria supports recall, the medium through which he has expressed his support has been media interviews as opposed to academic articles. 23

His case is twofold. First, recall would make MPs more accountable to their constituents.

“Elected members,” he argues, “would know that they had to take their electors seriously all the time, not just once every four or five years. That, in turn, would encourage a definition of democracy that defined leadership in terms of persuading voters to follow.”63 Recall, according to McCormick, would compel MPs to make tough decisions and to account for their actions.

Second, it would empower the backbench MPs Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once dismissed as being nobodies. No longer could members unthinkingly vote according to the dictates of the party whip – they would now have two masters capable of punishing them at any time. According to McCormick, this would be a positive development, one that “a lot of private members would welcome” as it would give them “a second master to play off against the caucus master they now clearly have and that they would benefit from that opportunity.”64

A concomitant benefit would be the weakening of Canada’s disciplined party system, which is notorious for being even more rigid than its British counterpart.65 The stability inherent in the Canadian system, McCormick argues, has been bought with the psychological subordination of backbench MPs, which hardly serves the interests of

Canadians. Relaxing the party system need not lead to bedlam. As he notes, “We know from the British experience that Parliament does not descend to immediate chaos just

63 Peter McCormick, “The Recall of Elected Members,” Canadian Parliamentary Review (Summer 1994): 13. 64 Ibid. 65 McCormick, “Bring Back the Recall,” p. 28. 24 because blocs of government backbenchers speak their mind and vote their own way from time to time.”66 Furthermore, such strict party discipline is a poor fit for a federation such as Canada. As McCormick argues, “It is far from an original idea to suggest that there is something of an institutional misfit between the disciplined parties and the inherent centralization of the British system and the regionalism that is both presupposed and encouraged by federalism.”67

McCormick’s optimistic assessment of recall stands in stark contrast to the case made by the device’s critics. While highlighting some of the general concerns shared with their colleagues south of the border, the foremost concern of the Canadian academics is the problem recall poses to our parliamentary system of government. As the Royal

Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing notes:

In Canada’s system of parliamentary government, MPs are not elected as representatives who randomly come together in a national legislature simply to advance the views and interests of their constituents on matters of national policy. Rather, the House of Commons is a collective decision- making and representative institution that must weigh the competing interests of citizens against the national interest.68

MPs play a dual role in a parliamentary system that cannot be said of the denizens of the U.S. Congress and its counterparts at the state level.

The difference between a cabinet minister and an American representative or senator is even more acute. Yes, cabinet ministers are elected as local representatives, but they are also national figures with executive responsibilities.

66 Ibid. 67 McCormick, “Provision for the Recall of Elected Officials: Parameters and Prospects,” p. 290. 68 Canada, “Direct Democracy in the Electoral Process,” p. 244. 25

Is it acceptable that constituents upset with their MP in Calgary Southwest are able to recall the Prime Minister of Canada? Cabinet ministers would be attractive targets for any special interest group with an axe to grind. McCormick, however, argues this threat is exaggerated. “Without wanting to sound too cynical,” he writes,” I think most citizens are perfectly aware of the very real, often material, and often extremely physical advantages that flow from having a senior cabinet minister, or the Prime Minister, represent your particular constituency.”69

The obvious counterargument is that cabinet ministers wishing to stave off recall attempts will lavish their ridings with largesse, which is hardly a palatable prospect. As Mintz argues, “As with by-elections, the governing party would likely offer specific benefits (more bluntly, bribes) to constituencies holding recall elections to try to maintain support for members of the governing party. It is hard to see how this is in the general public interest.”70

While government backbenchers are not members of the executive, they were elected as members of the party that won owing to the popularity of its platform.

These MPs can reasonably be expected to support the government’s efforts to implement these policies, as opposed to voting against measures they promised to support, endangering the life of their government in the process. “Recall,” as

Mendelsohn argues, “changes the nature of party discipline and responsible

69 McCormick, “The Recall of Elected Members,” p. 13. 70 Eric Mintz, “Recalling Governments,” Policy Options (May 1998): 44. 26 government. The principle of recall is based on the notion that members of parliament are responsible only to their electors, not their parties.”71 Flanagan elucidates how this complicates the application of the device in Canada: “The recall device presupposes that officials can be judged on their individual performance, which is true under the American system of separation of powers, but is much less true in a parliamentary system.”72

The defeat of a government with a slim majority is another danger recall poses in a parliamentary system. As Duhamel and Best note, “The recall of one or more members of the government could defeat a government with a small majority, an outcome that would not be possible in the American congressional system.”73

Coming once again to the device’s defence, McCormick counters that the same could be said of “influenza epidemics or unusually icy streets.”74 This, however, is a suspect analogy. Flu bugs and your typical Canadian sidewalk in December, as could reasonably be expected of special interest groups, do not specifically target those MPs who won their ridings by negligible margins.

The final, and perhaps most succinct, argument offered by the critics of the device is that we already have a form of recall in Canada – an election. As the Royal

Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing notes, “The concern

71 Matthew Mendelsohn, “Introducing Deliberative Direct Democracy in Canada: Learning from the American Experience,” American Review of Canadian Studies 26 (Autumn 1996): 465. 72 University of Calgary Archives, Thomas Flanagan Fonds, Reform of Canada’s Parliamentary Institutions (Policy Paper for the Reform Party of Canada, June 1991), p. 45. 73 Ron Duhamel and Jacquie Best, “Recall: Is It Really a Democratic Cure-All?” Policy Options (April 1995): 46. 74 McCormick, “Bring Back the Recall,” p. 28. 27 expressed by supporters of the recall – that Canadians have few opportunities to hold their MPs accountable – is dubious when assessed against Canada’s recent electoral history.”75 While Canada’s most steadfast defender of recall argues in favour of adoption “not so that we can often replace our MPs, but in the hopes that we would seldom have to or want to,”76 the Royal Commission concludes we have no need given the frequency – 22 since the end of the Second World War – of our elections.

The Verdict

How to assess the effectiveness of the recall? Is it a device that enhances democracy? Or a scourge upon representative government? One would be best advised to consult the opinions of the two academics who have studied the device in the greatest depth, Thomas

Cronin and Joseph Zimmerman. As the former concludes:

The recall … has not significantly improved direct communications between leaders and led and has not ended corruption in politics. Neither has it produced better-qualified officeholders or noticeably enriched the quality of citizenship or democracy in those places permitting it. Whether it has strengthened representative government in any measureable way seems doubtful.77

Zimmerman concurs, “In sum, the recall has not produced a new era of public official responsibility; yet, the device has not caused extensive disruption of state and local governments, as had been feared by several of the early recall opponents.”78 In short, they conclude it is a mildly effective corrective to the occasional shortcomings of

75 Canada, “Direct Democracy in the Electoral Process,” p. 245. 76 McCormick, “Bring Back the Recall,” p. 29. 77 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 155. 78 Zimmerman, The Recall: Tribunal of the People, p. 152. 28 representative government, endorsements of such restrained enthusiasm they could have been offered by Canadians.

In the next chapter, we will turn to where recall’s Canadian journey began, a prairie province in the grips of the Great Depression mesmerized by a charismatic leader promising to usher in a new era of prosperity for all. 29

CHAPTER 2 – RECALL COMES TO THE DOMINION: THE OTHER SOCIAL CREDIT EXPERIMENT

Laying the Groundwork

With the stroke of a pen on April 3, 1936, Alberta’s Lieutenant Governor W.L. Walsh made history by transforming a curiosity into law. Hitherto an American phenomenon

(with the noted exception of a handful of Swiss cantons), recall had come to the

Dominion in the form of The Legislative Assembly (Recall) Act, the first law of its kind in the British Empire. While Social Credit was the opportunistic midwife, it was an earlier movement that served as the progenitor.

As discussed in the previous chapter, the ideological vigour behind the direct democracy triumvirate of initiative, referendum, and recall was the populist and progressive movements that blossomed in the American Midwest in the opening decades of the 20th century. The movements’ influence moved northward following the thousands of

American farmers who flowed into the Canadian West. These men and women, as noted

Canadian historian W.L. Morton writes, brought with them a “passionate belief in democracy, the conviction that the electorate was virtuous and had only to be able to make its will effective, without distortion or hindrance, for economic and social progress to follow.”79 In addition to giving the people influence over the lawmaking function of the legislature, these nascent reformers argued that representatives must be made continuously responsible to the represented through a right to recall.

79 W.L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950), p. 15. 30

E.A. Partridge, a leading reformer and co-founder of the Grain Growers' Grain Company, made the case for direct democracy in the pages of the cooperative’s organ the Grain

Growers’ Guide in 1909. In an open letter to the most important publication of the early farm movement, he wrote:

Among the demands [of the farmers on government] I should like to see included a demand for the introduction of the Initiative and Referendum and the Recall, with fixed dates for general elections, as much needed safeguards against the evils found in representative government when dominated by a highly organized machine designed to further the selfish interests of those who rob the people under the forms of law.80

The reformers formalized their demand for the three direct democracy devices by including a plank calling for “direct legislation, including the initiative and referendum and the right of recall” in the 1916 version of the Farmers’ Platform.81 At this point, the farmers were still hopeful they could work within the existing system by influencing the traditional parties. The platform, therefore, was not a policy foundation for a new party, but rather a statement of the movement’s political goals, the foremost of which was to reform the tariff established by the National Policy that supported eastern manufacturers at the expense of western farmers and consumers.

Having lost its raison d'être with the end of the First World War, the Union government of Robert Borden began to unravel. While the organized farmers had largely supported

Borden in the 1917 election, they were growing increasingly disillusioned with the government and the party system in general. While they were prepared to forgo reforms to the much-hated tariff in order to back the war effort during the Conscription Crisis,

80 Grain Growers’ Guide, II, Sept. 22, 1909, p. 11. 81 Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada, p. 301. 31 they did so, as Morton notes, “with no intention that they [their issues] should be forgotten or not brought up for review at the earliest possible moment.”82 Thus began the penultimate phase in the development of the organized farmers into a formal political force.

In the fall of 1918, a revamped and expanded version of the platform titled The New

National Policy, which included the earlier plank calling for recall, was adopted by the

Canadian Council of Agriculture (CCA). While the CCA was initially divided as to whether the revised platform should serve as a rallying point for a new party, the drive towards direct political action soon became unstoppable. In 1919, Minister of

Agriculture Thomas Crerar resigned from Borden’s cabinet, arguing the proposed reductions in the tariff contained in the budget were inadequate. Crerar and a number of other disaffected Western MPs soon formed an informal Progressive Party caucus that was formally recognized by the CCA in December 1920. Under the leadership of Crerar, the fledgling political party went on to contest the 1921 election, garnering 65 seats to supplant the Conservatives as the second largest party in the House of Commons.

In keeping with the organized farmers’ commitment to direct democracy, many, if not most, of the newly elected Progressive MPs had deposited a signed “recall” with a committee of the nominating convention.83 The practice, as Morton notes, “had first come to public notice in the Assiniboia by-election of 1919, and the Progressive victor,

82 Ibid., p. 62. 83 Ibid., p. 120. 32

O.R. Gould, had been challenged on the point in the next session of the House.”84 The incident sparked a motion in 1920 to have the practice declared an offence under the

Dominion Elections Act. In a debate on the issue with Gould, Horatio Hocken, a Unionist

MP from Toronto, put forth the Burkean argument so favoured by the opponents of recall:

I had an idea that when a man came into this House, he should come in as a free man. His constituents know his views from the way in which he has presented them on the platform and probably by a long acquaintance with him and frequent expression of his opinions, and if they are willing to elect him, knowing all that, then they must give him the right to exercise his judgement upon all questions that come before this House. If we get away from that and we have a group of labour men with an agreement with fifteen men, a group of agrarians tied up with an agreement of fifteen men, and other groups tied up with other similar agreements, we would have a Parliament that would not be able to govern this country very satisfactorily.85

The motion failed. Eighteen years later, however, a section was incorporated into the

Dominion Elections Act making it an offence for a candidate to “sign any written document presented to him by way of demand or claim made upon him … if such a document requires such a candidate to follow any course of action that will prevent him from exercising freedom of action in Parliament.”86 The issue, however, had become moot, as the Progressive Party’s spectacular rise had been followed in short order by its equally remarkable demise, and the practice of recall pledges disappeared along with the party from the federal political landscape.

84 Ibid, p. 120. 85 Canadian House of Commons Debates, 1920, III p. 2037. 86 Acts of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, X George VI, 1938, chapter 46. 33

The progressive movement enjoyed greater political longevity and success at the provincial level, particularly in Alberta. While the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) had been an early proponent of recall, its enthusiasm evaporated following the 1921 election that brought the party to power. As Boyer notes, “Because they had achieved direct control of the government apparatus, these United Farmer MLAs rationalized, it was no longer imperative to be able to recall an elected member who voted against agrarian interests.”87 Three years later, in fact, a motion calling for recall was defeated at a party convention.88

While the UFA reigned supreme in Alberta during the 1920s, the party’s political fortunes began to dwindle as the vice-like grip of the Depression took hold of the economy. A maelstrom of misfortunes beset the province, including drought and pestilence, making the effects of the unjust tariff structure even more acute. Heavily indebted to the eastern banks and trust companies, Alberta families faced foreclosure and bankruptcy in record numbers. Social movements, as Irving notes, “tend to appear during periods of widespread social unrest, when profound dissatisfaction with the existing social order arises. No conditions could have been more favourable for the development of such unrest than those that existed in Alberta in the autumn of 1932.”89 The desire for change had reached a critical mass. Ripe for salvation, the province found a prophet in the form of an Ontario-born educator cum radio preacher brandishing an economic gospel

87 Patrick Boyer, The People’s Mandate: Referendums and a More Democratic Canada (Toronto: Dunburn Press, 1992), p. 31. 88 Ibid. 89 John A. Irving, “The Evolution of the Social Credit Movement,” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 14 (1948): p. 321. 34 that promised to vanquish poverty and privation. It would be in William Aberhart and his

Social Credit movement that recall would find its critical champion.

The Rise of Social Credit

It was in the summer of 1932 that William Aberhart had a fateful encounter with the ideas of a British engineer named C.H. Douglas. While in Edmonton marking matriculation examination papers, a colleague encouraged Aberhart to read Maurice

Colbourne’s Unemployment or War. In the popularized version of Douglas’s Social

Credit doctrine contained therein, Aberhart was convinced he had found a panacea to the problems spawned by the Depression. The world’s monetary woes, according to

Douglas, stemmed from a lack of purchasing power and corollary underconsumption.

The solution to this problem lay in three fundamental changes. The state, in the words of

Irving:

… must recover its control over the monetary system; it must issue social credit in the form of a national dividend (based upon a survey of the real wealth of the nation) to every person; and, to prevent the possibility of inflation, it must establish a just price for all goods. The evils in the existing economic system can be remedied by supplying the people with credit based upon the potential goods and services of society. This is the people’s right, their cultural heritage.90

That fall Aberhart began to introduce Social Credit ideas into his popular Sunday afternoon religious broadcast. As Elliot and Miller note, “overjoyed at the favourable reception that had greeted the new subject, Aberhart began throwing his whole being into the movement.”91 He soon amassed another band of enthusiastic followers. Indeed, by the following fall, hundreds of people were

90 Irving, “The Evolution of the Social Credit Movement,” p. 324. 91 David R. Elliot and Iris Miller, Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart (Edmonton: Reidmore Books, 1987), p. 109. 35 coming to the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute every week to discuss Social

Credit.92 Faced with increasing interest in Douglas’s theories as popularized by

Aberhart, the governing UFA took some small steps to sate the public’s growing appetite for Social Credit. In January 1935, the delegates to the UFA convention put an end to this fleeting flirtation by soundly rejecting the proposals Aberhart had put before them.

The UFA’s repudiation of Social Credit introduced a new dynamic. Up until this point, as Macpherson notes, “social credit was not yet a political rival but a doctrine and a method available to any political organization which would take it up.”93 While Aberhart and his followers had been reluctant to see the movement as anything other than educational and religious, it had become apparent that

Social Credit would not be realized through the existing parties. More dramatic action in the form of a dedicated political party was needed. To test support amongst the grassroots for the idea, a straw poll was circulated throughout the province. By early February, the results were in and overwhelming – approximately 93 per cent of the respondents were prepared to support a Social

Credit political campaign.94 Thus began the urgent drive to create a political party in time for the next provincial election.

92 Irving, “The Evolution of the Social Credit Movement,” p. 326. 93 C.B. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta: Social Credit and the Party System (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953), p. 146. 94 John A. Irving, The Social Credit Movement in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), p. 124. 36

A number of issues needed to be addressed in short order, including organizing conventions, developing a procedure for nominating candidates, and, of course, developing a platform. In early March, a draft platform was issued by the Central

Advisory Board to every study group and constituency organization in the province. It was amongst the policies for discussion in the six-page circular that recall made its first appearance, with the final plank in the document stating, “Every Social Credit Candidate must agree to submit to the Voters’ Right of Recall if he fails to carry out the proposals made prior to election.”95 While it is impossible to pinpoint the precise genesis of the policy, the plank was likely included because the idea of recall enjoyed great popularity amongst the grassroots. The draft platform may have been issued from the Social Credit

League’s central office, but, as Finkel notes, the document “in turn reflected the programs that the rank-and-file had been calling for in local meetings – and included such planks as socialized medicine, which had no currency in Social Credit thought or in Aberhart’s political speeches.”96

Two conventions to cover the province were scheduled for April 1935. The Southern

Central Convention, held at Aberhart’s Prophetic Bible Institute in Calgary, took place first. The foremost order of business for the approximately 175 delegates from the southern half of the province, who were joined by hundreds of eager onlookers, was to press Aberhart to accept the leadership of the new party. The resolution, unsurprisingly,

95 Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds, File M-1621-35, The Alberta Social Credit League: Organization and Discussion of Platform. 96 Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), p. 31. 37 passed almost entirely without debate.97 Another resolution calling for the creation of an advisory council to aid the new leader similarly passed with ease. A third resolution giving Aberhart and the new advisory council the final say on candidate selection, however, did spark debate. At the request of the convention, Aberhart was asked to give his opinion. In a response that foreshadowed the autocratic tendencies he would display as premier, he told the gathered, “If you are not going to let me have any say in the choice of my supporters, you will not have me as your leader.”98 The resolution was passed. When a delegate from Pincher Creek rose the next day to express her concern over the “autocratic stand taken in the selection of candidates yesterday,” her words were met with stony silence.99 The leader had spoken.

