Our volunteer-run recall campaign targeting Calgary-Cross MLA and Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery may not have collected enough signatures to trigger a recall vote, but it revealed something just as important: a lot of people in our community feel like nobody at the Legislature is listening to us. Many of us feel the UCP’s decisions are leading the Province down a dangerous path putting its citizens at harm.
There are so many issues happening all at once. Forcing teachers back to work with the notwithstanding clause, sponsoring legislation targeting transgender kids and voting to use the notwithstanding clause three more times for it, reducing government support for disabled Albertans, dismantling the healthcare system in the name of “efficiency” and thus paving the way for privatization, changing the rules to citizen initiative campaigns to remove constitutional checks which has given separatist ideals a louder voice. An additional issue with Minister Amery is the fact he changed the rules to create immunity for himself.
Over the course of the campaign, we spent months talking with residents across Marlborough, Marlborough Park, Rundle, Pineridge, Monterey Park, and surrounding neighbourhoods. The conversations were often surprisingly similar.
Many residents said they feel Mickey Amery doesn’t represent the community, rarely engages locally, and appears to follow directions from the governing party rather than advocating for the concerns of Calgary-Cross.
Over and over we heard the same thing—people don’t feel heard. Some people didn’t even know who their MLA was. Others told us they had tried contacting the office and never received a response.
Residents in our community are concerned with affordability, access to needed services, and policies affecting teachers, people living with disabilities, transgender youth, and other vulnerable groups in the community. Many of us also raised broader concerns about the provincial government’s increasing use of extraordinary legislative powers and policies we believe harm the very people elected officials are supposed to represent.
The biggest challenges we faced during this campaign wasn’t opposition. The Calgary-Cross riding is highly car-oriented, and with few neutral public gathering places available for canvassing, we often found ourselves collecting signatures in parks, on boulevards, and near transit stops. Many people would honk, wave, or give a thumbs-up while driving by, but very few took the time to stop.
Community associations and many businesses also preferred to stay out of anything political, leaving us with limited places to speak with residents.
And then there was the biggest hurdle: political disengagement.
In the 2023 provincial election, the voter turnout from the Calgary-Cross riding was a mere 50.5 per cent. Similarly, municipal voter turnout in Calgary dropped from roughly 46 per cent in 2021 to about 39 per cent in 2025. Many residents we spoke with said they didn’t believe participating in politics would make a difference.
The most common response we heard wasn’t anger—it was resignation. People would say they agree with us, but they didn’t think anything would change. That level of apathy made the campaign especially challenging in Calgary-Cross, a historically conservative riding where grassroots organizing is often an uphill battle.
But our campaign still succeeded in starting conversations that rarely happen in the community. This was neighbours talking to neighbours about how our community is represented. For many people, it was the first political conversation they had in years.
This recall effort was run entirely by local volunteers and had no affiliation with any political party. Our goal was never about partisan politics but about giving residents an opportunity to express concerns about our representation.
While the campaign did not ultimately reach the signature threshold required for a recall vote, our experience reveals a community that cares deeply about where it lives—even if many people feel disconnected from the political system meant to represent them.
Our community deserves to have its voice heard. If nothing else, this campaign showed that people want better representation and more accountability from those elected to serve them.
The conversations we started during the campaign won’t stop here. We are now exploring ways to continue building community engagement and advocacy efforts in Calgary-Cross.
This started as a recall campaign. But it also became something bigger–a reminder that democracy doesn’t just happen every four years. Sometimes it starts with a conversation on a sidewalk.