Premier Danielle Smith in Medicine Hat on March 5, 2025. File Photo/CHAT News

By Jesse Gill

Recall Petition

Documents show recall petition for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith approved by Chief Electoral Officer

Dec 3, 2025 | 11:47 AM

Documents obtained by CHAT News from the organizers of a recall petition against Danielle Smith show that Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer is satisfied that the requirements for approval of the recall petition application have been met.

The letter is shown to have been sent by Elections Alberta on Dec. 2, 2025, to Heather Van Snick, Premier Smith, and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Ric McIver.

The application statement by Van Snick reads:

“I respectfully request the recall of Danielle Smith, MLA of Brooks-Medicine Hat. Ms. Smith does not live in our community, has no meaningful history here, and has shown little effort to understand the people she was elected to represent. Effective leadership requires genuine connection and consistent engagement, both absent in her tenure. Despite having knowledgeable experts and frontline professionals within her riding, she refuses to consult them, instead advancing policies that weaken public services and promote privatization. Her disregard for local expertise and community voices has left us without accountable leadership. Ms. Smith is no longer fit to serve.”

The premier may now submit a statement to the Chief Electoral Officer in response to the applicant’s statement by Dec. 9.

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Elections Alberta document provided by Heather Van Snick. Submitted Photo with details retracted

Elections Alberta, however, has yet to confirm the recall petition on its website.

Official notices are published by the Chief Electoral Officer on the Elections Alberta website.

Organizer Van Snick says her understanding is that once Premier Smith has sent a rebuttal, they will be able to collect signatures.

“I honestly have an amazing team of people beside me who are doing so much for the community; it is incredible,” Van Snick said

“They are the most amazing humans that I could have ever come across.”

The recall petition would need to collect 12,070 signatures from constituents in the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding to start the recall process.

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READ: Recall petition for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said to be in the works (Dec. 1, 2025)

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Van Snick said they will be ready to start collecting at locations in Medicine Hat, but are working to expand to other communities in the riding.

“We are working our hardest to figure out how we are going to manage that, and I am sure that we will have a lot of momentum that has and is building behind this,” Van Snick said.

Smith received 66.5 per cent of the votes cast during the provincial election in 2023 for a total of 13,315.

Van Snick said she doesn’t believe this recall is about right or left politics.

“I believe they voted for the Conservative Party. I don’t believe they voted in what she is doing,” Van Snick said.

“She doesn’t live in our community, she has no historical ties to our community, she doesn’t involve herself with our community. She may be a part of the party that our community tends to lean towards, but she is not part of our community,” she added.

“She’s underrepresenting us as a community; there’s a mixture of frustration among her constituents because we can all see that she’s making decisions that are damaging to everyone, but in particular to her riding.”

Van Snick says that no matter what happens, she feels they have already won.

“I think that as a base here, we’ve already won, the community is coming together here, it’s about humans, it’s about, and it’s about human rights,” Van Snick said.

“When our human rights are being infringed on, even just by a smidgen, it is everyone’s rights that are eventually going to be stepped on, and that worries me,” she added.

“I think that it’s really important that people are speaking out, and so that just gets everybody speaking out about what is important than we’ve already won.”

CHAT News reached out to the premier’s press secretary and received a response on behalf of the United Conservative caucus.

“The recall process should not be used to overturn democratic elections just because an individual disagrees with government policy. Recalls are meant to address breaches of trust, serious misconduct, or a sustained failure to represent constituents, not political disagreements,” the UCP statement read.

“Our United Conservative Caucus remains focused on what we were elected to do, which is standing up for Albertans by growing our economy, lowering taxes, and creating opportunities.”