Following this uncomfortable incident, the delegates turned their attention to the draft platform. The document was read clause by clause, with those items not unanimously approved subject to amendment. The recall plank triggered enthusiastic debate, including a call that legislation should be pursued whether or not it was constitutional.100 After much discussion, the delegates tweaked the resolution to read, “The Social Credit government when in power will pass legislation to the effect that candidates submit to the voters right of recall if they fail to carry out the proposals made prior to election.”101 The revised wording did little more then ensure the commitment to recall would be formalized through legislation and that MLAs from all parties would be subject to the

97 The Albertan, April 5, 1935, p.1. 98 Calgary Herald, April 5, 1935, p. 5. 99 Calgary Herald, April 6, 1935, p. 5. 100 The Albertan, April 6, 1935, p. 5. 101 Glenbow Archives, Eva Reid Fonds, File M-7957-174, Alterations of the Tentative Platform Made and General Resolutions Adopted by the Southern Central Convention of the Alberta Social Credit League. 38 measure. At the Northern Central Convention held in Edmonton later that month, the delegates largely skipped over with little debate the resolutions passed in Calgary, including that pertaining to recall;102 it was the wording debated and accepted by the southern delegates three weeks earlier,103 therefore, that was incorporated into the party’s final platform.104

On July 16, 1935, the writ was dropped for Alberta’s eighth general election. With the election date set for August 22, the four mainstream parties set about explaining to

Albertans how they were best equipped to deliver the province from the ravages of the

Depression. Applying the same organizational acumen that had empowered it to transform itself into a political party in a matter of mere months, Social Credit ran, to use the words of Elliott and Miller, a “political campaign par excellence.”105 While the main thrust of the party’s campaign was, unsurprisingly, its Social Credit proposals, particularly the seductive promise of a monthly dividend of $25, the party also highlighted a number of other policies, including support for vocational training and relief for debtors and mortgage defaulters, in a bid to further broaden its appeal. While

102 Calgary Herald, April 26, 1935, p. 3. 103 Social Credit Chronicle, August 16, 1935 (Supplement), p. 1. 104 Some confusion exists in the literature with regards to the timing and the content of the amendment(s). In Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945, Laycock incorrectly asserts that the recall plank was amended at the Northern Central Convention. Various press reports clearly indicate the resolution was amended at the convention held weeks earlier in Calgary. Laycock also argues that plank was amended twice before its inclusion in the Social Credit platform. This claim stems from an article that appeared in the Social Credit Chronicle following the South Central Convention that listed the adopted resolutions. According to the article, the delegates approved the following more concise wording: “A Social Credit Government when in power will pass legislation empowering recall of all candidates.” This clearly contradicts the wording contained in another party publication, a pamphlet summarizing the final versions of the resolutions adopted at the same convention. The recall plank contained in the pamphlet mirrors word for word that contained in the party’s election platform. As the delegates in Edmonton rubber stamped the recall plank passed by their southern cohorts, there was no two-step amendment process. The article in the Chronicle obviously contained the wrong resolution. 105 Elliot and Miller, Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart, p. 167. 39 recall appeared in the party’s platform, neither Aberhart nor his publicists emphasized it during the campaign.106

As befitted a campaign unlike any the province had ever experienced, the outcome was a landslide for Social Credit. Out of the 63 seats in the legislature, the party secured 56, the

Liberals five, and the Conservatives two. The UFA, which had dominated the political landscape in the province for nearly 15 years, was swept into the dustbin of history, failing to win even a single seat. William Aberhart and his band of Social Crediters had won a resounding victory by promising to establish a new order. Albertans, having given the party a crushing majority, now expected the newly elected government to deliver.

The Dawn of the New Order

In the Social Credit Manual the party released shortly before the election, Aberhart had tempered expectations by arguing 15 or 18 months might be required to institute Social

Credit. Evidently, many Albertans did not bother to read the fine print: notwithstanding

Aberhart’s statements, a number of people, as Barr notes, “thought the Millennium had arrived and telephoned to ask where they could pick up their dividend cheques.”107 For many starry-eyed believers, their expectations were equalled only by their impatience.

Feeling the strain, Aberhart delivered a speech in late December telling the audience to stop its “confounded grumbling” and that he would institute Social Credit “when [he got]

106 David Laycock, Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), p. 231.

107 John J. Barr, The Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of Social Credit in Alberta (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1974), p. 85. 40 a good foundation.”108 If Aberhart failed, they could “banish [him] to the tall timbers” through the soon-to-be-introduced recall legislation.109

The first recall attempt took place before the government had even had a chance to table a bill. On the eve of the opening of the legislature, a group of disgruntled supporters in the riding of St. Paul issued a statement imploring Aberhart to help them recall the newly elected J.W. Beaudry, charging he was an opportunist whose only interest in Social

Credit was the remuneration he would receive as an MLA.110 For his part, Beaudry claimed the two Social Credit groups moving to unseat him (he belonged to a third group) had been infiltrated by communists,111 an accusation the groups vociferously denied.112 Aberhart wisely chose not to get involved, and the intra-riding bickering soon faded from the news.

On February 6, 1936, the first Social Credit legislature in the world formally opened.

Braving an especially frigid Edmonton winter day, an unprecedented crowd turned out, filling the public and government galleries to capacity and overflowing into the halls.

The new government’s determination to buck convention was evident from the onset of the proceedings. Upon Lieutenant Governor Walsh’s entrance into the legislative chamber, Provincial Secretary Ernest C. Manning rose to inform him that the speech from the throne would not be read until a speaker had been appointed.113 Once this order

108 Edmonton Journal, December 23, 1935, p. 13. 109 Ibid. 110 Edmonton Journal, February 4, 1936, p. 1. 111 Edmonton Journal, February 5, 1936, p. 1 112 Edmonton Journal, February 7, 1936, p. 1. 113 Calgary Herald, February 6, 1936, p. 1. 41 of business had been dealt with, Walsh assumed his position and read the speech expounding the new government’s legislative agenda, amongst whose body of promises was a single line, in prosaic prose, to table a bill “providing for the recall of members of the legislative assembly.”114

Not all Social Credit MLAs, however, were favourably disposed to the proposed measure. Behind the closed doors of the final caucus meeting before the opening of the legislature, a number of members declared their outright opposition, while a more accommodating contingent debated the threshold of signatories required to depose a wayward MLA, with some members suggesting 75 per cent.115 The discussion in caucus carried on throughout February and into March. Many MLAs, wisely so given the constitutional impossibility of actually introducing Social Credit, argued that non-support for Social Credit should not be specified grounds for recall as had been suggested in the party’s election platform. A number of backbench MLAs who had irrigation projects in their ridings and were under great pressure from farmers to deliver immediate government assistance pleaded for a percentage of no lower than 60 per cent.116 As it would turn out, they would get their wish and then some.

On Friday, March 13, Aberhart’s trusted lieutenant Ernest Manning tabled the first recall bill in the British Empire to the thunderous desk thumping of his fellow Social Credit

MLAs. The legislation was immediately derided by the opposition and the media, for not only did it stipulate payment of a $200 fee before a recall effort could proceed, a

114 Edmonton Journal, February 6, 1936, p. 2. 115 Edmonton Journal, February 6, 1936, p. 10. 116 Calgary Herald, February 24, 1936, p. 1. 42

significant sum in Depression-era Alberta, but also a signature threshold of 66.66 per cent

of the total number of voters who were on the voters’ list compiled for the last provincial

election, which was far in excess of those required south of the border.117 One Liberal

MLA drew attention to the vast discrepancies by quoting from a book about recall in the

United States during one debate.118 Disgruntled constituents, in short, would face

significant obstacles to recalling their MLA. As the Calgary Herald, a noted critic of

William Aberhart and Social Credit, opined in an editorial: “The Herald, which has

always opposed the principle of recall, applauds the fact that provincial recall will be

completely inoperative. It is pleased that the government has thus fallen in with its view

on this matter but admits that a great many people in the province may feel

differently.”119

The Calgary Herald’s sentiment was almost identical to that of the Liberals and the

Conservatives. While both parties opposed recall, they argued the measure, if it were to

be adopted, should at least be workable. Over the course of the bill’s journey through the

legislative process, a number of amendments were put forward and defeated, including

proposals to halve the fee to $100, lower the signature threshold to 50 per cent,120 and

extend the petition period from 40 days to three months.121 Drawing attention to the fact

the government had yet to deliver on its most popular campaign promise, John Irwin, a

117 A key distinction lost on these critics was that the Social Credit bill prescribed a two-step petition-to- by-election process, whereas the model favoured in the United States was a three-step petition-to-recall- election-to-by-election process (i.e. the lower signature threshold in various American jurisdictions did not vacate the office, but rather triggered a recall election in which a majority vote was needed to recall the officeholder). 118 The Albertan, March 20, 1936, p. 1. 119 Calgary Herald, March 14, 1936, p. 4. 120 The Albertan, April 3, 1936, p. 1. 121 Calgary Herald, March 21, 1936, p. 3. 43

Conservative member from Calgary, facetiously suggested that potential promoters be allowed to pay the $200 fee in Social Credit dividends. Rising amid the chorus of laughter from the opposition benches, an indignant Social Credit MLA asked how the fee would be paid if recall became law before dividends could be issued, Irwin slyly responded, “I should have said, ‘if and when Social Credit dividends are paid.’”122 The amendment, like the others, was defeated, and the bill was read for the third and final time.

Comprising 20 sections and numerous subsections, The Legislative Assembly (Recall) Act contained a host of provisions.123 In addition to the high signature threshold, the Act set out a number of requirements, including: special forms issued by the clerk of the

Executive Council on which the signatures had to be collected; a separate form to be signed by a witness to verify each signature; a 40-day period from the receipt of the forms until the petition had to be lodged with the clerk of the Executive Council; and an inquiry, convened by the Chief Justice of Alberta, to determine whether the petition complied with the Act. The Act also laid out a number of prohibitions vis-à-vis the petition, including bribery, the use of intimidation, and making or publishing false statements about the personal character or conduct of the member in question. In addition, the Act allowed a recalled member to stand for re-election, forbade multiple recall motions against the same MLA during the life of a legislature, and was silent on the grounds on which electors could petition for a member’s recall.

122 Edmonton Journal, April 3, 1936, p. 14. 123 Statutes of Alberta, I Edward VIII, chapter 82. 44

As mentioned above, a $200 fee was also required before a petition could proceed. It is important to note that the Act deems the sum a “fee” and not a “deposit.” Nowhere in the

Act are conditions mentioned under which the fee would be returned; therefore, there was no legal requirement that it be treated as refundable. From the day the bill was tabled, however, the media referred to the sum as a deposit, a distinction that was evidently also lost on government members who referred to, and treated it, as a deposit. For the sake of simplicity, the sum, henceforth, will be referred to as a deposit.

While Social Credit MLAs were pleased by the seemingly prohibitive signature threshold contained in the Act, many amongst the grassroots were not. In November 1936, the

Social Credit group for Taber, in the presence of the visiting Aberhart, unanimously passed a resolution in favour of recalling the local MLA, James Hansen.124 The action was the climax of a longstanding grievance between the group and Hansen, denounced, at least by one member, as the worst menace to the party in southern Alberta.125

By early December, however, the group had determined the signature threshold was simply too high; as opposed to attempting to recall Hansen under the current law, they chose instead to postpone their effort until the Act required a less stringent percentage.126

To that end, the Taber constituency submitted a resolution to the party’s first provincial convention – held curiously enough, given the supposed collusion between the Masons and Jewish bankers proffered in British Social Credit thought, at Edmonton’s Masonic

Temple in January 1937 – calling for the signature threshold to be lowered to 51 per cent

124 Lethbridge Herald, November 12, 1936, p. 1. 125 Ibid., p. 3. 126 Lethbridge Herald, December 4, 1936, p. 1. 45 and for the $200 fee to be waived.127 During the debate that ensued, one delegate summed up the problem with the current law by jokingly referring to it as the “security act.”128 The resolution was carried.

Not all Social Credit supporters, however, saw the virtue of recall. On January 21, 1936, just two weeks before the first legislative session of the first Social Credit government in the world opened, a party member in Coaldale sat down to write a letter to Premier

Aberhart. “Dear Mr. Aberhart,” J. Hominuke wrote, “May I earnestly and respectfully suggest that the principle of recall be not introduced during the coming session of the

Legislature, as this is a dangerous weapon in the hands of some people who are subject to all kinds of pernicious propaganda by various unscrupulous demagogues and agitators.”129 In response, Aberhart began, “Now of course I do believe that the general public are so fickle that an open use of the principle of recall would not be understood by them but there should be some way in which the great majority of the members of any constituency should have the right to recall their representative if he is not properly representing them.” He concluded his letter by declaring, “I have no desire to remain in power, or should I say in office, longer than the people of our constituency desire it.”130

Less than two years later, the sincerity of Abherart’s conviction would be put to the test when he became the target of the first serious recall effort under his government’s legislation.

127 Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds, File M-1621-31, Social Provincial Convention (1937) Resolutions. 128 Calgary Herald, January 16, 1937, p. 1. 129 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 815, J. Hominuke to William Aberhart (January 21, 1936). 130 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 815, William Aberhart to J. Hominuke, (January 24, 1936). 46

Low Times in High River

At the Southern Central Convention held in the run-up to the 1935 election, the delegates passed a resolution urging Aberhart to refrain from running for a seat so that he would have a “free hand in that he may go wherever he wants in the province for the furtherance of social credit thought.”131 Aberhart agreed with the wisdom in campaigning free of the restraints a local race would impose, and therefore he now needed to find a seat so that he could take his place in the legislature. For his riding, he chose Okotoks-High River, a mixed-rural-oilfields seat south of Calgary. To accommodate his leader and his party, the recently elected Rev. William Morrison graciously stepped aside. Aberhart, who ran uncontested, won the seat by acclamation in November 1935. The victory would prove one of his few during those turbulent early years.

Social Credit’s first term in office was undoubtedly among the most contentious and combative in the history of Canadian politics. As Barr notes, “Between 1935 and 1939, the Social Credit movement and its leaders learned their first bitter lessons about the difference between aspirations and feasibility.”132 Indeed, the government’s first term was a melee of misfortunes, miscalculations, and maladministration, including twice defaulting on bond payments, passing a host of blatantly unconstitutional legislation (all of which was either refused Royal Assent or declared ultra vires by the courts), and a very public and bitter falling out between Aberhart and Social Credit’s founder, Major

Douglas. Good news days were few and far between. This was particularly the case

131 Calgary Herald, April 5, 1935, p. 5. 132 Barr, The Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of Social Credit in Alberta, p. 83. 47 when a group of hardliners in the government caucus, incensed with the orthodox budget tabled in March 1937, rebelled, a move that shook the premier to his very core.

These MLAs were not alone in their growing discontent. The following month a group of Social Credit members in the premier’s own riding – albeit, as it would later emerge, prompted likely by less principled concerns – passed a resolution calling for Aberhart’s resignation. At a meeting of the High River No. 2 Social Credit group held on April 8, nine of the 22 members in attendance supported a measure133 accusing the premier of receiving delegations of constituents “in a disdainful manner” and of not being in

“sympathy” with the people living and working in, by virtue of resource revenues, the

“most important constituency in the province.”134 The action was not the stinging rebuke by the party faithful it initially appeared to be, as it soon emerged that many of the group’s members had not been informed of the meeting.135 In addition to the semi- clandestine nature of the gathering, the motives of the two men who orchestrated the resolution were also called into question, with at least one local member arguing the men’s true grievance was that they had failed to receive the government pull for which they had hoped.136

While the incident ultimately proved nothing more than an irritant for Aberhart, it was a harbinger of the tempestuous times that lay ahead. Fuelled by the growing resentment

133 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050A, Ivan Casey to William Aberhart (April 19, 1937). 134 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050A, Ivan Casey to William Aberhart (April 8, 1937). 135 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050A, Mrs. A. Wakeford to William Aberhart (April 12, 1937). 136 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1038, P.J. Dewie to William Aberhart (April 10, 1937). 48 against Aberhart and his Social Credit government, the self-appointed People’s League, comprising Liberals, Conservatives, and various other unaffiliated critics, was founded in

1936. By the fall of 1937, the League reported 55,000 paid-up members, a number that exceeded that of Social Credit.137 On September 8, a raucous crowd of more than 8,000, including more than 100 constituents from the premier’s own riding, gathered in

Calgary’s Victoria Arena for a League-sponsored rally.138 After listening to a number of censorious speeches, including ones by the president of the Calgary Board of Trade and the Conservative and Liberal party leaders, the crowd enthusiastically endorsed a resolution calling on Aberhart to “immediately resign from the premiership of this province.”139 In his weekly Sunday broadcast, a seemingly confident Abherhart trivialized the mass meeting of the “People’s Slavery League” saying he knew of no meeting “in recent times that has produced so much indignation and amusement.”140

Thousands of Albertans across the province evidently did not agree; subsequent meetings held that month in Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Edmonton attracted thousands more.

The growing momentum of the People’s League, while an exceptionally troubling development for Aberhart and his Social Credit government, would soon prove a lesser worry for the premier. On the morning of September 21, a formal petition to launch recall proceedings against Aberhart in Okotoks-High River was filed with the clerk of the

Executive Council in Edmonton. The first such petition of its kind declared that the premier had “lost the confidence of the Electors” as he had “failed to implement promises

137 High River Times, September 9, 1937, p. 3. 138 Calgary Herald, September 9, 1937, p. 1. 139 Ibid., p. 7. 140 Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds, File M-1621-5, Sunday radio addresses from the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (September 12, 1937). 49 and representations” and supported “policies and the enactment of statues detrimental to the province.”141 A defiant Aberhart claimed he was unsurprised by the move, as the recall action was “evidently a politico-financial attack and is designed to interfere with or block the progress that we are now making in our endeavour to free our people from economic bondage.” Ever confident, he went on to declare that “the failure of this recall action will prove to the world that the province as a whole is behind our present efforts.”142 Aberhart’s outward bravado, however, soon gave way to outright panic.

The petition was not filed on a whim. The sponsors claimed to have carefully canvassed the riding for several months, deciding to launch the effort only after eliciting favourable responses from 4,000 qualified voters, which was only 394 fewer than the number of signatures that would be needed to successfully recall the premier.143 It is impossible, however, to determine the veracity of the sponsors’ claim, as it rests on nothing more than their word. Regardless, articles appeared throughout the province repeating the number, which undoubtedly was a cause for alarm in the premier’s office. While the two-thirds signature threshold had been thought insurmountable, there was a glimmer of hope in Okotoks-High River. Though the numbers appearing in the media differed, there was likely no other riding in the province that could point to such an influx of population

– owing to the boom in the Turner Valley oilfield – in the two years since the election,

141 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050B, Petition to Launch Recall Proceedings against William Aberhart (September 21, 1937). 142 Edmonton Journal, September 21, 1937, p. 1. 143 Edmonton Journal, September 22, 1937, p. 1. 50 thus providing the campaign with a larger pool of eligible voters from which to draw.144

Panicked, the government prepared to strike back.

On Sunday, September 26, Aberhart took to the stage at the Bible Institute to denounce the recall proceedings as “low down party politics and mud-slinging” on the part of the

“enemy” to undermine the foundations of the Social Credit government by obtaining fraudulent and coerced signatures. “Important legislation,” the premier promised, “is coming in the next week … we are not anxious to have useless laws on our books. We must have laws that function for the welfare of the people.”145 On Monday, C.C.

