Petition to recall Calgary mayor submitted without reaching target, organizer says

The deadline to submit the petition to recall Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek has passed, and the man who started it all says he didn't reach the minimum required number of signatures to remove the mayor from office. 

As required by provincial legislation, local HVAC business owner Landon Johnston had 60 days to collect 514,284 hand-written signatures — 40 per cent of Calgary's 2019 population — after he initiated the petition at the end of January.

Johnston submitted the final signatures before the deadline on Thursday. He says he's counted 72,271 in total, which is 442,013 shy of the target.

In order to be deemed sufficient, Johnston's petition needs more signatures than people who voted in Calgary's last election.

During a news conference outside of the Elections Calgary offices following the petition drop-off, Johnston called this a "crash course" experience in politics.

"We did not get enough to get the mayor to resign, but that is more … about the legislation than the amount of signatures we got," he said, adding that 60 days was not enough time.

Johnston, who spent $500 to submit the petition, says he did it because he isn't satisfied with Calgary's leadership. A copy of the original notice of recall can be found on the Elections Calgary website.

The city now has 45 days to count the number of signatures that were collected, the first step in determining if the petition is sufficient to recall Gondek from the mayor's office. 

Prior to the deadline, Gondek said that the provincial government has been in touch with the City of Calgary administration to ensure the requirements of the recall legislation are met during the verification process.

"We will have results following that," she said. "I'm not a part of the exercise of doing the count or validation, so we shall see when our chief administrative officer has some results to share with us."

And she says she's remained focused on her duties as mayor throughout the process.

"I made a commitment to serve the people of the city well and work with my colleagues to deliver important projects and services to them," said Gondek.

"You cannot be distracted by something that's going on along the sidelines. You have to remain committed to why you ran."

Once the signatures are counted, the results must be reported publicly at a special meeting of city council. Signatures that are deemed invalid or incomplete will not be included in the final total.