Penticton MLA introduces bill to make it easier to recall elected politicians

Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee introduced a bill in the legislature Wednesday to make it easier to recall provincial politicians, and it was met with applause. 

Boultbee introduced an amendment to the Recall and Initiative Act, Dec. 3, as Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream OneBC MLA Tara Armstrong is staring down a recall campaign.

“Even retail outlets know they have to have a credible return policy and this house should be no different. Easier recall would deter unparliamentary conduct, encourage responsive governance and strengthen faith in this institution,” she in the legislature. 

Currently, recall campaigns need to collect paper signatures from 40 per cent of registered voters in 60 days. The amendment would reduce the number of signatures needed to the number of votes the MLA received when they were elected.

Armstrong won the October 2024 election with around 14,000 votes, under the current legislation the recall campaign would need to collect 18,000 signatures to recall her. Boultbee’s bill would lower the bar by 4,000 signatures.

Boultbee didn’t mention Armstrong when she introduced the bill, but her constituents are organizing a recall campaign.

The activist leading the recall campaign Wilbur Turner said Boultbee’s bill is welcome news.

“It seems strange to be based on a percentage of registered voters, doesn’t even make sense to me entirely because not everybody votes,” Turner said. “It makes it a very steep hill to climb, almost impossible, in fact, to get that number of signatures.”

The recall campaign can’t collect signatures until April, so there is time to get it passed before then.

“If they can pass the bill before that, that will just make our jobs easier,” he said.

Turner said that he’s leading the campaign because of Armstrong’s policy priorities.

“It’s (Armstrong’s) focus on punching down minorities. It seems to be all about Indigenous sovereignty… you know, land acknowledgements, about teaching kids in schools our history, our accurate history. It’s about denying the lived experience of survivors of residential schools,” Turner previously told iNFOnews.ca. “It’s about the gender affirming care ban bill, which is actually the most horrific bill that’s ever been presented in Canada against trans people.”

The Recall Tara Armstrong Facebook group has more than 500 members and the campaign has at least 50 volunteers already. 

Boultbee and Armstrong were both elected as BC Conservatives, but have since left the party. 

Armstrong left in March after MLA Dallas Brodie was ousted from the party for mocking residential school survivors. The pair formed a new party called OneBC.

Boultbee left the BC Conservatives, and now sits as an independent, because of her doubts about the party’s leader John Rustad who was removed as party leader Wednesday.