Cockroft, the former provincial treasurer who had resigned from cabinet following a split with Aberhart, tabled a number of resolutions with the clerk of the Legislative Assembly, including one to reduce the signature threshold in the Recall Act to ten per cent.146 His attempt to make the province’s recall measure more workable would become a cautionary example of the law of unintended consequences.

Fred Anderson, an erstwhile insurgent looking, one can only assume, to ingratiate himself with the premier, stepped forward as the government’s point man the following day and introduced an amendment to allow only those who voted in the last provincial election in the riding to sign a recall petition, thus disqualifying scores of otherwise eligible voters.147 Two days later, on September 30, The Albertan ran an editorial – which, given the paper’s self-proclaimed role as the “official organ” of Social Credit, one can speculate

144 Calgary Herald, September 23, 1937, p. 1. 145 The Albertan, September 27, 1937, p. 1. 146 Calgary Herald, September 27, 1937, p. 1. 147 Edmonton Journal, September 29, 1937, p. 1. 51 was an attempt by the government at pre-positioning – arguing that Anderson’s amendment did not go far enough. According to The Albertan, “Petitions are no accurate guide to the public will, and no government no matter how sincere they were, has ever been able to frame an efficient and fair Recall Act. The Government would be well advised to repeal the act and forget about it altogether.”148

Later that afternoon, the Social Credit MLA for Rocky Mountain, Ernest Duke, introduced an amending resolution to do just that, scrap the Recall Act altogether. Gerald

O’Connor, a Liberal MLA from Edmonton, proposed an amendment to the amendment that the proposed repeal should not apply to the ongoing proceedings in the premier’s riding.149 During the ensuing debate, the Conservative leader, David Duggan, rose to directly address Aberhart (after receiving permission to do so from the speaker), “On this resolution and the amendment thereto, if it directly affects government policy, would you as head of the government, express an opinion and give a direction to the House before we proceed?”150 The Premier silently shook his head; the amendment was promptly defeated.151

Evidently prepared, the government tabled An Act to Repeal The Legislative Assembly

(Recall) Act later that very night.152 Comprising four brief sections, the bill provided for the retroactive repeal of the original bill to the date of Royal Assent, thus nullifying any proceedings taken under the Act. In the debates that followed, the Conservative leader

148 The Albertan, September 30, 1937, p. 4. 149 Edmonton Journal, October 1, 1937, p. 10. 150 Calgary Herald, October 1, 1937, p. 3. 151 Edmonton Journal, October 1, 1937, p. 10. 152 Statutes of Alberta, I Edward VI, Session III, chapter 7. 52 argued that if, as the government had argued, oilfield workers were being intimidated into signing the petition, the “act itself makes provision for dealing with such cases.”153’154

Resigned to the bill’s passage, Liberal MLA Gerald O’Connor rose to declare that “there has never been such a cowardly exhibition. I suggest that when you print the bill you print it on yellow paper instead of white.”155

Having passed all the legislative obstacles save one before adjournment on Friday, the bill was set for its third and final reading on Monday, October 4. Before the vote was held, John Bowlen, a Liberal MLA from Calgary and future lieutenant governor of

Alberta, moved a last-ditch amendment calling for the third reading to be delayed by six months. In one of the more bizarre moments in Canadian political history, Aberhart and

Manning voted with the opposition.156

This seeming incongruity is perhaps best explained as an early public-relations stunt.

Despite Aberhart’s instance that he was a man of principle who would stand by the decision of the constituents of Okotoks-High River, he was obviously panicked by the prospect of being recalled. In one Sunday broadcast, he falsely claimed, in what may reasonably be seen as an act of intimidation, that any signed petition had to be “put up in the post office, or other public place, so everyone can see who signed,” only to reassume the persona of principled premier the next beat by saying he was hesitant to “urge you

153 Calgary Herald, October 3, 1937, p. 2. 154 The Social Credit government also claimed that non-citizens were signing the petition, which was clearly illegal under Section 14 of the Act. 155 The Albertan, October 2, 1937, p. 2. 156 Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Alberta, I Edward VI, Session V, October 4, 1937. 53 one way or the other. If my services are no longer of any value to you, I must abide by your decision.”157

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the Social Credit caucus, unlike Aberhart and Manning, did not vote with the opposition. An Act to Repeal The Legislative Assembly (Recall) Act was accordingly read a third time and passed. Recall, the other Social Credit experiment, was dead.

Aftermath

Despite the debilitating blow of the repeal, the recall committee vowed to carry on. Its defiance, however, soon dissolved into despondency, and on October 23, the committee filed a request with the clerk of the Executive Council, R.A. Andison, requesting refund of the $200 deposit it had paid. Five days later, Andison responded affirmatively with one stipulation – that all the petition forms issued be returned; he verbally informed the

Edmonton agents of the recall committee that he was acting on the premier’s orders.158

The recall committee agreed to return the actual printed portions bearing the clerk’s authentication; under no circumstances, however, would it release the list of signatures.159

The committee’s refusal likely stemmed from the premier’s insistence, which either betrayed a woeful ignorance of his government’s own law or, perhaps, more sinister intentions, that the signed petitions “must be put up in a post office, or other public place,

157 Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds, File M-1621-5, Sunday radio addresses from the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (September 26, 1937). 158 Calgary Herald, November 20, 1937, p. 1. 159 High River Times, November 25, 1937, p. 1. 54 so everyone can see who signed them.”160 This was demonstrably untrue. Section 6(h) of the Act clearly stated that the petition need be posted only after it had been lodged with the clerk of the Executive Council. When asked by a Calgary Herald reporter about the signature list stipulation, a testy Aberhart denied his government had attached any such condition.161 In a letter dated October 26, however, the premier had written the clerk with the instructions that “upon the prompt return of the forms issued, we will be willing to refund the deposit of $200.00.”162 In a later letter, Aberhart, while refusing to relent on a return of all the forms, told the clerk, “These forms should be returned intact to you, and you can give them assurance that you will destroy the same at once.”163 This would seem to suggest – unless, of course, the premier was coaching Andison to lie in order to get his hands on the list of signatures to exact some form of retribution – that

Aberhart was acting out of pettiness rather than vindictiveness.

In March of the following year, Liberal MLA Gerald O’Connor filed a resolution with the clerk of the Legislative Assembly to support a motion for the return of the $200 deposit. The provincial treasurer, Solon Law, rose to argue the motion was out of order as it involved the expenditure of money, and therefore it could only be moved by a cabinet minister.164 Agreeing with Low, the speaker ruled the motion out of order. In a

160 Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds, File M-1621-5, Sunday radio addresses from the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (September 26, 1937). 161 Calgary Herald, November 20, 1937, p. 1. 162 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050B, William Aberhart to R.A. Andison, Clerk of the Executive Council (October 26, 1937). 163 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050B, William Aberhart to R.A. Andison, Clerk of the Executive Council (December 3, 1937). 164 Calgary Herald, March 23, 1938, p. 3. 55 vote of 41 to 11, the legislature upheld the speaker’s ruling, and the issue was dropped.165

So ended the sorry saga of recall in Alberta.

Correcting the Record

One enduring fallacy, found in both academic and popular accounts, is that the recall committee and its canvassers managed to collect the requisite number of signatures needed to recall Aberhart shortly before the Act was repealed. As Elliot and Miller, for instance, write, “By the fall of 1937 they had the necessary 66.66 per cent of the voters supporting the recall petition.”166 This is simply not true. Contrary to the impression given by Elliot and Miller, signatures were not gradually gathered over a number of months. As per Section 6(a) of the Act, and as discussed above, signatures could only be collected on special forms issued by the clerk of the Executive Council, which did not arrive at the headquarters of the recall committee until September 25,167 leaving the canvassers just over a week until the Act was repealed. The members of the recall committee themselves conceded they would likely need the full 40 days allowed by the

Act.168

The confusion likely stems from press reports at the time claiming that as many as 4,000 constituents had indicated they were favourably disposed to the idea of ridding Okotoks-

High River of Aberhart during a riding-wide canvass to determine support for a potential recall effort.169 Never once, however, did the recall committee claim to have actually collected the requisite percentage of signatures. Regardless, the positive response to the

165 Edmonton Journal, March 23, 1938, p. 9. 166 Elliot and Miller, Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart, p. 273. 167 Calgary Herald, September 27, 1937, p. 11. 168 Calgary Herald, September 23, 1937, p. 5. 169 See, for example, Edmonton Journal, September 22, 1937, p. 1. 56 petition in the first week, as widely reported in the media, was evidently enough to prompt the government – in undoubtedly one of the most cynical moves in Alberta’s political history – to scrap the Recall Act.

Reflection

As J.R. Mallory dryly notes in Social Credit and the Federal Power in Canada, “Mr.

Aberhart’s sense of mission was stronger than his belief in popular sovereignty.”170 In addition to providing insight into the premier’s personality and leadership style, the episode serves as an example of one of the arguments oft deployed by recall’s opponents.

It was The Albertan, surprisingly enough, that best summed up what took place in

Okotoks-High River, “[I]t is quite clear that the petition is not for the recall of Mr.

Aberhart the member for Okotoks-High River but for the unseating of Mr. Aberhart the first minister. In a word, it is an attempt to make use of a mechanism set up to remove an unsatisfactory member for the purpose of overthrowing the whole administration.”171

In a parliamentary system in which the legislative and the executive branches are fused, recall poses a particular problem not faced by the American system – the ability to recall a national or sub-national political leader through the signatures or votes of a single constituency. “In a parliamentary system,” as Flanagan notes, “premiers and ministers necessarily divert large amounts of attention from their riding to the needs of the polity as a whole; should they therefore be put under the gun in their own constituencies?

170 J.R. Mallory, Social Credit and the Federal Power in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1954), p. 79. 171 The Albertan, September 23, 1937, p. 4. 57

Similarly, should opponents in one riding be able to unseat a premier or minister who is devoting himself to larger tasks than fulfilling requests from his riding?”172

Aberhart was by no means a constituency MLA. Be it rarely visiting his riding, sitting in a government car while Minister of Public Works William Fallow conferred with locals about the shortcomings of the riding’s roads,173 testily telling concerned constituents that he had done all he could to tackle local epidemics by appointing a doctor to investigate and they should bother him no more,174 or pursuing policies that angered the oil patch, tending to matters of import to his riding was not the premier’s forte.175 In their petition to initiate recall proceedings, the promoters, however, did not list any specific examples of how Aberhart had fallen short as a local representative. Indeed, they cited “failure to implement promises and representations” and the “enactment of statutes detrimental to the Province,” which strongly suggests, if not definitely demonstrates, that their grievance was not with William Aberhart the MLA for Okotoks-High River, but William

Aberhart the premier of Alberta.176

This was further confirmed when, in response to the premier’s charge that the recall campaign was launched by those “who have an axe to grind, particularly for the change of the main highway through High River,” the ten promoters struck back, claiming their

172University of Calgary Archives, Thomas Flanagan Fonds, Reform of Canada’s Parliamentary Institutions (Policy Paper for the Reform Party of Canada, June 1991), p. 45. 173 Calgary Herald, October 12, 1937, p. 1. 174 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050A, William Aberhart to A.L. Clemens (October 27, 1936). 175 Calgary Herald, September 23, 1937, p. 1. 176 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers, File 1050B, Petition to Launch Recall Proceedings against William Aberhart (September 21, 1937). 58 concerns were more general than specific.177 In an article in the Calgary Herald, the men explained their reasons for supporting the petition. Charles Clark summed up the concerns of his fellow promoters when he said, “I was prompted by a general feeling of revolt against the whole sorry record of the government.”178 When not pointing the finger at those concerned with the constituency’s thoroughfares, Aberhart blamed financiers and oil companies for the recall campaign. Although there is little doubt that oil executives, supported by the Calgary Herald, sought to embarrass Aberhart, it is unproved that they organized the effort to unseat him.179

While Aberhart’s shortcomings as an MLA fanned the flames of discontent, the recall campaign must be viewed in context. The year 1937 was particularly tumultuous for the

Social Credit government. In addition to the insurgency, there was the federal disallowance of several pieces of legislation, the fierce controversy over the Accurate

News and Information Act, which was declared a “fascist” measure by many quarters, and the “bankers’ toadies” incident in which one of Major Douglas’s emissaries and a

Social Credit MLA were convicted of criminal libel and sentenced to hard labour.

Seemingly every day was a bad news day. In September alone, nearly 21,000 disgruntled

Albertans gathered to register their opposition at four mass People’s League rallies held around the province.180 One, therefore, cannot view what happened in Okotoks-High

River as if it took place in a vacuum, as the evidence suggests that general

177 Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds, File M-1621-5, Sunday radio addresses from the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute (October 10, 1937). 178 Calgary Herald, October 12, 1937, p. 1. 179 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, p. 70. 180 Edmonton Journal, September 29, 1937, p. 1. 59 disillusionment with Aberhart and his Social Credit government is largely what fuelled the recall campaign.

On March 21, 1940, Albertans went to the polls and returned a substantially weakened

Social Credit government. Shortly after this near loss, Germany began its blitzkrieg in

Western Europe. Understanding that Albertans were fatigued by years of political turmoil and more concerned about the events unfolding in Europe, Aberhart shelved the more controversial aspects of the Social Credit agenda. Three years later Aberhart would be dead, and Ernest Manning, his one-time protégé, would be premier. Manning jettisoned the more radical aspects of Social Credit from the government’s agenda and set the party on a more pragmatic, conservative course. Recall, a vestige of the party’s more unorthodox days, was never raised again. Indeed, the measure disappeared from the country’s political discourse until another populist party born in the West – and led by

Manning’s son no less – similarly rode a wave of discontent to political prominence by promising to be the defender of the people’s interests 60

CHAPTER 3 – POPULISM RIDES AGAIN: THE RESURRECTION OF RECALL BY THE REFORM PARTY

Disquiet on the Western Front

Disillusioned by 15 years of Liberal rule (with the exception of a 10-month interregnum presided over by Joe Clark), Western Canadians were generally elated when Brian

Mulroney and his Progressive Conservatives (PCs) painted large swaths of the electoral map Tory blue in 1984. With its promise of a new era of relations between the West and

Ottawa, the PCs virtually swept the three prairie provinces and British Columbia. The region’s knight on a white horse had arrived in the form of the boy from Baie Comeau, an unlikely would-be saviour, but seemingly preferable to the man he succeeded.

Under Pierre Trudeau, western alienation had spread like a prairie fire. Perhaps best reflected in Keith Davey’s infamous dictum of “Screw the West, we’ll take the rest,” the

Liberals’ contempt for Western Canada reached its apogee during this period with a divisive policy that hobbled Alberta’s economy for the benefit of Central Canada, the

National Energy Program (NEP). Denouncing the NEP in vivid terms, including famously likening the policy to “a hold-up at the corner gas station at 3 a.m.,” Brian

Mulroney knew what Westerners wanted to hear, and was aggressive in his courting efforts.181 The West was smitten.

Despite some initial successes, the new era soon seemed little different from the old. The lyrics of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” strongly resonated with many in the

181 William Johnson, Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2005), p. 27. 61 region: “Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.” This simmering disillusionment boiled over into outrage in the fall of 1986, when, in the name of the “national interest,” the government awarded a $1.4 billion contract for the maintenance of Canada’s fleet of

CF-18s to Montreal’s Canadair Ltd. despite a technologically superior, less costly bid from Winnipeg’s Bristol Aerospace. This was seen as the ultimate act of betrayal, one that embodied everything that was wrong with the traditional federal parties: if there were votes to be gained in Central Canada (or, in this case, potentially lost), the West’s interests would always come second.

Disappointed, yet not despondent, three separate groups began contemplating political action during this period: a loosely knit agricultural protest movement led by Robert

Grbavac, who ultimately chose to run for the Liberals; another fronted by Stan Roberts, a former Liberal leader and MLA from Manitoba who served as the first president of the

Canada West Foundation; and one headed by a bespectacled management consultant who was a life-long student of Western populist movements (and the son of Alberta’s longest- serving premier), Preston Manning. The trio came together, under the auspices of the

Reform Association of Canada, to organize the Western Assembly on Canada’s

Economic and Political Future.

Held in Vancouver in late May 1987, the Assembly drew delegates from the four

Western provinces (with the vast majority coming from Alberta and BC) to debate an agenda for change. A number of curious observers were also in attendance, including a young University of Calgary graduate student who would later play a pivotal role in 62

Canada’s conservative movement, Stephen Harper. After several presentations and workshops, the delegates approved a number of policies, including the creation of a

Western common market, “question ballots” (i.e. referenda) to be held in conjunction with federal and provincial elections, the establishment of a Triple E Senate, and opposition to the Meech Lake Accord.182 The delegates then turned to the question of how best to advance this agenda: working through an existing federal party, establishing a pressure group, or creating a new party. With 76 percent support, the third option was the choice of the overwhelming majority.183

A founding assembly took place later that fall in “Canada’s Gateway to the West.” The agenda for the Winnipeg Assembly included choosing a party name, adopting a constitution and statement of principles, formulating a policy platform, and electing a party leader. Undoubtedly, the most contentious aspect of the agenda was the leadership selection, which saw Stan Roberts storm out of the assembly lobbing allegations about misappropriated funds and a rigged vote when Preston Manning emerged the clear victor.184 The other agenda items, thankfully for the party’s sake, were dispatched in a far more expeditious manner.

Following the format of the Vancouver Assembly, a host of presentations, panels, and workshops were used to help develop a policy platform. Jack Horner, a former PC (and latterly turncoat Liberal) MP; Ray Speaker, an Alberta MLA; and Jo Hillier, the interim party president, gave a presentation on parliamentary and party systems. “Delegates

182 Alberta Report, June 8, 1987, pp. 8-9. 183 Ibid., p. 1. 184 Alberta Report, November 9, 1987, p. 15. 63 strongly supported resolutions calling for parliamentary and democratic reforms, in particular the provision in Canadian law for referendum and recall mechanisms,” as

Manning later recounted.185

Mirroring the wording that was written into the party’s policy manual following the

Winnipeg Assembly, the Reform Party’s platform for the 1988 election included a promise to “investigate the possibility of allowing constituents to pursue some type of recall procedure against an M.P. they feel has violated that oath [affirming fundamental allegiance to one’s constituents and the Queen].”186 The late fall election was largely fought over the contentious and emotional issue of free trade, which made it difficult for other issues, such as the potential implications of the Meech Lake Accord and fiscal restraint, to come to the fore.

When the dust had settled, the Mulroney PCs had been returned with a sound, if slightly reduced, majority. The upstart Reform Party garnered over a quarter-million votes, which worked out to two per cent of the national vote, a number far short of the critical mass needed to elect any MPs.187 Fortune in the unfortunate form of an untimely death, however, would present the party with a window of opportunity less than a year later.

