Organizers gather to generate support for recall petitions across province

Saturday was a provincial day of action to generate support for recall petitions across Alberta

Saturday was a provincial day of recall across Alberta.

It was highlighting the 24 active petition campaigns aimed at recalling both UCP and NDP MLAs.

Organizers said these rallies help bring awareness to the growing grassroots momentum behind the petitions.

They added they are starting to see MLAs in the impacted ridings adjusting their schedules in response to the recall movement.

There were a couple events in Calgary, including one outside Calgary Peigan MLA Tanya Fir’s constituency office.

“I think people are quite motivated,” said Hillary Duncan, who was gathering signatures. “I think people are paying attention to what’s going on. Lots of people are really angry about things that are happening in this province right now. And yeah, they’re pretty motivated to come and sign the petition.”

For the Fir recall to be successful, organizers need 13,051 signatures.

Glubish recall

Meanwhile, With a little more than a month to go before signatures are due, the group petitioning to recall United Conservative Party MLA Nate Glubish says it’s feeling optimistic about having constituent voices heard.

While collecting signatures at the Strathcona County Community Centre on Saturday afternoon, petitioner Drake Worth said the group has gained “some momentum” with milder weather post-holidays.

“We’re all volunteer-run. It’s not like it’s our full-time job, so we don’t have the ability to be out there in that cold … Now that we have warm weather, we’re actually starting to get awareness, it’s picking up quite quickly,” he said.

While he didn’t have an exact number available, he said signatures are easily in the “thousands,” something he finds “extremely exciting.”

“It means that we’re really engaging and that there is truly an issue that our MLA needs to pay attention to,” he added.

Recall petitions against UCP deputy speaker Angela Pitt and education minister Demetrios Nicolaides fell short of required signatures by their deadlines in January and early February.

The last day to sign the petition is March 1.

With files from CTV’s Darren Wright and CTV Edmonton’s Hannah Kavanagh