Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said it’s alarming that an effort to recall her has become “very organized” with ties to the provincial UCP and Take Back Alberta.
This comes after Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt initially posted to X (formerly Twitter) “evidence” of a connection between those pressing the recall petition and the provincial political entities. It lists a group dubbed Project YYC, with descriptions of those involved as its board of directors and a recall campaign team. That post has since been removed, according to a later post from Duane Bratt (March 20.)
Recall petitioner, Landon Johnston, and one of the people named on the document, Zane Novak, said there’s no direct link between the groups.
Outside city council chambers on Tuesday, Mayor Gondek said one of the biggest concerns she had when the recall petition was launched was that it wasn’t just something orchestrated by one individual.
“This doesn’t seem to be just one individual,” the mayor said.
“I believe that person may have been co-opted. Certainly, there are too many ties to ignore the fact that this is being driven by people who want conservatives at municipal elected positions, and trying to remove me is the first step in that.”
The mayor reiterated her belief that Calgarians signing the petition should know how their information is being used, who it’s being shared with and how it’s being protected.
“I’m not telling anyone you can’t do this,” she said.
“What I’m saying is you should be asking some questions because if your personal data is now being shared with a group that’s trying to form a conservative party for a municipal election, and that’s not what you signed up for, I think your data may be compromised.”
‘I’m in a bubble’: Landon Johnston
When reached Tuesday, petitioner Landon Johnston said he’d never heard of Project YYC, and could only vaguely recall some of the names on Bratt’s post when listed by LWC. He said in the days after he launched the recall, more than 12,000 people reached out to him via email, and he had more than 900 calls.
He said since he initially jumped into this alone, when he launched, he took any help he could muster. Johnston confirmed that some of the names on the list, including Roy Beyer and Cheryl Munson were helping collect signatures. However, Johnston said, they’re not linked.
“I’ve always said that people from all organizations have contacted me to help out and at no point have I ever not accepted someone’s help. But I mean, they’re just I think that one piece of the puzzle,” Johnston told LWC.
He said he was contacted by a group that said they’d planned to tackle the recall themselves. When he stepped out to do it on his own, they latched on to that effort.
“I was like, ‘Oh, well, that’s great. Then you’ve probably got the resources and stuff to help me get signatures. Awesome,” Johnston said.
“It just seems like everybody’s afraid to be associated with everybody else and I just don’t get it.”
Johnston said he started the petition because he disagreed with the City of Calgary’s decision on the Event Centre and the single-use items bylaw. He also wanted to expose the provincial legislation for the impossible task that it was.
“I’m in a bubble of what I started this for, and then I’m in a bubble for what this is about. And that bubble has not been penetrated by anybody,” he said.
Novak told LWC that members listed on Bratt’s post have been meeting regularly. He admitted to being flat-footed on the notion that there was collusion with Johnston, or that the group was called Project YYC. He did say that the group had reached out to Johnston to see how they could help with the petition.
“I think that the recall is very important. I think that the legislation is flawed around it,” Novak said.
“But I think that we do as individuals need to be sure that there are other processes in place where we can hold our elected officials accountable.”
Group had examined recalling Gondek before current petition
Novak said when the group was meeting before, they had talked about going through the recall process. He said this was roughly 18 months ago.
“We also realized how ridiculously high the threshold is,” Novak said.
The threshold to recall Mayor Gondek is about 514,000 signatures. In an LWC member-exclusive podcast, the mayor said that it either reaches that number and she’s recalled, or not. She’s not resigning, as she was elected to hold this position until the next election.
Once a recall petition is launched, another one cannot be attempted, under the legislation. When Johnston launched his, that’s when this group jumped in to help, Novak said. They’d contacted Johnston, who Novak described as a citizen “frustrated” with his government. But he told them he had no specific plan.
“He goes, ‘I have no plan. My plan was to file this to get some media attention and to draw people’s attention to the fact that we have a flawed system and we’re not happy with our mayor,’” Novak recalled.
“We said, ‘OK, well, we’ll do what we can, and we’ll rally our troops.’ So, we had meetings and we got kind of a structure together and a plan together and we’re just helping in the background, more or less.”
Novak scoffed at the idea this was a nefarious plot hatched in the backrooms.
“If this was some well-thought-out conspiracy thing, it would not have happened the way it happened,” he said.
It wouldn’t have been launched the first week of February, that’s for sure.”
Johnston’s effort’s been co-opted, said Bratt
Bratt said that the list of names was sent to him by someone who attended one of the petition signing events in Shawnessy. That person wanted more information about the group and was passed the flyer. Bratt presumed there were more of these pamphlets out there.
He said he suspected from the start that this process would be hijacked by other interests.
“It’s not about Landon Johnston. I think that guy really was an honest, disgruntled citizen, but his recall effort has been co-opted,” Bratt said.
“I’m not sure he’s aware of who these individuals are and what their background is, and they’re coming to help him,” Bratt said.
“The purpose of this is not to remove (Mayor) Gondek. I think they realize the bar is really tough. It’s to create a database for a (municipal) conservative party.”
Bratt doesn’t believe Johnston’s been recruited either. This group saw this as an opportunity to piggyback off another’s effort on a fruitless recall petition.
There’s big money involved in doing this, too, Bratt said. There are no clear financing rules.
“Which is why the recall campaign has been thanking people from across the province and out of province for donating,” he said.
“I have no issues with Landon Johnston whatsoever. I have a problem with the rest of them jumping in and there’s big money and organizational heft around this.”
The recall petition must be delivered to the Elections Calgary office by 4:30 on April 4.
At that time, Johnston said he would share more about the challenging process, what he learned, and what he hoped to expose through the pursuit.