A Caucus of One

On November 21, just five days after the election, the re-elected PC MP for the Alberta riding of Beaver River lost his battle with cancer. John Dahmer’s premature if

185 Preston Manning, The New Canada (Toronto: Macmillan Canada, 1992), p. 149. 186 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Election Platform of the Reform Party of Canada (1988). 187 Alberta Report, December 5, 1988, p. 17. 64 unsurprising death – he had spent much of the campaign bedridden in an Edmonton hospital – precipitated a by-election scheduled for the New Year.188 Just as she had done in November, Deborah (Deb) Grey carried the banner for Reform. From the outset, it was apparent the Tories were not assured victory in the traditionally safe seat. To stave off defeat, the party even shipped in campaign strategists from Ottawa.189 The winds of change, however, would not heed. On election day, Grey bested her nearest opponent

(the PC candidate) by more than 4,000 votes.190 Change, embodied in a 36-year-old, plainspoken, straight-shooting teacher, was coming to Ottawa.

One of the primary ways the Reform Party distinguished itself from the traditional federal parties during these early years was by emphasizing its commitment to democratic reform. An opportunity to attract national attention for its proposals presented itself when the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, established to recommend ways in which the country’s electoral system could be updated and improved, began holding public hearings.191 On May 22, 1990, Preston Manning made a presentation on behalf of the party.192

Setting the tone by referencing the collapse of the communist empire that had begun the previous year, the submission implored one to think of “the fresh winds of change blowing from Eastern Europe, Lithuania and the Baltics” and how they “remind us that

188 Alberta Report, March 27, 1989, p. 15. 189 Ibid. 190 Ibid. 191 National Archives of Canada: http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_n br=103&rec_nbr_list=103,46050,47710,3952538,3948476,3959639,46765,1285160,519,366 192 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Reform the Electoral System to Give Citizens More Say (Press Release, May 22, 1990). 65 democracy is a precious thing.”193 Direct democracy was the first of four themes contained in the party’s presentation. As opposed to treating recall as a member unto itself in the direct democracy family, the party claimed it was “a special form of citizen’s initiative”194 that would help to improve accountability in the political system.195 The commission, however, did not agree, recommending in its final report that “the statutory recall of Members of Parliament not be adopted.”196

While enthusiastic in his support for the referendum and initiative devices, Manning was notably hesitant when it came to recall. In a 1991 interview with journalist Peter

Newman and economic consultant and freelance writer Ralph Hedlin (who had served as one of the experts on the economic task force at the Western Assembly), Manning agreed with Hedlin’s assertion that “recall is dangerous.” Manning explained, “I keep saying to our people, ‘it’s like recalling cars; you should make them right in the first place.’ I caution our own people that we’ve got two things – the candidate recruitment and the development process – and if you put real time and energy into that, you wouldn’t have to worry about the recall of your member.”197 In The New Canada, Manning’s magnum opus explaining the Reform movement, he expanded upon his concerns:

While I understand and agree with the sentiment that has given rise to the support of recall (that is, the desire for greater accountability of elected officials), Reformers have some more work to do to develop a recall

193 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Strengthening Democracy in Canada: A Submission to the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (May 1990), p. 2. 194 Ibid., p. 5. 195 While the party clearly states its support for citizen’s initiative in the body of its submission and the accompanying news release, the device is inexplicably dropped from the list of final recommendations (which only mentions referenda and plebiscites). Given the party’s clear support for the device elsewhere in the material it submitted, this plainly was an oversight. 196 Canada, “Direct Democracy in the Electoral Process,” p. 247. 197 The University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Interview of Preston Manning by Peter Newman and Ralph Hedlin (June 6, 1991). 66

procedure that will not be subject to abuse. The main value of having a recall provision is its existence as a threat, since its employment is quite cumbersome. Because it is possible for a Canadian MP to get elected in a four-party race with only slightly more than 25 percent of the popular vote, the threshold levels on recall petitions must be quite high, so as not to result in recall being used simply as a partisan device for unseating political opponents. Reformers should also be well aware that if such legislation were ever introduced by a Reform government, its first exercise would be against Reform members of Parliament by their political opponents.198

Manning was not alone in his concerns. Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary professor who served as the party’s first director of strategy, policy, and communications in 1991-1992, drew the party’s attention to yet another issue – the fact its recall policy was seemingly at odds with its policy on representation:

Under the Reform Party’s interim representation policy, which, as I have argued, may last indefinitely, MPs will be expected to vote together after the caucus had made a democratic decision, unless there are explicit instructions to the contrary from a member’s constituents. Is it appropriate to allow a member of Parliament to be threatened with recall in his riding if he goes along with his caucus … The underlying problem is that the recall device is based on the delegate model of representation, whereas I have argued that the Reform theory of representation should (and does) give a prominent place to the mandate model.199

Manning did not agree with Flanagan’s assessment. In The New Canada, he explained

Reform MPs would adhere to a “unified field” theory of representation that would feature a careful blend of delegate, mandate, and trustee models of representation. While the mandate theory would serve as the starting point, it would in no way take precedence over the other two.200 However, in his article “Reforming Democracy? Institutions and

198 Manning, The New Canada, pp. 325-326. 199 University of Calgary Archives, Thomas Flanagan Fonds, Reform of Canada’s Parliamentary Institutions (Policy Paper for the Reform Party of Canada, June 1991), pp. 45-46.

200 Manning, The New Canada, pp. 321-322. 67

Ideology in the Reform Party Project,” David Laycock elaborates upon the shortcomings of Manning’s approach, arguing that the party, owing to its populist credentials, has “an obligation to spell out how the mandate, trustee and delegate inclinations would be rank- ordered in various policy areas and decision-making scenarios.”201

To illustrate his point, he offers a conundrum faced by a fictional Reform MP from central Saskatchewan. Elected on the party’s platform opposing supply-management programs and other agriculture subsidies, our MP is stuck when a hypothetical Liberal minority government slashes support payments to wheat farmers in an effort to reduce the deficit. Through an extensive poll of his riding, he determines that the majority of his constituents are opposed to the government’s plan. Given the reality of a minority government in which a single vote can make a difference, what does our MP do? The mandate theory, which according to Manning is the party’s starting point, is clear that our

MP should vote with his party on an important platform issue. However, in his polling, he discovers that most of those who voted for him did so in spite of the party’s position.

As Laycock argues, “The MP has no criteria for weighing constituents’ wishes in relation to those of the party convention and platform … This scenario suggests that Reform’s theory of representation has not addressed difficult questions about democratic translation of public opinion, through representation, into public policy.”202

While problematic in the eyes of the leader, and, though Manning would disagree, at odds with the party’s own policy on representation, recall was popular with the party’s

201 David Laycock, “Reforming Canadian Democracy? Institutions and Ideology in the Reform Party Project,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 2 (June 1994): p. 237. 202 Ibid., p. 238. 68 grassroots. Disillusioned with MPs who ignored the region’s interests and simply kowtowed to the party brass, many Westerners wanted to reserve the right to give their representative a pink slip. The appeal of the device extended beyond rank-and-file

Reformers. According to a 1991 Gallup poll, 55 per cent of Canadians thought they should be able to recall their MP.203 Later that year, nearly 81 per cent of British

Columbians voted in a referendum to include recall in the province’s election laws. For a party committed to honouring the “common sense of the common people,” recall was non-negotiable.

Given the party’s lukewarm Blue Book commitment to “investigate the possibility of allowing constituents to pursue some type of recall procedure against an M.P.,” which had remained unchanged since the party’s founding convention in 1987, Reform realized it needed to flesh out its policy. In July 1992, the party developed an interim recall position in the form of a caucus issue statement.204 While written by Flanagan, Manning amended the draft to increase the signature threshold,205 which is undoubtedly the most important provision of any potential recall legislation.

Following a brief background on what the device is and how it works, the caucus issue statement listed the concerns commonly cited by those arguing against the device in a parliamentary system: the ability to recall members of the executive, be they cabinet ministers or the prime minister himself; the potential to recall enough members in the

203 Maclean’s, January 7, 1991, p. 12. 204 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Green Book, Caucus Issue Statement No. 37 (July 16, 1992). 205 Ibid., p. 26. 69 case of a slight majority government to trigger an election; and the risk inherent in a multi-party system in which most MPs are elected with only a plurality of the vote.

While largely discounting the first two (arguing, respectively, that constituents appreciate the value of being represented by a minister, and that not every vote in the House of

Commons need be treated as a confidence measure), the statement conceded the third concern was legitimate. To protect against potential abuse, Reform argued for four safeguards: a signature threshold of 50 per cent of the number enumerated for the last election in the riding; allowing candidates from all parties to contest the by-election triggered by a successful petition; a waiting period of 18 months after the election before a petition could be initiated; and finally, a limit of one recall petition per MP per

Parliament.

Reform finally had a recall policy (at least internally, as, unlike the Blue Book, caucus issue statement were not public documents). It was a far cry from the recall laws in jurisdictions south of the border (not to mention the fact it was intended to recall national elected officials, something neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had ever seriously proposed), but less stringent than the short-lived recall bill passed 56 years earlier in

Alberta.206 It was outwardly daunting, yet still workable – a compromise. What could be more Canadian?

206 While British Columbians had voted in favour of recall in the 1991 referendum, legislation with the relevant details was not passed into law until 1995. 70

The Barbarians Breach the Gate

Thanks in large part to the deficit crisis and failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown

Accords, the Reform Party was attracting considerable media attention and public support across English Canada. The upcoming election was going to be a make-or-break event for Reform. With this in mind, Preston Manning and Stephen Harper (who, having sufficiently impressed Manning with a speech he gave at the founding convention, was now the party’s policy chief) drafted a platform to be debated and voted on at the party’s

1992 assembly in Winnipeg.207 Plank 15 dealt with the direct democracy triumvirate, stating simply: “If elected, a Reform Government will introduce legislation and constitutional proposals to create binding referendum, citizens’ initiative, and recall mechanisms at the federal level.”208

In keeping with the party’s penchant for vigorous and thorough discussions of all matters policy, the debate and votes on the proposed platform took far longer than anticipated.209

Faced with the possibility of not getting through the platform in the allotted time, the chair of the assembly, Cliff Fryers, finally had to rule that no further amendments could be made from the floor. When the direct democracy plank belatedly came up for consideration, Fryers asked the delegates to bear in mind that a task force had been struck to flesh out the party’s policy and to keep that “in mind as we go through the debate.”210’211 While duly submitted in advance, an amendment from the Calgary Centre

207 Tom Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and the Conservative Movement (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), p. 30. 208 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Final Draft Platform and Amendments. 209 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Video recording of the 1992 Winnipeg Assembly. 210 Ibid. 71 constituency arguing the direct democracy plank should not be part of the platform until

“they [initiative, referendum, and recall] are properly defined”212 was never considered.

The plank was passed as written with 99 per cent support.213

While opting for a generic endorsement of recall in its platform, the party’s lone MP, with the grand claim that the measure would “do more to ensure democratic parliamentary reform than all the committees this House could put together,”214 tabled

Bill C-392, An Act to provide for the recall of members of Parliament.215 Introduced less than two months after the party’s assembly in Winnipeg, the essential elements of Grey’s bill (i.e. the signature threshold, the grace period, and the one-petition-per-Parliament cap) were lifted from the caucus issue statement. Much like its Social Credit predecessor, the two-step petition-to-by-election legislation also contained a number of prohibitions vis-à-vis the petition, including forged signatures, signing inducements, and using the threat of a petition for the purpose of extortion. As for the permitted timeframe, promoters would have 60 days to collect the requisite number of signatures. Grey’s bill never made it past its first reading in the House of Commons.

211 Confusion surrounds the genesis of the Direct Democracy Task Force. Despite the fact that Fryers clearly states at the 1992 Assembly that a task force is at work reviewing the party’s direct democracy policies, the introduction to the body’s final report claims “[it] was established by Executive Council following the 1992 Assembly.” There is evidence to suggest some sort of task force had been established long before 1992. In November of the previous year, the Edmonton Sun carried a story, as reported in The Vancouver Sun, November 28, 1991, p. A4, about an internal party memo dated October 1990 that claimed Manning had taken control of six task forces, including one devoted to the direct democracy triumvirate, because they were suggesting “unorthodox and most times extreme opinions.” 212 Final Draft Platform and Amendments. 213 Video recording of the 1992 Winnipeg Assembly. 214 Canadian House of Commons Debates, 1992, XII, p. 14994. 215 The House of Commons of Canada, Third Session, Thirty-fourth Parliament, 40-41 Elizabeth II, 1991- 92, Bill C-392, An Act to provide for the recall of members of Parliament. 72

The starting gun for Canada’s 35th general election was fired nine months later on

September 8, 1993. The Liberals, headed by the cagey and experienced Jean Chrétien, were the clear favourite to beat the faltering PCs. While the centrepiece of Reform’s campaign was its Zero in Three plan to eliminate the deficit, the party’s direct democracy plank featured prominently as well. The party, for instance, produced a TV advertisement in which a narrator, over the raucous proceedings in a stylized House of

Commons, first poses a question and then offers the solution:

Ever wonder why politicians only seem to listen to you at election time? We have to change the political system so people are heard all the time – so MPs can vote for their constituents instead of toeing the party line and so Canadians can fire MPs who aren’t doing their job. Right now, politicians are inside and the rest of Canadians are locked out. Only Reform has a plan to change the system. Make your vote count. Vote Reform.216

On October 25, nearly 19 per cent of those Canadians who cast ballots did just that.217

Reform elected 52 members, representing five different provinces, to the House of

Commons. Mulroney’s winning coalition of Western conservatives and Quebec nationalists had fractured into the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois, with the PCs managing to retain a paltry two seats (leading to a popular joke at the time likening the new PC caucus to a Corvette). Riding a wave of voter discontent, Reform arrived in

Ottawa with the third largest caucus in the House of Commons. Looking to find its footing, the party needed to determine how best to capitalize on the dissatisfaction and disillusionment that landed it there.

216 The Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1993, p. A4. 217 Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and the Conservative Movement, p. 1. 73

Enter Jag Bhaduria

For a fledgling party looking to make its mark, opportunity came knocking in the form of

Jag Bhaduria, the newly elected Liberal MP for the Ontario riding of Markham-

Whitchurch-Stouffville. Bhaduria, to put it mildly, was a colourful character. While a teacher with the Metro Toronto School Board, he had applied for a number of vice- principal positions over the years without success. He decided to register his displeasure with his superiors at the school board by penning a letter saying he wished they too had been shot by Marc Lépine, the mass murderer who just days earlier had killed 14 female students in the notorious École Polytechnique massacre.218 Unsurprisingly, Bhaduria was later fired owing to his unfitness to be a teacher.

The electors of Markham-Whitchurch-Stouffville were not aware of this episode when they cast their ballots. When the story came out shortly after the election, they were understandably livid. What is more, it was revealed that senior Liberal campaign officials had been aware of Bhaduria’s unsavoury past, which only intensified the sense of betrayal.219 Chrétien initially refused to boot Bhaduria from caucus, saying his tear- soaked apology in the House of Commons was sufficiently contrite.220 However, when it emerged days later that Bhaduria had also falsely claimed during the campaign to have a law degree, Chrétien succumbed to the pressure he was under from the public and his own caucus.221 While officially Bhaduria was the one who chose to quit, there is little doubt that pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office was the main reason he did so.

218 The Globe and Mail, January 22, 1992, p. A3. 219 Ibid. 220 The Globe and Mail, January 25, 1994, p. A3. 221 The Globe and Mail, January 28, 1994, p. A1. 74

Banishing the fallen MP for Markham-Whitchurch-Stouffville from the fold of the

Liberal government did little to quell the outrage in his riding. Feeding off the furor, the usually staid Globe and Mail – admittedly writing the day before the MP was sent packing by his Liberal colleagues, a development that did nothing, however, to address the problem raised by the paper’s editorial board – waded in, opining:

The Liberals may hope this [Bhaduria’s apology in the House] will get them off the hook. But where does it leave Mr. Bhaduria’s constituents? Most of them voted for Mr. Bhaduria without any knowledge of his questionable activities. Are they now stuck with him for the next four or five years? Cases such as this make a strong argument for a system of recall, allowing voters to withdraw their support for an MP whom they feel has betrayed their trust.

To prevent abuse, Parliament would have to set strict rules on how and when a recall would be triggered. At the least, it would require a substantial proportion of the voters in a constituency to sign a petition asking for a by- election. But drafting such rules is far from impossible. And voters’ desire for a greater say in the actions of their representatives is clearly growing. If parties will not deal with the dubious conduct of elected legislators, voters should be equipped to do the job for them.222

As the lone party in favour of recall, Reform was uniquely positioned to act. On

February 2, Deb Grey tabled C-210,223 which was essentially identical to her previous bill with one notable change – the 50-per-cent-signature threshold would be based on the number of votes cast in the last election as opposed to the total number on the voters’ list.

Two weeks later, the party took its recall drive into Bhaduria’s backyard. In front of a packed crowd at the Sheraton Parkway Hotel, Grey launched into a blistering attack on the parliamentary rules that make it difficult to dislodge an MP who has lost the

222 The Globe and Mail, January 26, 1994, A16. 223 The House of Commons of Canada, First Session, Thirty-fifth Parliament, 42 Elizabeth II, 1994, C-210, An Act to provide for the recall of members of the House of Commons. 75 confidence of his constituents.224 “Recall,” she boomed, “will give people the power to remove dishonest, unresponsive or irresponsible representatives from office without having to wait four or five years to get rid of them.”225

The following week, Reform’s sole Ontario MP, Ed Harper, tabled a 30,000-name petition in the House of Commons calling for a parliamentary investigation into

Bhaduria.226 “If Jag Bhaduria is found unfit to serve as the member of this riding,” the petition read, “we ask Parliament to immediately consider declaring the seat vacant so a byelection may be called as soon as possible.”227 According to Joseph Manigot, the author of the authoritative Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, a member can be expelled by his fellow MPs if they determine he is unfit to perform his parliamentary duties. As there are no specified criteria, MPs have significant freedom to set their own standards.

If the House of Commons relied on Canadian and British precedent in the Bhaduria case,

Manigot told the Globe in an interview, it would do no such thing. For an MP to be banished from the House, Manigot argued, his offence would have to be one of severe moral turpitude, and there would almost certainly have to be a charge and conviction against which appeals had been exhausted.228 The petition went nowhere.

An indignant Bhaduria told the media that Harper should keep his nose out of his business, especially as half of the signatures on the petition (a claim for which he

224 Toronto Star, February 16, 1994, A. 13. 225 Alberta Report, February 28, 1994, p. 10. 226 The Globe and Mail, February 22, 1994, A.4. 227 The Hamilton Spectator, February 22, 1994, p. A5. 228 The Globe and Mail, February 16, 1994, A2. 76 provided no evidence) were fake.229 Arguing he was the victim of blackmail and unfair media coverage, Bhaduria asked for an investigation to determine if his privileges as an

MP had been violated.230 The speaker of the House of Commons denied his request owing to insufficient evidence.231

Given the lack of recourse available to his constituents, the movement to recall Bhaduria soon fizzled. Not easily deterred, Reform resolved to keep the infamous incident alive in the minds of the Canadian electorate. At Assembly 1994, the party finally allowed the grassroots to debate and vote on the specifics of the policy. Called by the chairman to the podium, Deb Grey came on stage and presented a series of resolutions from the Direct

Democracy Task Force, all of which came from her recent private member’s bill: a minimum of 10 electors needed to file an application for recall; a signature threshold of

50 per cent of the votes cast in the last election; the requirement to hold a by-election within 50 days of a successful petition; an 18-month grace period; and a cap of one petition per MP per Parliament.232 The one deviation from her bill involved waiving the grace period if an MP misrepresented materials facts about himself, which elicited hoots and hollers from the delegates. Breaking into a sly smile, Grey suggested “perhaps that was a loud cheer for Markham-Whitchurch-Stouffville.”233 The recommendations passed with ease.

