Recall Petition For Smith Falls Short

Protesters outside Premier Danielle Smith’s Medicine Hat constituency office. (File photo)

A recall petition against Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Premier Danielle Smith struck the mark wide in its effort to trigger a local election.

Petitioner Heather Van Snick launched the recall petition in December noting Smith doesn’t live in the constituency, has no meaningful history in the community and has shown little effort to understand constituents.

Smith’s reply highlighted her constituency advocacy efforts consisting of road improvements at the JBS meatpacking plant, new and modernized schools in Brooks and health facility upgrades in that community and Medicine Hat.

Tuesday’s deadline for filing a required 12,000 signatures to succeed in recalling Smith fell sort by more than 9,000 signatures, according to reporting by The Canadian Press.

The recall petition for fellow local MLA Justin Wright, Cypress-Medicine Hat, has a deadline of March 23 with the bar even higher than Smith’s, requiring more than 13,000 signatures.