George Clark belongs to no political party. He’s a middle-aged man who owns a construction company that builds wind turbines and solar panels, and he believes in the power of the people. On Facebook he boasts a small following of Albertans disaffected with the province’s eight-month-old NDP government. Now, thanks to an arcane reading of the Elections Act, he is convinced he’s found a way to remove Premier Rachel Notley from office legally and democratically well before the end of her first term.
In that effort he will almost certainly fail. But Clark is the avatar of an angry Alberta. And after a year of economic downturn and political upheaval, the brand of determined populism Clark embodies is on the rise on the fringes of Alberta’s political culture, organizing opposition to Notley and her government via plebiscite, popular protest, weird legal counter-measure — and, in extreme cases, even threats of violence.
Clark’s Albertans First is one of a handful of new grassroots political groups that have formed on social media in the Notley era. There’s No NDP Alberta and there’s Stand Up For Alberta. There’s Albertans For 206 Recall Legislation. There are regional groups centred in Grande Prairie and Red Deer. They’re all incensed by the NDP’s ceaseless rat-a-tat of legislation — including measures to improve farm safety, to introduce a carbon tax and to increase corporate taxes — but they also speak to a sense of bewilderment at the ascension of a socialist government in a province with no living memory of far-left rule, let alone any real experience with a handover of power from one party to another.
Albertans First is trying to collect more than 80,000 signatures on a petition calling on Lt.-Gov. Lois Mitchell to force a plebiscite on the NDP’s carbon tax and its Bill 6, a controversial measure that would subject farms to safety legislation and require them to purchase workers’ compensation insurance. Clark plans to present the petition on the steps of the legislature in Edmonton in February. If Mitchell refuses, he says, he will invoke a legal, democratic clause that will remove premier Rachel Notley from office — although he will not explain what that alleged mechanism is.
“I was just looking at measures I can do as an individual to look after Albertans first. NDP policies were basically leaving Albertans on their own, and that motivated me to take a deeper look at the number of Albertans suddenly unemployed and the impact that has on everyone else,” Clark said in an interview.
Others in Alberta’s season of discontent are lashing out at the premier directly, threatening mob rule and even her death by pitchfork. Such comments became so common and ugly that Alberta’s opposition leader, Wildrose chief Brian Jean, has had to issue a public plea to his supporters to keep the tone of the debate more civil. Clark doesn’t support hate at all, he insists. He is instead guided by love.
“I’m trying to help those people direct that anger into some form of positive action, rather than things that consume them and destroy their lives,” Clark says. “What the NDP and people who have never experienced poverty don’t understand is the depth of the angst you feel when you see your ability to support your family gone and suddenly you’re turning to either alcohol or drugs — particularly alcohol. If they let that anger and frustration boil over, they’re going to pick someone to direct that anger towards, even if it’s only in a dumb Facebook comment.”
Whether that anger, and Clark’s efforts, will bear results before the next election is questionable. Western Canadian politics have a long-standing affection for direct democracy, but unlike the case in many U.S. states there is no legal mechanism by which Alberta’s populace can force its government to hold a plebiscite.
And so the democratic impulse fuelling demands for a popular vote on a controversial policy is leading straight to the door of the non-elected lieutenant governor, whose unwritten powers retain a mythic fuzziness.
As it’s written in law, the lieutenant-governor may order a plebiscite; in practice, however, such a vote would be called by the elected cabinet. It’s the kind of intervention that Canadian vice-regals take pains to avoid.
And yet, there’s a sliver of history that gives Clark hope. Representatives of the Crown have historically been more likely to meddle in the affairs of elected governments in both B.C. and Alberta. Most famously, in the mid-’30s then-Alberta premier William Aberhart tried to enact his economic policies by pushing forward banking legislation he may have known was unconstitutional. The lieutenant-governor of the day, John C. Bowen, refused to give royal assent to the bills and eventually threatened to dismiss Aberhart’s government.
While that fight ended badly for Bowen — he was kicked out of his home in the face of broad popular support for Aberhart’s Social Credit party — the West’s history of “interventionist” Crown representatives offers hope in obscure corners of Alberta’s political scene where there is an almost superstitious belief that the right petition, the right wording, the right ancient writ might lift the spell of the last election and restore Alberta to its normal state.
It’s superstitious, almost religious, and with a sense of right and wrong and natural order that recalls Star Wars and The Force. Indeed, earlier this week another of these fringe groups, No NDP Alberta, invoked the movie franchise’s storm troopers in an online call to arms: “Due to the extreme evil of the NDP, the Jedi and members of the Rebel Alliance are welcome to join us as well in the petition and plebiscite drive against the NDP, our common enemy.”
A volunteer for the group named Ben, who declined to offer a last name because he had received threats, says No NDP Alberta is trying to get enough names on a petition to raise doubts about several NDP MLAs they consider wanting. The group, which does not consider itself right wing, is also vehemently opposed to Bill 6 and the carbon tax.
Ben says he’s aware that he knows that a petition has no legal force. He knows there is no recall legislation in Alberta, and understands the lieutenant-governor is not an instrument of the popular will. He admits Alberta will have an NDP government until 2019, however dour the province’s economic prospects seem. He’s doing it anyhow.
“What else do you do?” he asks. “It’s about accountability.”