229 The Globe and Mail, February 22, 1994, A.4. 230 The Globe and Mail, March 25, 1994, p. A6. 231 Ibid. 232 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada fonds, Blue Book (1995). 233 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada fonds, Video recording of the 1994 Ottawa Assembly. 77

Reform’s colleagues in the House of Commons evidently did not share the delegates’ enthusiasm. Bill C-210 was handily defeated the following month when the Liberals,

Bloc Québécois, NDP, and PCs joined forces and voted “nay.”234 Despite the political establishment’s obvious distain for recall, the Reform Party kept on beating the drum for the device. At Assembly 1996, the Direct Democracy Task Force presented its final report, which called for two significant changes to the party’s policy.235 First, arguing it would be best to rely on MPs to research and recommend an appropriate percentage, the

Task Force recommended the party replace the 50 percent-signature threshold with this text: “the number required for a successful petition should be low enough to permit recall to be a genuine incentive to act in a representative manner, but high enough to prevent its misuse.” And second, suggesting that “eighteen months is too long to tolerate an unfit MP,” the Task Force proposed the grace period be shortened to 12 months. The recommendations easily passed, helping to mould the final iteration of the party’s recall policy.

Think Bigger

Fearful that vote splitting on the right would deliver the Liberals another majority, conservative columnists David Frum and Ezra Levant organized a conference to discuss a rapprochement between the Reform Party and the PCs. Out of the Winds of Change conference came a proposal to run a joint Reform-PC candidate in a single Ontario riding. The PCs rejected the proposal out of hand. While not adamantly opposed,

Manning was hopeful that Reform was capable of winning the next election by itself.236

234 Canadian House of Commons Debates, 1994, VII, p. 7538. 235 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Democratic Populism II Task Force Report and Direct Democracy Task Force Report (January 1996). 236 Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and the Conservative Movement, p. 202. 78

His optimism, alas, proved misplaced. While Reform improved its standing in the 1997 election to become the Official Opposition, it also suffered a significant setback, the loss of its one Ontario seat. The PCs also managed to back away from the precipice of political oblivion by winning 20 seats. Going it alone to 24 Sussex was not going to be an option.

In Think Big, Manning recounts how this disappointment prompted him to action: “The day after the June 1997 election, in disappointment of having failed once again to break through east of Manitoba, my own campaign team had begun thinking of alternative strategies for overcoming our own limitations and the problem of vote-splitting with the

Conservatives.”237 Manning’s response was a project to bring Canadians who shared four fundamental principles (fiscal responsibility, social responsibility, democratic accountability, and reformed federalism) into a United Alternative. While Reformers were open to the idea, the federal PC leadership was appalled at the very suggestion, leaving Manning to reach out to the party’s provincial cousins in Alberta, Manitoba, and

Ontario.238

Approximately 1,500 delegates (roughly two-thirds from the Reform camp)239 attended the United Alternative assembly held in the nation’s capital in February 1999, at which the majority voted to found a new party with a new name, constitution, policy manual,

237 Preston Manning, Think Big: Adventures in Life and Democracy (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2002), p. 272. 238 Interview by the author with Preston Manning (January 6, 2012). 239 Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and the Conservative Movement, p. 202 79 and leadership race that might result in choosing a new leader.”240 Following the assembly, a committee was established to develop a draft policy document to be debated and voted on at a second assembly scheduled to take place in January 2000. The committee used a number of sources, including the Blue Book, the 1996 federal PC policy documents, and the provincial party documents from such small-c conservative provincial parties as the BC Liberals and the Saskatchewan Party.241

The process was largely an exercise in quid pro quo.242 While the federal PCs considered the three direct democracy devices repugnant to Canada’s parliamentary traditions, their provincial counterparts were more amenable.243 Thus a proposal to “make elected representatives more accountable to constituents between elections” by “permitting voters to petition for a by-election in their riding”244 was presented to the delegates for debate and a vote at the second assembly. The Reformers won the day – the policy was adopted.

An interesting sidebar to the history of recall in the Reform/Canadian Alliance (which is the name the delegates ultimately chose for the entity coming out of the United

Alternative process) parties concerns the private member’s bill Ted White, the party’s direct democracy critic, introduced in March 1998.245 In the brief speech he gave before tabling C-371, he claimed his bill was the result of “almost three years of research and

240 Ibid., p. 203. 241 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada fonds, UA Policy Declaration Overview. 242 Interview by the author with Preston Manning (January 6, 2012). 243 Ibid. 244 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, United Alternative Declaration of Policy: Draft for Presentation to the UA 2000 Convention. 245 The House of Commons of Canada, First Session, Thirty-sixth Parliament, 46-47, Elizabeth II, 1997-98, C-371, An Act to establish the right of electors to recall members of Parliament. 80 preparation” and that it had been “modified for our parliamentary system.”246 While C-

371 mirrored the Blue Book’s 12-month grace period and cap of one petition per MP per

Parliament, other aspects were at variance with the party’s established policy.

For instance, White’s bill lowered the signature threshold to “twenty-five per cent of the votes cast in the most recent election,” which in a country where turnout rates have been tapering off in recent years (e.g. only 61.1 per cent of Canadians voted in the May 2011 federal election, which was only slightly higher than the 58.8 who turned out for the previous election)247 would mean the percentage required to trigger a by-election would be closer to the percentage needed to trigger a recall vote in most jurisdictions in the

United States. As Canada has more than two national parties, it is difficult to see how this provision had been crafted with our parliamentary system in mind. Another stipulation that differed greatly from that contained in the two bills tabled by Deb Grey concerned the time limit faced by promoters of the recall. While Grey’s two bills set the limit at 60 days, White’s gave the promoters up to 12 months, a window larger than those granted in most American jurisdictions. White had a tough sell ahead of him; as it turned out, he could not even convince members of his own party of the bill’s merits.248 C-371 never came up for its second reading.

Manning’s vision of creating a United Alternative to contest the next election may have been realized, but his vision to lead the new entity was not. Fearful that Canadians would

246 Canadian House of Commons Debates, 1998, VII, p. 4708. 247 Elections Canada: http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index&lang=e 248 Interview by the author with Preston Manning (January 6, 2012). 81 think the party was nothing more than Reform repackaged with Manning at the helm, a number of Reformers cast their first ballot for one of the other candidates during the leadership race. The runoff vote came down to Manning and Stockwell Day, the photogenic former treasurer of Alberta. Awarding the leadership to Day with 64 per cent of the vote, the party Manning had taken the initiative to create had turned its back on him. Many, however, would soon come to regret the decision.

It All Falls Apart

Day’s off-the-cuff, free-wheeling style may have played well in a province where the opposition was non-existent, but it proved disastrous against a seasoned, wily politician such as Jean Chrétien and his battle-hardened Liberals. The Canadian Alliance’s campaign comprised one misstep after another. Latching onto a comment made by Day’s lieutenant, Jason Kenney, the Liberals accused the Alliance of harbouring a plan to introduce two-tier health care, which in Canadian politics is essentially the kiss of death.

The Liberals also successfully exploited the fears many Canadians have of evangelical

Christians. While allowing three per cent of eligible voters to trigger a national referendum on a policy issue had been Reform policy since 1994 (prior to that, only a plebiscite could be held), the Liberals played on fears surrounding Day’s faith by raising the spectre of a rabid evangelical minority reopening such contentious issues as abortion and capital punishment. While not devastating, the incident delivered a serious blow to the Alliance’s electoral prospects. 82

The results fell far short of the helium-high expectations with which the party went into the election. As Flanagan notes:

Under Day’s leadership, it [the party] increased its vote share from 19 percent to 26 percent, and its seat total from sixty to sixty-six, but these gains were much less than hoped for at the beginning of the campaign … The Alliance did not achieve any strategic objectives; it failed to defeat any senior Liberal ministers … it did not defeat Progressive Conservative Leader Joe Clark in Calgary; and it allowed the PCs to elect the minimum number of twelve members required to achieve official party status in the House of Commons.249

A disappointing election result proved to be only the beginning of Day’s troubles. A past political indiscretion – a libel suit that cost Alberta taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars – came to light and further tarnished him in the eyes of the Canadian public and the party faithful alike. It only went downhill from there. His tenuous grip on the

Alliance was further weakened when a number of MPs with strong ties to Manning bolted to sit as a semi-independent caucus affiliated with the Joe Clark Tories. The party’s polling numbers and fundraising dropped off precipitously.

Fearful that the party would implode into irrelevance, the party’s national council called for another leadership vote. Manning’s erstwhile protégé, who had left Ottawa years earlier because of his disillusionment with his party’s leader and the political process in general, stepped to the fore. With his campaign promise of Getting it Right (a double entendre that highlighted his conservative credentials and leadership abilities), Stephen

Harper won the leadership vote on the first ballot. Mr. Harper was going to Ottawa, again.

249 Flanagan, Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and the Conservative Movement, p. 206. 83

Requiem for Recall

While the speech Harper gave at the party’s convention shortly after the leadership election featured the refrain “the Canadian Alliance is strong, and the Canadian Alliance is here to stay,” it soon became apparent to the newly minted leader that his party alone could not defeat the Liberals in the next election. The incident that drove this point home to Harper was a 2003 by-election in the largely rural Ontario riding of Perth-Middlesex.

Despite pouring ample resources into the riding and expending much political capital, the party finished a dismal third behind the PCs and the Liberals. With the obstinate Joe

Clark stepping down, Harper was confident he could get that party’s new leader to agree to some form of cooperation.

Harper’s strategy was essentially to make it impossible for the PCs to say no. On just about every issue of importance, the smaller party got its way. As Bob Plamondon notes:

For the PC emissaries, the most encouraging development from that first meeting was an agreement that the new party would follow the aims and principles embedded in the constitution of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The founding principles of the new Conservative Party of Canada were lifted virtually verbatim from the PC party constitution – the same words, in the same order.250

Among the items prominent in Reform policies that were notably absent were initiative, referendum, and recall, which had been incorporated into the party’s constitution at Assembly 1992.251

250 Bob Plamondon, Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2006), p. 297. 251 University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds, Reform Party of Canada Constitution (1992). 84

While Harper and Manning had agreed on fiscal and (after Manning finally came out against the Charlottetown Accord) constitutional issues during the early years, the intellectual symbiosis did not extend to populism.252 It may have been near and dear to the hearts of many from the Reform side, but Harper was not interested in revisiting the problems direct democracy created for the Alliance in the previous election. Having secured the new party’s leadership, he and his team set about preparing for the snap election the Liberals were sure to call. Nowhere in the party’s eventual platform,

Demand Better, were any of the direct democracy devices to be found.

For a recently reconstituted party, the Conservatives ran a reasonably successfully campaign in the 2004 election. They held the Martin Liberals to a minority government, which, given the record-shattering majority many in the media were predicting a year earlier, was no small feat. Any chance of a Conservative government, however, evaporated when the Liberals charged the new party had a “hidden agenda,” an accusation that was not implausible given that the Conservatives had no time to hold a policy convention prior to the election. To this end, the party scheduled its first convention for the following spring in Montréal.

Harper entered the convention with a number of strategic objectives to ensure the solidification of the party as a broadly based, mainstream, small-c conservative alternative to the Liberals. One of his foremost aims, as Flanagan notes, was to drop “the

Reform heritage of direct democracy (referendum, initiative, and recall), which had

252 Interview by the author with Preston Manning (January 6, 2012). 85 proved so problematic in the 2000 election.”253 The three had been exceptionally popular with the grassroots in the days of Reform, so there was a very real chance they could rise like a phoenix from the ashes of merger to be included in the party’s policy manual.

When it came time to vote, however, each of the three was defeated.254 The direct democracy triumvirate was dead. The desire to finally win an election carried the day.

For a party that never formed government, the Reform Party’s legacy is quite remarkable.

Balanced budgets, lower taxes, a hand-line stance on Quebec separatism – each can trace its lineage to Reform. The party’s democratic reform agenda, however, went nowhere.

The initiative, referendum, and recall, while inextricable threads that ran through the course of the party’s history, cannot be found among the policies of any of the serious federal parties.

There is one part of the country, however, where the fight for direct democracy is not a distant memory, one province where the Reform Party’s crusade indirectly bore fruit. It is to British Columbia we now turn to examine the only Canadian jurisdiction with any significant real-life experience with recall.

253 Tom Flanagan, Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (Toronto & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), p. 204. 254 Ibid., p. 205. 86

CHAPTER 4 – RECALL IN REAL LIFE: THE BRITISH COLUMBIA EXPERIENCE

Direct Democracy behind the Rockies

While not the first province to embrace direct democracy (that distinction belongs to

Saskatchewan whose Direct Legislation Act received Royal Assent in January 1913, if only to be repealed later that year),255 British Columbia was among the vanguard of

Canadian pioneers. “Populist orientations,” as Norman Ruff, professor emeritus at the

University of Victoria, notes, “have long run deep in the province’s political life and cross party lines.”256 As was the case in the other Western provinces, the provincial

Liberals were the initial trailblazers.257 Under the leadership of the reform-minded

Harlan Brewster, the party unanimously approved women’s suffrage, and seriously considered the direct democracy triumvirate and proportional representation at its 1913 convention.258

In the run-up to the 1916 provincial election, the party strengthened its reform credentials by promising to introduce direct legislation if victorious. Defeating the incumbent

Conservatives, Brewster took the reins in Victoria only to die unexpectedly two years later. The Liberal government, now under the leadership of Premier John Oliver, delivered on its commitment the following year by tabling Bill 34, An Act to Provide for the Initiation and Approval of Legislation by the Electors.259 While the bill received

255 Patrick Boyer, Direct Democracy in Canada: The History and Future of Referendums (Toronto: Dunburn Press, 1992), pp. 79-80. 256 Norman Ruff, “Institutionalizing Populism in British Columbia.” Canadian Parliamentary Review 16 (Winter 1993-94): 24. 257 Alberta’s Direct Legislation Act (1913), Saskatchewan’s Direct Legislation Act (1912-1913), and Manitoba’s Initiative and Referendum Act (1916) were passed into law by Liberal governments. 258 Ruff, “Institutionalizing Populism in British Columbia,” p. 24. 259 Ibid., p. 25. 87

Royal Assent later that spring, concerns soon arose as to its constitutionality following a ruling by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that Manitoba’s Initiative and

Referendum Act contravened the British North America Act. Having failed to be proclaimed by the lieutenant governor, the Act languished on the province’s law books until it was finally removed during the consolidation process for the 1924 edition of the

Revised Statutes.260

Despite occasional agitations on behalf of the triumvirate – including Liberal MLA James

Colley’s campaign for recall provisions in the mid-1920s, and the unrealized Social

Credit promise under Bill Bennett to introduce a modified citizen’s initiative – direct democracy did not seriously re-enter the province’s political discourse until 1990, when the Social Credit government of Bill Vander Zalm announced its intention to introduce referendum legislation. The government’s decision was at the same time proactive and reactive. As Ruff notes, “The … welding of direct democracy to the province’s parliamentary institutions originated in Vander Zalm’s own personal predisposition, and was shaped by Social Credit’s electoral manoeuvring against the possibility of the

Reform Party’s entry into the provincial scene.”261 The premier’s vision for reforming

BC’s political system was limited, however. Asked if he was also prepared to introduce recall legislation, the premier, in the words of Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer,

“turned his nose at the suggestion.”262 Weathering criticism from the NDP that the bill

260 Ibid., p. 26. 261 Norman Ruff, “The British Columbia Legislature and Parliamentary Framework,” Politics, Policy and Government in British Columbia Ed. Ken Carty (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996), p. 99. 262 The Vancouver Sun, July 9, 1990, p. A6. 88 gave the executive too much control of the process,263 the government passed the

Referendum Act later that summer.

Facing an uphill battle for re-election (a challenge made all the more daunting by Vander

Zalm’s ejection from the premier’s office over a conflict of interest controversy), Social

Credit began casting about for ideas to bolster its prospects. Two weeks before the writ was dropped, Rita Johnston, Vander Zalm’s successor, announced a referendum on recall and citizen’s initiative would be held in conjunction with the upcoming election.

Recounting Alberta’s short-lived experiment with the device, Palmer questioned the government’s commitment in his Sun column, wondering if Social Credit was “prepared to live with it should they discover (like Mr. Aberhart) that all the recalls were aimed at them.”264

While the Referendum Act bound only the government that initiated the vote, New

Democratic Party (NDP) leader Mike Harcourt said he would abide by the results if elected premier, and what is more, he planned to vote “yes” on both questions.265 Liberal leader Gordon Wilson served as the sole voice of opposition, saying he had “grave and serious concerns” about the impending referendum.266 Wilson raised the spectre of single-issue groups such as anti-abortion activists abusing the recall device to push their agenda. He also questioned the motivation behind the referendum, arguing that Social

Credit “only introduced this because the [federal] Reform Party believes in these things

263 Ruff, “Institutionalizing Populism in British Columbia,” p. 28. 264 The Vancouver Sun, September 5, 1991, p. A16. 265 The Vancouver Sun, October 9, 1991, p. B8. 266 Ibid. 89 and she [Premier Johnston] thought it could be a factor in the election.”267 Ron Gamble, the president of the British Columbia Reform Party (hereafter referred to as the BC

Reform Party), which, despite its name, was not affiliated with the federal party, offered another explanation – Social Credit feared the upstart party and its direct democracy platform.268

The BC Referendum Office produced an information package enumerating the oft-cited strengths and weaknesses of recall.269 The office offered four compelling reasons in favour of the device: empowers constituents to remove politicians who abuse their trust, or who fail to carry out their duties in a competent manner; increases accountability between elections; enhances political participation and encourages the electorate to stay informed; and improves standards of public service and allows the electorate to place greater trust in officeholders. Conversely, the office also noted four weaknesses: favours short-term, myopic decisions over long-term decisions of province-wide interest; encourages inaction in the face of conflict or controversy; promotes disruptive, divisive, and costly campaigns; and poses particular problems for a parliamentary system of government.

On October 17, 1991, British Columbians went to the polls to cast their ballots in the province’s 35th general election. In addition to passing judgement on the 16-year-old

Social Credit government, they were faced with the question of whether or not to

267 Ibid. 268 The Province, September 11, 1991, p. 30. 269 Boyer, The People’s Mandate: Referendums and a More Democratic Canada, p. 36. 90 complete the direct democracy triumvirate in the province by embracing the initiative and recall. The response from the electorate was an overwhelming endorsement of political reform.

