Imagine you were the owner of a business and needed to hire some employees. (Ok, first imagine there isn't a labour shortage) Would you immediately offer your brand new employees three, four or even five year, iron-clad guaranteed contracts, ensuring that you couldn't fire them even if they didn't show up to work every day, did a lousy job when they did, or made false claims on their resumes about the work they would do for you

Guess what You already have.

Every single elected official in Alberta, hired by Albertans to run their governments, is given a guaranteed contract. They cannot be fired for up to three, four or five years even if they do a terrible job, break their campaign promises or are deemed to have acted inappropriately.

Not happy with your city councillor for hiking your property taxes by ten per cent this year?  Too bad, she can't be fired until next election in 2007. Not happy with your MLA for breaking his campaign pledge to cut health care wait lists?  Tough luck, he's golden until next election (potentially) in 2009. Steam coming out of your ears because your MP was just caught lying about how her office budget was spent?  Oh well, she's safe until next election in- the future sometime.

Virtually no ordinary Albertan has this guarantee of never being able to be fired while in the employ of someone else, and neither should our politicians. Those politicians who are guilty of not doing their job should be able to be fired (ie. recalled) by the same constituents who hired them.

Think about the poor constituents in the City of Lethbridge who had no recourse after Alderman Dar Heatherington faked an abduction, lied to police (eventually convicted of mischief), and refused to resign for 15 months. Think about the unfortunate constituents in Lac la Biche who had to plead with the Minister of Municipal Affairs to fire members of their town council when it was clear they were unable to work together, and then found out their mayor had been charged with theft. While not in Alberta, think about the angry constituents in Vancouver-Kingsway, who elected a Liberal MP, only to have him switch parties days following the general election.

Angry constituents and voters had no recourse, as there are no provisions to recall any elected officials in Alberta, nor federally in Canada.

The only province in Canada to currently offer their citizens the ability to recall their provincially elected officials is British Columbia.

Opponents of recall claim it can be abused for spiteful partisan purposes. However, those opponents obviously haven't seen just how difficult it is to recall a politician.

Under British Columbia's, Recall and Initiative Act, a recall campaign can only be initiated 18 months after an election. Voters then have 60 days to collect the signatures of 40 per cent of constituent voters. After each signature is verified, the MLA is recalled and a by-election called.

Since 1995, 20 recall petitions have been initiated in BC, of which only two have submitted enough signatures for verification, and zero MLAs have been recalled. However, Parksville-Qualicum MLA Paul Reitsma resigned in 1998 prior to the final verification of signatures.

Recall laws are also in place at the state level in 18 of 50 states in the US. Since 1921, only two governors have ever been recalled, with Gray Davis in California being the latest in 2003. He was of course replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Davis was the first California governor ever to be recalled in 117 attempts.

Good elected officials have nothing to fear from recall. It's clear from the history both in Canada and in the US, recall is not a tool that should or even could be abused. A dose of accountability in the form of recall would address the rare situations where poor politicians scrape by well after they have lost the confidence of their constituents.

Plus, it couldn't hurt reminding politicians who they work for now and again.