"The committee also heard from Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure, who revealed the enormous cost of organizing a possible provincewide referendum on separation, as well as the recall campaigns that are popping up against UCP MLAs.

McClure said he would need an extra $13.5 million to deal with all this. The committee recommended $1.4 million.

Shepherd pointed out that the UCP brought the cost on itself by easing referendum restrictions and passing the Recall Act in 2021."

[–] runsmooth@kopitalk.net 2 points 9 hours ago

I think this is just outright UCP Ethical Fading when the government invites a recall process only to underfund Elections Alberta when it's applied to their own party members.

Where is the line drawn for when a political party basically disarms all rail guards for ethics and accountability so as to reduce, minimize, or deflect from the conduct of its members?

What's happening to the Auditor General is part of a larger pattern of behaviour that doesn't lead to anything remotely close to good governance.

This is not the first time the UCP has interfered with Elections Alberta. Back in 2020 when an investigation was done on the UCP leadership race, they did the same thing to Elections Alberta by preventing the elections officer from doing its job. Elections Alberta noted part of the problems included certain parties of interest who did not want to cooperate, and required multiple notices to appear before the commissioner, leading to a court order. But, the UCP, rather than granting additional time so as to prevent parties from essentially benefiting from bad behaviour or delay not caused by Elections Alberta, denied the request.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/elections-alberta-investigation-runs-up-against-three-year-time-limit-1.5829838