“No” to Social Credit, but “Yes” to Recall

“Should voters be given the right, by legislation, to vote between elections for the removal of their members of the Legislative Assembly?” Of the British Columbians who cast valid ballots,270 80.9 per cent voted “yes.”271 While the province has a reputation for being receptive towards overtures of political reform, the years preceding the referendum, replete with a string of scandals, undoubtedly had a significant influence on the outcome.

As Ruff notes, “The forced resignation of former Premier Vander Zalm and the media coverage of provincial scandals over the previous five years probably fed much of the support for a recall process. For some voters, a no to recall might have seemed to signal forgiveness of all that had occurred under the previous government.”272 The electorate was not in a forgiving mood. Social Credit’s share of the vote was more than halved, the

Liberal share increased by a comparable amount, and the NDP managed to secure a sound majority despite garnering slightly less of the popular vote than it had in the previous election.

270 There were a total of 135,363 spoiled ballots (9.13 per cent of the total) on the recall question. In comparison, only 2.06 per cent of the ballots for candidates were rejected. As Ruff explains, “These numbers indicate that many voters may have deliberately spoiled their referendum ballots. Furthermore, in the general election, 1,493,200 (75.07 [sic] of registered voters) voted for an MLA, but 10.292 (0.52 per cent) of these chose not to participate in the referendum ballot. Some may have been simply neglectful but others may have been conscientious boycotters.” 271 Elections BC, 1991 Referendum Results: http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs/96737/elections_bc_referendum_1991.htm 272 Ruff, “Institutionalizing Populism in British Columbia,” p. 30. 91

Having strapped himself into a political straightjacket by promising to honour the results of the referendum, the newly elected Premier Harcourt was now obligated to act. Nearly one year after the referendum, the government announced the all-party Select Standing

Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills

(hereafter referred to as the Select Standing Committee) to solicit input from across the province and determine how best to introduce the recall and initiative devices into the province’s political system.273

The media and the opposition alike soon took to referring to the Select Standing

Committee as the “Committee to Delay.”274 The committee’s chair, NDP MLA Ujjal

Dosanjh (a future short-lived premier and one-term federal health minister), shot back at the government’s critics, arguing “we must move cautiously on this issue as we are attempting to graft on to our system of democratic government concepts of recall and initiative, which are alien to it.”275 On November 2, 1992, BC Reform Party leader Jack

Weisgerber – who along with three of his Social Credit caucus colleagues abandoned the former governing party, thus giving the upstart party a presence in the legislature276 – sought to increase pressure on the government by introducing Bill M 205, Recall Act, in the legislature.

Unlike the bill passed by Social Credit 56 years earlier in Alberta and the legislation proposed by the federal Reform Party, Weisgerber’s M 205 called for a three-step recall

273 The Vancouver Sun, September 16, 1992, B14. 274 The Vancouver Sun, December 4, 1992, p. A16. 275 The Vancouver Sun, November 30, 1992, p. A15. 276 The Vancouver Sun, May 29, 1996, p. B2. 92 process.277 Provided at least six months had passed since the recent general election, a sponsor could begin the task, unhindered by a time limit, of attempting to collect signatures from 20 per cent or more of the registered voters in the constituency. A successful petition, as determined by the chief electoral officer, would then trigger a recall election. If a majority voted “yes,” the member’s seat would be deemed vacant, and a by-election would be called. In another departure from the short-lived Alberta law and the Reform proposal, the recalled MLA would not be eligible to run in the by- election. Weisgerber’s bill never made it past its first reading.

After studying the issue for 18 months, the Select Standing Committee tabled its report on November 23, 1993.278 While it began by noting recall had “the potential to create a perception that Members of the Legislative Assembly are more accountable to voters” (a tepid endorsement at best) and conceding that “the vast majority of voters clearly signified their support of the concept” in the last election, the report proceeded to launch into a one-sided evaluation featuring the laundry list of shortcomings offered by the device’s critics. In addition to being “antagonistic to the basis of responsible government,”279 recall’s myriad sins, according to the report, include the encouragement of short-term over long-term thinking, the promotion of pork barrelling among fearful

MLAs, and the potential to defeat a duly elected government through a series of recalls.

277 Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, First Session, Thirty-fifth Parliament, 41 Elizabeth II, 1992, M 205, Recall Act. 278 Times-Colonist, November 23, 1993, p. 1. 279 British Columbia, Report on Recall and Initiative (Victoria: Queen’s Printer, 1993), p. 11. 93

After thoroughly documenting all of the device’s shortcomings, the committee gave – in a jarring transition given the tone and content of the preceding sections – its recommendations on what a recall mechanism in BC should look like. Included among the 22 recall-specific proposals contained in the Report on Recall and Initiative: an MLA should be subject to recall on any grounds; petitions should only be allowed after an 18- month grace period; no prohibition should be placed on concurrent recall petitions against an MLA; only one by-election per term per MLA should be allowed; a successful petition must include the signatures of 50 per cent plus one of the eligible voters who were on the voters’ list at the time of the last provincial election; only those eligible to vote in the riding at the time of the last election should be allowed to vote in a recall-triggered by- election;280 a 60-day time limit to collect the requisite number of signatures; and a two- step process in which a successful petition triggers a by-election.

The reaction from the opposition was universally negative, with particular contempt heaped upon the signature threshold. Gordon Campbell, the new Liberal leader, argued the threshold was far too high, and that it should instead be equal to the number of votes cast for the MLA in the last election plus one. When a reporter pointed out that some

MLAs, including the premier, had been elected with majorities of more than 60 per cent,

Campbell responded that “obviously there would have to be some sort of ceiling.”281

Echoing the contents of his private member’s bill, BC Reform Party leader Jack

280 The committee was of the opinion that recall should be viewed “as a ‘reconsideration’ by the electors of an electoral district of the choice they made in the last election … the key principle is that a recall must be seen as a reconsideration of a previous decision, so that only those individuals who may have participated in the earlier decision should have the opportunity to reassess their choice of elected representative.” 281 The Vancouver Sun, November 24, 1993, p. B3. 94

Weisgerber argued a successful petition should only have to contain the signatures of 20 per cent of the eligible voters in the riding.

Gordon Wilson, the former Liberal leader who had fallen from grace after an extramarital affair with a fellow caucus member had come to light, was the only MLA to outright lambast the very idea of recall, calling it a “deal that Dr. Faustus would not refuse.”282

Writing in the Vancouver Sun, the newly independent MLA, who had previously expressed reservations about the device, argued British Columbia voters already had a form of recall – a general election. He concluded by noting, “Referendum and recall are not the panacea that they have been painted to be. I believe that most who run for office do so to serve their communities. Voter anger lies not so much with the individual politician, but with promises made and not kept, especially when taxation is concerned.”283

Seven months later, the NDP government introduced the long-awaited legislation. On

June 16, Attorney General Colin Gabelmann, who himself had voted “no” on the two questions in the 1991 referendum,284 tabled Bill 36, Recall and Initiative Act, in the legislature.285 For the most part, the bill reflected the recommendations contained in the committee’s Report on Recall and Initiative, including an 18-month grace period, a 60- day deadline for signatures, and the one-by-election-per-legislature cap. Mirroring the recommendations of the Select Standing Committee, Bill 36 was silent on the grounds on

282 The Vancouver Sun, November 25, 1993, p. A17. 283 Ibid. 284 Times-Colonist, June 17, 1994, p. 1. 285 Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Third Session, Thirty-fifth Parliament, 43 Elizabeth II, 1992, Bill 36, Recall and Initiative Act. 95 which electors could petition for a member’s recall and did not prohibit concurrent petitions. There were two notable departures from the committee’s report. First, the suggested signature threshold of 50 per cent plus one was lowered to 40 per cent plus one. As recommended by the committee, however, only those who were registered to vote in the constituency in the last general election could sign the petition. Second, the recommendation that only those who were eligible to vote in the riding at the time of the last provincial election should be allowed to vote in a recall election,286 which was clearly a violation of s. 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,287 was wisely dropped.

During the heated debate that preceded the final vote, a number of amendments were put forward and defeated, including proposals to allow all duly registered voters in a riding to sign a recall petition (not just those whose names were on the voters’ list for the last general election),288 reduce the grace period from 18 months to six,289 replace the two- step petition-to-by-election process with a three-step petition-to-recall-election-to-by- election process,290 and reduce the 40-per-cent-signature threshold with a number equal to the number of votes the MLA received in the last election plus one.291

In the early morning hours of July 8, the Recall and Initiative Act was read for the third and final time. While members of the governing NDP dutifully rose one by one in

286 British Columbia, Report on Recall and Initiative, p. 15. 287 Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right of Canadians to vote in federal and provincial elections, as well as to stand for election to the House of Commons and the provincial legislatures. 288 Debates of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, 1994, 17 p. 12964. 289 Ibid., p. 12962. 290 Ibid., p. 12965. 291 Ibid., p. 12966. 96 support of the bill, the opposition MLAs registered their disapproval by voting “nay.”292

In a vote of 30 to 17, Bill 36 easily passed into law. British Columbia, 58 years after

Alberta’s short-lived experiment, was now the only jurisdiction in Canada – and indeed the Commonwealth – where voters had the power to hand their politicians pink slips.

Ready, Set …

Owing to a number of consultations carried out after the bill’s passage to determine the fine print of the regulations, the Recall and Initiative Act293 did not come into force until

February 1995 (thus ensuring it would not be available for use before the next election), and was amended seven months later to contain similar financing and communications provisions to those in the Election Act.294 Later that summer, Gordon Campbell introduced Bill M 215, Recall and Initiative Amendment Act, which sought, among other changes, to shorten the grace period to six months, lower the signature threshold to “the same number of voters as the number of votes the Member received in the last election, plus one,” and extend the petition period to six months.295 The opposition leader explained his motivation after tabling the bill in the legislature: “We all know that one of the most critical issues that faces all of us in public institutions today is the re- establishment of trust and public accountability between elected officials and those who elect them. The current recall and referenda legislation fails on both counts.”296 As is often the case with private member’s bills, M 215 never made it past its first reading.

292 Ibid., p. 12970. 293 RS1996, c. 398. 294 Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Fourth Session, Thirty-fifth Parliament, 44 Elizabeth II, 1995, Bill 28, Election Act. 295 Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Fourth Session, Thirty-fifth Parliament, 44 Elizabeth II, 1995, Bill M 215, Recall and Initiative Amendment Act. 296 Debates of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, 1995, 21 p. 16745. 97

Just over nine months later, the writ was dropped for the province’s 36th general election.

Glen Clark, Harcourt’s replacement following the “Bingogate” scandal that had forced him from office earlier in the year, led the incumbent NDP forces onto the election battlefield, while Gordon Campbell commanded the Liberals in his debut provincial campaign. Despite losing the popular vote to the Liberals, the NDP managed to cling to power with a hair-thin majority of three seats.

The government’s fortunes only continued to dwindle. Claiming in the run-up to the election that it had balanced the budget and would deliver a modest surplus, the NDP instead handed British Columbians a hefty deficit297 in a scandal that popularly became know as the “fudge-it budget.” Unsurprisingly, the province’s residents were not impressed. One man in Kelowna, in fact, took the government to court on the charge that it had committed electoral fraud. After a multi-year tour through the province’s court system, the BC Supreme Court eventually ruled against the plaintiff’s petition.298 The case, which garnered a great deal of media attention, was brandished by a growing opposition movement amongst the electorate as an example of the NDP government’s unfitness for office.

… Go!

On November 28, 1997, the 18-month grace period drew to a close, and Elections BC, the non-partisan administrator of the province’s election process, approved the first two petitions under the Recall and Initiative Act the following week. The inaugural duo in the crosshairs were Paul Ramsey and Helmut Giesbrecht, NDP MLAs from the northern

297 British Columbia Report, October 27, 1997, p. 8. 298 The Globe and Mail, August 4, 2000, p. A4. 98

ridings of Prince George North and Skeena. Both men had won their seats by less than a

1,000 votes, with 39.6 per cent and 40.3 per cent of the popular vote respectively.

Ramsey’s woes began the previous October when a rally to protest the government

attracted a considerable number of disgruntled constituents.299 Convinced the turnout

was indicative of widespread anger in the riding, the organizers filed a recall petition

charging Ramsey with “not adequately” representing Prince George North and having

misled constituents as to “the province’s financial well-being.”300 The latter accusation

particularly stuck in the riding’s craw as a multi-million-dollar expansion of Prince

George Regional Hospital had been cancelled as a result.301 Another pertinent issue

raised in the petition involved an implied threat Ramsey, in his capacity as the Minister of

Education, Skills, and Training, had issued to disband the elected Surrey school board

over its decision to ban three gay-friendly textbooks.302

A truculent figure who had managed to insult loggers, road builders, city councillors, and

Christians in his cutting letters to a local paper, backbench MLA Helmut Giesbrecht was

the target of the “Crash Helmut Campaign” in the neighbouring riding of Skeena.

According to the petition submitted by proponent G. Lorne Sexton, Giesbrecht

“throughout both his terms in office, refused to listen to, or represent, the people of

Skeena riding on numerous critical issues” and “has demonstrated by his decisions and

actions that he does not work for the people – he works for the government,” which had

299 Ronald H. Parks, Investigation into the Recall Campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox Valley (Victoria: Chief Electoral Officer, 1999), p. 17. 300 Ibid., p. 12. 301 British Columbia Report, October 27, 1997, p. 8. 302 Ibid. 99 left the people in the riding “without a voice in Victoria.”303 The issues alluded to in the petition included the cancellation of a power generation project, Giesbrecht’s refusal to back sportfishing guides who had been hit the previous year by an 11-fold increase in licence fees, his support for the government’s gay-friendly agenda, and, most frustrating of all, the fact he rarely spent time in the riding.304

As the pro- and anti-recall forces set to work, a twist emerged the following week when a second petition to recall Giesbrecht was approved. Reflecting the recommendation of the

Select Standing Committee, the Recall and Initiative Act allowed for concurrent petitions as “any set of disgruntled constituents should be permitted to initiate recall procedures.”305 As the committee did not think it was “possible to delineate a set of proscribed grounds relating to a Member of the Legislative Assembly’s behaviour, as distinct from his or her policy decisions, with any prospect of success,”306 the Act also allowed recall proceedings to go ahead regardless of the charge. Thus a petition arguing that “Helmut Giesbrecht should be called into account for the current state of affairs in

Skeena” as “we can’t blame everything on El Nino” was duly approved by Chief

Electoral Officer Robert Patterson.307 The petition’s proponent, a soon-to-be-downsized meteorologist with the federal government named John How, filed the petition on a lark to demonstrate how one could do so “on the absolute flimsiest of pretexts.”308 “There could be someone like me in every part of the province walk in and plunk down $50,”

303 Parks, Investigation into the Recall Campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox Valley, p. 13. 304 British Columbia Report, October 27, 1997, p. 8. 305 British Columbia, Report on Recall and Initiative, p. 14. 306 Ibid. 307 The Vancouver Sun, December 9, 1997, p. A18. 308 Ibid. 100 argued How, “and the entire legislature goes into immediate political mode instead of working on the problems that this province has.”309

This aspect of the Act attracted the media spotlight once again the following month, when an NDP party member intent on mocking the “stupid” legislation filed a recall petition against Gordon Campbell, claiming the Liberal leader’s “consistent whining since then [the 1996 election] has caused his constituents great embarrassment and they desire recall so they may elect someone less boring and more truthful.”310 In an interview with The Vancouver Sun, the petition’s proponent, retired journalist David Bradley, explained his motivation: “It’s silly legislation. You can petition for recall on any grounds at all. I could have said I want to recall Gordon Campbell because he looks ridiculous in a plaid shirt and the chief electoral officer would have accepted that.”311

Bradley, of course, was right. Under the Act, any duly registered British Columbia voter in possession of $50 with the ability to string together 200 coherent words could file a recall petition in the province. While Bradley’s petition was a consequence-free act of political satire, How’s petition had the unintended consequence of allowing Giesbrecht to spend twice as much in his effort to fend off those who wished to recall him. The MLA for Skeena ultimately did not avail himself of the opportunity,312 but the incident nonetheless revealed a significant loophole in the legislation.

309 Ibid. 310 The Vancouver Sun, January 7, 1998, p. A1. 311 Ibid. 312 Parks, Investigation into the Recall Campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox Valley, p. 15. 101

On January 13, 1998, Patterson issued a second recall petition for Prince George North

MLA Paul Ramsey. The proponent in this case was a left-wing NDP party member who accused Ramsey and the government of having forsaken the party’s socialist roots.313

According to James Loughery, his petition was a “wake-up call” for the party that it could not take “the left for granted.” As was the case with his caucus colleague in the neighbouring riding, the second petition entitled Ramsey to spend twice as much on his anti-recall efforts, which led the organizers of the first recall campaign to accuse

Loughery of actually being a supporter of the beleaguered MLA.314 Like Giesbrecht, however, Ramsey did not use the second petition as justification to spend additional money.315

The third MLA seriously targeted for recall during the 36th Parliament was Evelyn

Gillespie, the backbench NDP member for the Vancouver Island riding of Comox Valley.

In his application, proponent Robert Saint Amour claimed his MLA had “failed to adequately convey the wishes of her constituents,” instead choosing “her bosses in

Victoria.”316 Gillespie countered that Saint Amour’s true gripe was that she had refused to involve herself in his child custody dispute.317 Regardless of the nature of Saint

Amour’s motivation, 60 voters registered as canvassers, which was required by Section

22(1)(b) of the Act, indicating at least some level of dissatisfaction with Gillespie in the riding.

313 The Vancouver Sun, January 10, 1998, p. A3. 314 Ibid. 315Parks, Investigation into the Recall Campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox Valley, p. 15. 316 Ibid., p. 13. 317 Times-Colonist, February 26, 1998, p. 1. 102

Clinging to its majority status with a paltry three seats, the NDP had no intention of taking the three recall campaigns lying down. Premier Clark unveiled a number of new programs at a much-touted summit on northern jobs and growth in Prince George,318 while NDP employees travelled north to aid the anti-recall efforts. The Prince George

North and Skeena campaigns were particularly bitter and divisive, leading to a miscellany of allegations concerning the conduct of both the pro- and anti-recall camps.

One complaint raised repeatedly by the campaigns to oust Ramsey and Giesbrecht was the accuracy of the voters’ lists. Pertti Harkonen, the proponent in the Prince George

North campaign, told a reporter that Elections BC informed him that canvassers were

“going to need an extra 1,500 to 2,000 signatures” because of the discrepancies in the voters’ list.319 The Recall Ramsey committee estimated the list contained the names of

2,700 voters who no longer lived in the riding.320 The chief electoral officer was unmoved by the sworn declarations he received describing the problems with the list, arguing the Recall and Initiative Act clearly stated that the previous election’s voters’ list, complete with any discrepancies, had to be used as the basis for recall petitions.321

As the 60-day deadlines for each of the three campaigns arrived, none had collected the requisite number of signatures. Having fallen well short of the threshold, the recall campaigns in Skeena and Comox Valley did not bother submitting their petitions to

318 British Columbia Report, November 17, 1997, p. 9. 319 British Columbia Report, January 19, 1998, p. 11. 320 The Globe and Mail, February 4, 1998, p. A3. 321 Ibid. 103

Elections BC. While acknowledging it had missed the mark by approximately 500 signatures, the Recall Ramsey committee submitted its petitions, arguing the bar should be lowered owing to the nearly 3,000 outdated names on the voters’ list,322 a suggestion

Patterson made clear he would not entertain. When the final count was in, Paul Ramsey had escaped recall by a mere 585 votes.323 He, Giesbrecht, and Gillespie were safe, for the time being at least. That fall, the actions of the three NDP MLAs once again came under scrutiny, when Elections BC, following a startling series of revelations, launched an investigation.

Success! (Sort of)

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association filed suit in the BC Supreme Court in the spring of that year, claiming the Recall and Initiative Act violated a citizen’s right to vote under Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a number of reasons, including the fact there “is no secret ballot,” “the votes of those not signing the petition are not counted,” and “the citizens are not presented with a choice of candidates.”324

What is more, recall, according to the University of British Columbia political scientist who filed the challenge with the association, “gives one of the lieutenant-governor’s powers [to dismiss an MLA] to the electorate,” which Avigail Eisenberg argued was in

“violation of the Constitution.”325 Across the Strait of Georgia, Norman Ruff disagreed with the court challenge, arguing the device serves a purpose: “In most people’s minds, even people with doubts about recall, there is a place for it as a judicial function for

322 Ibid. 323 Elections BC, Summary of Recall Petitions: http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/rcl/Summary-of-Recall- Petitions.pdf 324 The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Avigail Eisenberg, Statement of Claim in BC Supreme Court Regarding Recall Legislation (March 16, 1998): http://bccla.org/our_work/statement-of- claim-in-bc-supreme-court-regarding-recall-legislation/ 325 Maclean’s, May 4, 1998, p. 30. 104 specified kinds of behaviour.”326 To bolster his case, Ruff offered the example of Paul

Reitsma, the Liberal MLA for the Vancouver Island riding of Parksville-Qualicum.327

In late March 1998, Reitsma was exposed as “Warren Betanko,” a fictional constituent living at a fictional address who oscillated between savaging the NDP government and heaping praise on the local MLA (i.e. Reitsma) in various letters to the editor. Although he initially denied the charge, a RCMP documents expert commissioned by a local newspaper to examine handwriting samples confirmed that Reitsma and “Betanko” were one and the same.328 The MLA for Parksville-Qualicum, who was promptly booted from the Liberal caucus, apologized in the legislature for his “regrettable actions,” but steadfastly refused to resign.329

More so than in the cases of Ramsey, Giesbrecht, and Gillespie, Reitsma’s creative writing endeavours galvanized people across the political spectrum, with local newspapers, politicians, and citizens nearly unanimous in their condemnation. A committee to recall the disgraced MLA was quickly struck, with an unprecedented 193 registered canvassers knocking on doors throughout the riding in a bid to collect the requisite number of signatures.330 The proponent in the effort to boot Reitsma told The

Vancouver Sun the committee was determined to keep the campaign non-partisan. “This is not a political issue. This is a moral and ethical issue.”331 Evidently, the constituents

326 Ibid., p. 30. 327 The BC Civil Liberties Association withdrew the challenge in June 1999. Although the association reconsidered a legal challenge in 2003, it ultimately chose not to owing to limited financial resources. 328 Maclean’s, May 4, 1998, p. 30. 329 The Vancouver Sun, April 6, 1998, p. A1. 330 Elections BC, Summary of Recall Petitions 331 The Vancouver Sun, June 3, 1998, p. A5. 105 of Parksville-Qualicum agreed. By the June 15 deadline, the campaign to recall Reitsma claimed it had collected 25,430 signatures, a staggering 8,410 more than the threshold required.332 With the verification process set to begin, Reitsma’s defiance gave way to damage control. The day after the petitions arrived with great fanfare at Elections BC’s headquarters in Victoria, he resigned.

The incident generated media interest across the country. In the nation’s capital, the

Ottawa Citizen offered its opinion: “Recall, we believe, appeals to the emotional instinct voters have to administer swift justice – the mob-rule side of democracy. We’d rather stick with the discipline of regular elections, where punishment, though it may come late, will likely be more just.”333 In an interview with the Times-Colonist, Norman Ruff countered, arguing “this shows that recall can work in circumstances where it can be justified. This was not a rerun of the last election campaign, it was a judgement on an individual MLA.”334 While there is no way to confirm the number of signatures as the verification process did not proceed following Reitsma’s resignation, it is likely, given the overwhelming number of signatures the canvassers collected over and above the threshold percentage, that the MLA for Parksville-Qualicum would have suffered the indignity of being the first Canadian politician recalled by his constituents.

Post-Race Reflection

On September 17, The Vancouver Sun published the findings of a months-long investigation into the recall campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox

Valley, alleging the expenses of political staff, party workers, and union organizers

332 Elections BC, Summary of Recall Petitions 333 Ottawa Citizen, June 20, 1998, p. B5. 334 Times-Colonist, June 16, 1998, p. 1. 106 working to save the three MLAs were not disclosed as required by the Recall and

Initiative Act. The charges in the article stemmed from an interview with Sam Bridge, a former NDP organizer who managed the anti-recall campaigns in the three ridings. To avoid the damaging perception that the campaigns were not strictly local efforts, the party brass told Bridge to use the cover of a membership drive to explain his presence. The erstwhile political fixer also offered instances in which political staffers in the premier’s office were aiding the campaigns from Victoria, including writing letter-to-the-editor templates for use by local supporters, an unethical yet not uncommon practice among

Canadian parties of all stripes.

Angrily denouncing the Sun story, the premier claimed the government had “nothing to hide,” and said he would ask the chief electoral officer to investigate.335 Elections BC announced the very same day that it had decided independently of Clark’s comments to ask a forensic auditor to probe the allegations. On the following day, the chief electoral officer retained Ronald Parks of the investigative accounting firm Lindquist Avey

Macdonald Baskerville Inc. to “conduct an investigation, financial and otherwise, of any matter that might constitute a contravention of the Act in relation to the Recall campaigns in the electoral districts of Prince George North, Skeena and Comox Valley.”336

The six-month inquiry revealed errors and omissions in the financial disclosure reports by all the parties involved in the three recall campaigns. In the report, aptly titled

Investigation into the Recall Campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox

335 The Vancouver Sun, September 18, 1998, p. A1. 336 Parks, Investigation into the Recall Campaigns in Prince George North, Skeena, and Comox Valley, p. 1. 107

Valley, Park detailed a number of transgressions, including a third-party advertiser who exceeded the $5,000 limit to promote the recall of Ramsey,337 an undisclosed poll that was commissioned in Prince George North to aid the anti-recall campaign in its planning,338 and the undeclared purchase of an airline ticket for a Canadian Auto Workers volunteer who was flown to Skeena from Ontario to work on the anti-recall campaign.339

The report also found that the costs associated with Sam Bridge’s services, including salary, travel and accommodation, should have been disclosed as both contributions and expenses by all three campaigns.

In his final assessment, Park found that both the pro- and anti-recall campaigns in Prince

George North exceeded the spending limit of $27,442.22.340 Despite a number of undisclosed expenses, none of the parties in the Skeena and Comox Valley campaigns exceeded the prescribed limit. Park assigned blame to certain unclear sections in the Act, which he argued were “difficult for laypersons to understand and are therefore susceptible to varying interpretations,” as well as a number of contradictions that made it

“difficult for the various parties involved to interpret the requirements of the Act in a consistent manner” with regards to third-party advertising. After reviewing the report,

Elections BC, the RCMP, and a special prosecutor appointed by the criminal justice branch decided not to pursue criminal charges or financial penalties.341

337 Ibid., p. 20. 338 Ibid., p. 31. 339 Ibid., p. 44. 340 The ceiling on the amount of money that can be spent by each side during a recall campaign is calculated by adding $0.25 for every registered voter in excess of 25,000 to a base amount of $25,000. 341 The Vancouver Sun, March 18, 1999, p. A1. 108

To avoid similar problems in the future, Park made seven recommendations to strengthen and clarify the Act: invest the chief electoral officer with greater power to inspect documents that he or she believes may be relevant to an investigation; restrict the number of recall petitions issued during the same period in the same riding to eliminate the possibility of increasing the recall expense limit; require the disclosure of all recall contributions regardless of when they were received; limit the number of assistant financial agents so as to reduce the opportunities for the primary financial agents to lose control of the financial issues and transactions; more clearly delineate what constitutes advertising in order to prevent the abuse of sponsorship; amend the Act to include the same provision contained in the Election Act that requires a sponsor to declare that the sponsorship of advertising is not intended to circumvent the expense limits laid out in the

Act; and clarify acceptable practices with respect to advertising sponsorship.

The NDP accepted the report, but did not act. In the final stretch of its scandal-plagued second term in office, the government, it can reasonably be assumed, did not wish to expend any of its waning political capital in strengthening a political tool that had caused it much embarrassment and many headaches. A total of 11 recall petitions were approved during the 36th Parliament of British Columbia. In addition to those discussed above, the chief electoral officer gave the go-ahead for four other recall campaigns: Rich

Coleman was targeted by a local man who alleged the Liberal MLA for Fort-Langley-

Aldergrove was in cahoots with a group within the municipal administration that had awarded jobs to political friends;342 Evelyn Gillespie was the subject of a second petition

342 The Vancouver Sun, January 21, 1998, p. B5. 109 from Robert Saint Amour, which he withdrew only a few days later;343 Paul Ramsey was targeted for a third and final time by the Liberal candidate he defeated in the previous election, a grave embarrassment for Gordon Campbell and the Liberals who wasted no time in distancing themselves from his actions;344 and finally, Michael Farnworth, a backbench NDP MLA who was the target of a petition that was so unserious that it went unmentioned in any of the major daily newspapers. None of the four was a serious campaign, and, predictably, not a single petition was ever submitted to Elections BC.

The last – and perhaps most cynical – attempted application of the Recall and Initiative

Act during the legislative session involved Total Recall, a campaign that unabashedly sought to defeat the NDP government through a series of recalls.345 Kevin Falcon, the young politico who spearheaded the campaign, denied there was any involvement whatsoever by the Liberals in the campaign, a claim that seemed disingenuous given his past involvement with the party (and successful candidacy in the next election).346 The ambitious plan, however, failed to launch owing to weaker than expected fundraising.347

Those anxious to turf the scandal-ridden NDP government had to patiently wait another two years.

Tempers Soar North in Delta South

The outcome of the May 16, 2001 election was the most lopsided in BC’s history, with the Liberals winning 77 of the province’s 79 seats. The party ran its campaign on the promise of ushering in “a new era for British Columbia,” including dramatic income tax

343 Times-Colonist, August 13, 1998, p. A1. 344 The Vancouver Sun, October 1, 1998, p. B6. 345 The Vancouver Sun, February 22, 1999, p. A1. 346 The Globe and Mail, April 9, 1999, p, A4. 347 The Globe and Mail, May 7, 1999, p. A4. 110 cuts, “truth in budgeting” legislation, and a fixed-election-date law.348 Facing a trifling opposition of two members, the Liberal government was in an unprecedented position to implement its platform. Despite a promise made during the campaign to introduce

“workable recall legislation to make it easier for citizens to hold MLAs accountable,”349 the party did no such thing upon assuming the reins in Victoria. The Liberals would hardly be the first to pledge to do away with the rules that favour the governing party, only to renege on that commitment once it ceased to be convenient.

The Liberals, however, did table legislation to address a 2000 BC Supreme Court ruling that struck down the section of the Election Act that restricted third-party advertising to

$5,000, arguing it represented an unwarranted limitation on free expression.350 Bill 59, the Elections Statutes Amendment Act, amended the Recall and Initiative Act to remove the spending limit for recall advertising sponsors, abolish the requirement to publish recall opinion survey methodology, and modify provisions regarding contributions to recall campaigns.351

The first recall petition approved in the 37th Parliament was for Val Roddick, the Liberal backbench MLA for the Greater Vancouver riding of Delta South. The MLA, who first won her seat in a 1999 by-election, ran into trouble when the Liberals, in a bid to get the province’s finances under control, slashed expenditures, eliminated thousands of civil

348 “A New Era for British Columbia: A Vision for Hope & Prosperity for the next decade and beyond”: http://www.poltext.capp.ulaval.ca/upload/bc2001lib_plt._27122008_141728.pdf, p. 4. 349 Ibid., p. 30. 350 The Vancouver Sun, February 10, 2000, p. A1. 351 Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Third Session, Thirty-seventh Parliament, 51 Elizabeth II, 2002, Bill 59, Elections Statutes Amendment Act. 111 service jobs, and froze health and education funding. Faced with a $140-million shortfall in its budget, the Fraser Health Authority unveiled a plan to shut down the Delta

Hospital’s emergency room between 10 pm and 8 am, downgrade the hospital’s acute beds, and farm out its in-patient surgery capabilities to neighbouring Richmond and

Surrey, which predictably angered many in the riding.352

In a marked departure from the rhetoric he employed as opposition leader when he championed the various recall efforts against the governing NDP, Premier Campbell said the campaign against Roddick was nothing more than an attempt to “refight the election.”353 The pro-recall forces managed to collect 13,168 signatures, 1,219 more than the threshold required, by the end of the 60-day period.354 Convinced of its success, the recall campaign was shocked when Elections BC informed it that 3,169 of the signatures had been rejected, with the overwhelming majority of the names being disqualified because the person was not on the Delta South voters’ list at the time of the last election.355 As the chief electoral officer told the petition’s proponent, ophthalmologist

Dr. John Bayne, a staggering 33 per cent of those eligible to vote in the province were not registered, this in spite of a sign-up drive by the agency.356 Stunned, Bayne explained in an interview: “If that one-third figure is true, then instead of signing up 40 per cent, we would have needed at least 60 per cent. If you asked me three months ago how many eligible voters were not registered, I would have said five per cent.”357 Missing the

352 The Vancouver Sun, February 17, 2003, p. B1. 353 The Vancouver Sun, November 19, 2002, p. A3. 354 Elections BC, Summary of Recall Petitions 355 Delta Optimist, March 1, 2003, p. 5. 356 Ibid. 357 Ibid. 112

11,949 requirement by 1,950 signatures, the anti-Roddick forces conceded defeat. So ended the first recall campaign of the new legislature.

Results be Damned! Refighting the Election

In less than three months, another eight petitions had been approved by Harry Neufeld,

Robert Patterson’s replacement as chief electoral officer. Like the bid to unseat Roddick, these petitions had nothing to do with the MLAs as local representatives, and everything to do with the government’s agenda. Six backbench Liberal MLAs, the transportation minister, and the premier himself were targeted by constituents upset with the government’s spending cuts. The charges contained in the petition to recall Alberni-

Qualicum MLA Gillian Trumper were typical:

I believe Gillian Trumper, MLA, should be recalled because she actively supports the policies and programmes of the Liberal government of British Columbia. Without a mandate and after winning an unrepresentative and distorted majority in the Legislature, the Liberal government has embarked on a programme designed to dismantle the social benefits built by generations of British Columbia citizens.358

Upset with the Liberals, Nelson resident Joyce Macdonald wrote a letter to the local paper explaining why she had signed the petition to recall Nelson-Creston

MLA Blair Suffredine. After listing off a number of government decisions she disliked, Macdonald wrote that “if I want credibility from government then I must act responsibly and fire the MLA who does not represent me.”359 The Liberal

MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke, Wendy McMahon, provided the logical counterpoint. After making the legitimate argument she was facing a recall campaign not because she had failed as a local representative but because she was

358 Chief Electoral Officer, Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Recall Process in British Columbia, p. 38. 359 Nelson Daily News, April 4, 2003, p. 5. 113 a member of the Liberal government with whose agenda some disagreed, she pointed out that “I didn’t get what I wanted under the NDP for ten years.”360

With the noted exception of elections administered by despotic regimes in which the respective glorious leaders garner upward of 98 per cent of the vote (one must maintain the illusion of tolerating some opposition), a significant plurality of voters will always have voted against the government in the election that brought it to power. By not restricting recall to instances of malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance, BC’s law empowers any disgruntled voter (provided he or she has meagre financial means and rudimentary literacy skills) to launch a bid to unseat an MLA on any grounds. The counterbalance contained in the legislation, of course, is the significant signature threshold of 40 per cent plus one.

Of the eight recall campaigns undertaken in 2003, not one was successful. As none of the petitions was returned, let alone with the sufficient number of signatures needed to trigger the verification process, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty how close the campaigns came. The proponent in the

Judith Reid campaign claimed to have come the closest. But even then, the pro- recall forces fell short by at least 1,000 signatures according to their own admission.361 In the case of the campaign to recall the premier, the organizers

360 Daily Bulletin (Kimberley), February 21, 2003, p. 1. 361 Alberni Valley Times, April 24, 2003, p. 3. 114 were so far away from the requisite number they decided to pack it in a week early.362

Those who supported the recall campaigns against the Liberal MLAs pointed the finger at the Recall and Initiative Act, claiming the legislation was flawed. As

Matthew Laird, a Vancouver software engineer who created a website during the campaigns called Recall BC, lamented: “Every politician in BC – NDP, Liberal and Green – is probably laughing now that they know people will probably never try recall again.”363 After 20 failed petitions in whose wake a number of obvious problems had surfaced, the chief electoral officer decided it was time to act.

Recall Revisited

In May of that year, the chief electoral officer initiated a review of the recall portion of the Act, with the aim of indentifying and examining “specific problems with the legislation and provide recommendations that, if implemented, would address these issues effectively,”364noting that “Elections BC has become aware of a number of problems with the current recall process and legislation.”365 To ensure balance, he invited both the proponents and MLAs involved in the nine recall campaigns during the latest legislature to provide their comments and suggestions. Six months later, he presented the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Recall Process in British

Columbia to the legislature.

362 Canadian Press NewsWire, May 5, 2003 363 Vancouver Courier, May 14, 2003, p. 23. 364 Chief Electoral Officer, Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Recall Process in British Columbia, p. 1. 365 Ibid. 115

In his report, Neufeld argued that “considerable problems exist and significant changes need to be made if the legislation is to be substantially retained in its current form.”366

The greatest weakness of all, according to the chief electoral officer, was using “a recall petition as a complete electoral process to remove a Member of the Legislative

Assembly.”367 Arguing the petition process “lacks the formality, rigor and necessary safeguards [of a complete electoral process],”368 he recommended that the Act be amended to replace the province’s two-step petition-to-by-election process with the three- step petition-to-recall-election-to-by-election process.369

The introduction of a three-step recall process was but one of 20 recommendations made by Neufeld. Finding that combining the recall and initiative devices into a single Act had led to confusion and inconsistencies, the chief electoral officer advocated separating the two processes into distinct Acts. To take into account the new fixed-election law,

Neufeld proposed replacing the 18-month grace period with a two-year window beginning 12 months after the last election and ending 12 months before the next. To lower the barriers faced by proponents, the chief electoral officer suggested the requirement that petitions be made public be scrapped; all registered voters, not just those who were on the list at the time of the last election, should be allowed to sign a petition; and canvassers should be allowed to strike out errors on a petition that are corrected on the subsequent line. To strengthen the campaign financing sections of the Act, he suggested: all recall-related contributions, regardless of when they are made, should have

366 Ibid., p. 2. 367 Ibid. 368 Ibid. 369 Ibid., p. 16. 116 to be disclosed; concurrent recall petitions against a member should be banned; and the late filing of recall financing reports should be prohibited.

To provide greater clarity and consistency, Neufeld argued: the roles of MLAs and their supporters in a recall campaign should be officially recognized and regulated in the Act; all petitions, including those from failed campaigns, should have to be submitted so as to protect the voter information contained therein; and the roles of political parties and other organizations needed to be better defined and subject to guidelines. The chief electoral officer also addressed a few housecleaning items: amending the Residential Tenancy Act to include access to residential rental properties for recall purposes; requiring that recall petitions be cancelled if the MLA in question resigns or dies before the verification process is complete; and prohibiting subsequent recall petitions in a riding following a by-election during the same legislature. The final changes suggested by Neufeld were: replacing the requirement that electors’ signatures be verified by comparing them with those on file with Elections BC with a system that instead confirmed the registration status of a random sample of signatories; requiring recall advertising sponsors to be independent of the proponent and the MLA and any campaigns supporting them; prescribing administrative penalties for those offences that are unlikely to proceed to prosecution; empowering the chief electoral officer to make regulations in relation to the recall process; and finally, amending the Act to include provisions similar to the Election

Act to authorize the chief electoral officer to provide information to the public regarding the recall process. 117

Neufeld’s report did not prompt Gordon Campbell to use his 77-seat majority to overhaul the Recall and Initiative Act. His government’s primary focus during its first term was the economy. Through its spending cuts and pro-growth initiatives, the Liberal government managed to deliver a surplus by the end of its first term. Despite the many groups aggrieved by the cuts, the government was still returned to office, albeit with a greatly reduced majority, in the 2005 election.

Of the eight MLAs targeted for recall in the previous legislature who ran again, only three were re-elected. In the riding of Judith Reid, who had chosen not to run again, her successor did manage to win Nanaimo-Parksville for the Liberals. In spite of the Liberals falling nearly 12 per cent in the popular vote in the election and losing a number of seats, not a single recall campaign was launched against them (or for that matter, any MLA) during the 38th Parliament. Whether this was a result of recall fatigue or general contentment with the government’s record is open to debate. Whatever insouciance may have existed amongst the electorate, however, evaporated with the decision to introduce the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST).

HST? Read My Lips – Recall!

Despite having claimed a blended sales tax was not up for consideration, the Liberal government announced its reversal just days after the 2009 election.370 The public was outraged, with one poll pegging opposition at 85 per cent.371 In December 2010, the first recall petition in more than seven years was issued for cabinet minister Ida Chong. In his petition, proponent Michael Hayes assailed Chong for having “supported the deceptive

370 Maclean’s, June 7, 2010, p. 26. 371 Ibid. 118 introduction of the Harmonized Sales Tax” and for not representing “the clear wishes of her constituents in the Legislative Assembly.”372 Over the next three months, petitions were issued on the same grounds for three other Liberal MLAs.

Since the last gush of campaigns in 2003, Elections BC had made a number of changes to how it administered the recall process, including introducing the electronic issuance and distributions of petitions and related materials to improve efficiency and cut down on costs.373 Perhaps the greatest change came in 2004 when the government amended the

Election Act to remove the requirement that each voter sign his or her voter registration form, which meant that Elections BC would no longer have a database containing the signatures of every registered voter in the province against which a signature on a petition could be verified.374 The regulation requiring that each signature on a petition be compared against that on file with Elections BC was amended to reflect this change. In its place, a process for verifying a petition by comparing the names and addresses on a petition with those on a voters’ list, as well as contacting a statistically significant sample of signatories to confirm that they had indeed signed the petition, was instituted.375

The changes did little to aid the proponents in their respective bids to unseat Ida Chong,

Don McRae, Terry Lake, and Marc Dalton. As each of the four deadlines arrived, not a single campaign had collected the required number of signatures. Michael Hayes, the proponent in the effort to oust Chong, spoke for many: “We’re disappointed, that’s

372 Chief Electoral Officer, Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Recall Petitions administered between November 15, 2010-April 30, 2011 (Victoria: Elections BC, 2011), p. 37. 373 Ibid., p. 3. 374 Ibid. 375 Ibid., p. 4. 119 probably an understatement.”376 While the campaigns against Lake and Dalton did not return their petitions, those against Chong and McRae did, even though they were 6,498 and 14,617 signatures short respectively.377

Those British Columbians upset by the HST flip-flop may have failed to register their immense displeasure by recalling a string of Liberal MLAs, but they did succeed a few months later when a citizen-initiated referendum made possible under the Recall and

Initiative Act was held. Spearheaded by disgraced former Premier Bill Vander Zalm, in what one can reasonably assume was a bid to recalibrate his legacy, a referendum to kill the controversial blended sales tax was approved by 54 per cent of those who voted. The man responsible for one of the greatest about-faces in the province’s history was not in office when this historic repudiation was handed in. Having resigned the previous

November, Gordon Campbell stood on the sidelines as his successor, Christy Clark, dealt

– and arguably continues to deal with – the political fallout.

Two months before the referendum, on June 16, 2011, acting Chief Electoral Officer

Craig James presented the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Recall Petitions administered between November 15, 2010 and April 30, 2011 to the legislature. The report did not cover new ground. It merely reiterated a number of the key recommendations of the 2003 report, including suggesting all petitions be returned to the chief electoral officer regardless of the number of signatures gathered, establishing a registration regime for observers that mirrors that for canvassers, mandating that recall

376 Alaska Highway News (Fort St. John), February 7, 2011, p. A2. 377 Elections BC, Summary of Recall Petitions 120 advertising sponsors be independent of the proponent and the MLA, and allowing canvassers to strike out, with the signatories’ consent, mistakes on the petitions. To date, the Liberal government has not acted on any of these recommendations, and likely will not as it is preoccupied with preparations for the fight of its political life against a reinvigorated NDP and surging provincial Conservatives, which will take place, courtesy of the province’s fixed-election law, on May 14, 2013.

As British Columbia gears up for its 40th general election, how does one assess the province’s record of zero recalls for 24 petitions? Despite the absolute dearth of recalls in the 17 years since the Recall and Initiative Act was passed, can the province’s experience with the device actually be declared a success as it has improved representation in subtle ways that cannot be measured in prematurely unseated MLAs?

Or does zero recalls for 24 petitions suggest the device, in its British Columbia incarnation anyway, is more politically expedient window-dressing than an effective vehicle for improved representation? In the final chapter, we will examine the effect recall has had on BC’s political system, and assess Canada’s contribution to the device’s history. 121

CHAPTER 5 – SCOURGE OR SALVE: ASSESSING RECALL IN CANADA

How We Got Here

The story of recall in Canada is an intertwined tale of reformist zeal and political expediency whose strands stretch from modern-day British Columbia all the way back to the prairie populists generations earlier. The Reform Party’s direct democracy agenda may have gone nowhere on the federal stage, but its advocacy for recall did bear fruit west of the Rockies. There is little doubt that Reform’s surging popularity in the early

1990s, fuelled in large part by its to commitment to democratic reform, was the main reason the struggling Social Credit government in BC chose to focus its re-election bid on completing the direct democracy triumvirate in the province.

While heartfelt in his embrace of the initiative and referendum, the Reform leader himself had reservations about recall, particularly the problems the device poses to a parliamentary system. Ever the dutiful populist, however, Preston Manning realized recall was a non-negotiable policy for the grassroots, who took inspiration from an earlier generation of reformers. The spark that set the gathering pile of Western grievances ablaze in the late 1980s and early 1990s leapt from the embers of the populist and progressive movements that flourished, albeit briefly, earlier in the century. In the province where the progressive movement enjoyed the greatest political longevity and success, the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) was an early and enthusiastic proponent of recall. Reasoning the device was no longer needed after it had assumed the reigns of power, the UFA chose to jettison recall, which Social Credit happily picked up in its bid to pry populist-minded voters away from the governing party. When constituents in 122

Okotoks-High River tried to recall the premier under the new law, the Social Credit government simply and similarly ditched the device. Despite its eviction from the political landscape, recall remained popular with reform-minded Westerners, living on in their hearts until conditions were favourable for the device’s return. In this final chapter, we will review recall’s record in Canada in the hopes of assessing whether it is an effective complement to, or a harmful misfit for, Canada’s parliamentary system.

A Square Peg in a Round Hole?

Does recall constitute a square peg to the parliamentary system’s round hole? What are the implications of transferring a device predominantly developed and used in the

American system of separation of powers to one in which the legislative and the executive branches are fused? Of the handful of Canadian academics who have studied the device, the overwhelming majority hold an unfavourable opinion because of the particular problems recall poses to our parliamentary system.

Unlike their counterparts in the U.S. Congress and its state-level counterparts, MPs and

MLAs play a dual role in the parliamentary system, with members, in the words of the

Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, expected to “weigh the competing interests of citizens against the national interest.”378 According to critics, recall will create a political environment in which members opt for the path of least resistance, favouring short-term, myopic decisions over long-term decisions of nation- wide or province-wide interest. Canada’s limited experience with the device, however, does not bear this out. Consider, for instance, the introduction of the HST in BC.

378 Canada, “Direct Democracy in the Electoral Process,” p. 244. 123

Leaving aside the disastrous way in which it was sprung upon British Columbians, a convincing argument can be made that the blended sales tax was – and still is – in the province’s best interests. As the National Post explained in an editorial following the referendum to repeal the HST:

The original PST taxed every stage of the production process. If a business needed parts and equipment to make a product, it would have to pay tax on each item, and then charge a tax on the final product. In contrast, the HST only applies to finished products. This removes the disincentive for businesses to invest in the province and ensures that the same tax is not applied to a product multiple times. The HST should, therefore, boost investment and reduce the cost of doing business.379

Fearful of the wrath of irate constituents, Liberal MLAs could have broken ranks with the government and voted against the HST, but they did not. Presumably convinced of the tax’s merits, the members of the Liberal caucus rose one by one to vote in favour of the blended sales tax when the legislation came up for its third reading on April 29, 2010. In this case, elected representatives braved the threat of recall to support a measure, which while immensely unpopular, was arguably beneficial for the province.

A related argument, and perhaps the most compelling deployed by critics, is that recall could be used to depose a prime minister, premier, or cabinet minister. Yes, these men and women are elected as local representatives, but they are also national or provincial figures with executive responsibilities. The fact that the premier of Alberta was the target of the device’s Canadian debut certainly bolsters the case of recall’s opponents. What is more, of the 19 MLAs targeted in BC,380 six, or more than 30 per cent, were members of

379 National Post, August 26, 2011: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/08/26/national-post- editorial-board-lessons-from-b-c-s-hst-debacle/ 380 Elections BC, Summary of Recall Petitions 124 cabinet. So, despite the fact not a single minister has been recalled to date, this is nonetheless a legitimate concern.

These constituents, evidently, were either not aware of the “very real, often material, and often extremely physical advantages that flow from having a senior cabinet minister, or the Prime Minister, represent your particular constituency,”381 as recall’s sole booster in the Canadian academic literature, Peter McCormick, argues, or simply did not care.

Inherent in his argument is the ability and willingness of cabinet ministers to lavish their ridings with largesse to stave off recall attempts, which is hardly a palatable prospect.

With the exception of a handful of programs unveiled at a highly touted summit on northern jobs and growth during the recall campaigns in Prince George North and

Skeena,382 however, there has been little in the way of efforts to buy taxpayers off with their own money.

The final doom-and-gloom scenario offered by the opponents of recall is the defeat of a government with a slim majority. During the 36th Parliament (the first for which BC’s

Recall and Initiative Act was in effect), this was a very real possibility as the NDP government clung to its majority status by a paltry three seats. The defeat of the increasingly unpopular government was the goal of Total Recall, a campaign that was as ambitious as it was cynical; it was an unabashed attempt to defeat a democratically elected government whose agenda the recall proponents did not support. Thankfully, the campaign’s goal was never realized owing to weak fundraising.

381 McCormick, “The Recall of Elected Members,” p. 13. 382 British Columbia Report, November 17, 1997, p. 9. 125

To counter this chorus of negativity, McCormick offers a rosy assessment of the device, predicting it would enhance accountability. As he notes, “… elected members would know that they had to take their electors seriously all the time, not just once every four or five years.”383 While zero recalls for 24 petitions in BC may suggest the province’s

MLAs have little to fear, the case of disgraced Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma does lend some credence to this argument. By writing phoney letters to the editor and subsequently lying about it, Reitsma undeniably conducted himself in manner unbecoming a parliamentarian. Indeed, unlike so many other BC MLAs who have found themselves in the crosshairs, Reitsma was the subject of cross-partisan outrage. Had it not been for the very real threat of suffering the indignity of being the first politician recalled in Canada, it is unlikely Reitsma would have resigned.

A concomitant argument is that recall strengthens representation and improves responsiveness. The difficulty in proving or disproving this particular assertion lies in quantification. How precisely does one measure strengthened representation and improved responsiveness? There is an argument to be made, however, that the recall campaign against Val Roddick in Delta South offers at least a scintilla of evidence that the device can do just that. As the Richmond News noted at the time, “And the question remains, despite the recall petition’s failure, was the recall action helpful or hurtful to the community’s hospital? More funds were made available to the [Delta] hospital – and, while we’re sure the government will never admit that the recall had anything to do with

383 McCormick, “The Recall of Elected Members,” p. 13. 126 it, there was some movement.”384 Granted, the grassroots effort to save the hospital and recall Roddick did not manage to stave off all the proposed service cuts, but it did succeed in retaining some of the services slated for the chopping block, which was more than was initially on offer.

McCormick also argues the introduction of recall would empower Canada’s legion of powerless backbench MPs and MLAs. No longer could members unthinkingly vote according to the dictates of the party whip – they would now have two masters capable of punishing them. This, according to McCormick, would have the related benefit of weakening Canada’s notoriously disciplined party system, which is renowned for being even more rigid than its British counterpart. BC’s experience with recall, however, does not bear this out. If ever there was an opportunity for elected members to break with their government to represent the wishes of their constituents, it was over the HST. Not only was the surprise introduction of the blended sales tax exceptionally unpopular, it represented a complete about-face from the signal the Liberals sent out only weeks earlier from the campaign trail. Government MLAs could have made a convincing case that representing their constituents meant voting against their own government. Despite the possibility of angry voters launching recall campaigns, however, not a single Liberal

MLA voted against the HST. Whether out of conviction or fear of retaliation from the premier’s office, caucus solidarity held up in spite of considerable pressure, suggesting party discipline in Canada truly does trump all else.

384 Richmond News, March 8, 2003, p. 8. 127

Lessons Learned

While Canada has far less experience from which to draw, the conclusion is similar to that of the device’s foremost American authorities. As Thomas Cronin concludes in

Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall:

In Canada, recall has lived up to neither the highest aspirations of its proponents nor the worst fears of its critics. Yes, the device has been used to target cabinet ministers and the premier, but to date not a single one has been recalled, owing in large part to the significant signature threshold and attendant requirements of the Recall and Initiative Act.

The threshold for filing a recall petition in the province may border on subterranean, but the signature requirement of 40 per cent plus one of the voters enumerated in the riding at the time of the last election acts as a reasonable counterbalance.

What opposition critics – who, it is important to note, are defenders of the status quo now that the shoe is on the other foot – overlooked when negatively comparing British

Columbia’s law to those in various American jurisdictions is that the province employs a two-step petition-to-by-election process unlike the three-step petition-to-recall-election- to-by-election process predominately used south of the border. So whereas the vast majority of American jurisdictions require a 50-plus-one-per-cent vote in a special election before a representative is recalled, the law in BC instead requires a signature

385 Cronin, Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, p. 155. 128 threshold 10 per cent less than that. Granted, the 40 per cent plus one is based on the total number of voters who were eligible to vote in the riding in the last election, whereas the 50 per cent plus one is based only on those who show up to vote (by-elections are notorious for having lower levels of turn-out than general elections. This, however, may not hold in the case of a recall-triggered by-election when, if ever, one is held in Canada).

Suffice to say, measuring BC’s signature threshold against, for example, the 12 per cent required in California is a false comparison, as the province does not require the intermediate step of a recall election.

The worst fears of recall’s opponents may not have been realized thus far, but that does not mean their predictions may not materialize in the future. A premier or a cabinet minister in British Columbia could very well be recalled if an issue of significant cross- partisan resonance arises. That said, if the about-face on the highly unpopular HST was not enough to surmount the signature threshold in even a single riding, it is difficult to imagine what issue would be of sufficient magnitude. Indeed, the fact that only four petitions were filed in the wake of the debacle suggests British Columbians have come to view the law as a paper tiger, leaving them instead to rely on another form of recall to register their displeasure – a general election.

Returning to Where it All Began?

So stands the story of recall in Canada. The final chapter in this tale, however, may have yet to be written. In the province where it all began, a new small-c conservative party has picked up the torch extinguished by William Aberhart and his Social Credit government

76 years earlier. Included among the policy proposals of the upstart Wildrose Alliance is 129 a promise to introduce “legislation allowing for citizen-initiated referenda and voter recall” while supporting thresholds that are “sufficiently high to eliminate frivolous initiatives.”386 What constitutes a “sufficiently high” signature threshold in the party’s mind remains to be seen.

For the time being, however, the issue is moot. The 41-year-old Progressive

Conservative government managed to stave off defeat and secure a stunning come-from- behind victory in the provincial election held in April 2012. Borrowing a page from the playbook used by the federal Liberals 12 years earlier, the PCs stoked fears about its competitor’s citizen-initiated referenda plank to great effect. Whether Wildrose decides to avoid the communications pitfalls associated with the contentious device in the next campaign by dumping either it or its entire direct democracy agenda remains to be seen.

If the party does persist in advocating recall, a hypothetical Premier Danielle Smith, just like another premier from the Okotoks-High River area, may well find herself the first target of her own government’s recall legislation; this would be the ultimate of test conviction, one that William Aberhart failed all those years ago.

386 Wildrose, Ideas and Solutions: Democracy and Accountability: http://www.wildrose.ca/policy/democracy-accountability/ 130

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ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS CONSULTED

Glenbow Archives, Eva Reid Fonds

Glenbow Archives, Fred Kennedy Fonds

Provincial Archives of Alberta, Premiers’ Papers (Files 815, 1050A, 1050B, and 1038)

University of Calgary Archives, Reform Party of Canada Fonds

University of Calgary Archives, Thomas Flanagan Fonds