Good morning, everyone.

Alberta’s fall legislature session came to an end on Wednesday, a raucous and rowdy few weeks with several contentious government bills being slammed through the house without the Official Opposition getting much chance to, well, oppose.

Early Wednesday morning, the United Conservatives passed its bill affecting trans and gender-diverse youth using the notwithstanding clause, a Canadian Constitutional tool that shields the legislation from court challenges. The government used their plurality in the house to limit discussion to one hour in each of the final two debate stages.

Premier Danielle Smith’s government has invoked the clause four times this fall. On Wednesday, it used the clause on all three laws affecting transgender people. The new laws police names and pronouns in school, ban transgender girls from participating in amateur female sports and restrict gender-affirming health care for youth under 16.

The first time the government used the notwithstanding clause this session it was in concert with its back-to-work legislation on teachers during a contentious three-week strike that kept the province’s 700,000 public, Catholic and French students out of the class.

The ill feelings generated by forcing a collective agreement on the more than 50,000 teachers stirred up a bit of a hornets nest. When the legislation affecting transgender people was later tabled, that raised the ire of the progressive corners of the province even more.

Now, about a quarter of the province’s elected leaders are facing recall petitions, including Smith. Elections Alberta this week confirmed that the Premier is now facing a campaign to oust her from her Brooks-Medicine Hat constituency.

While the government has insisted that union leaders are “weaponizing” the UCP’s own legislation against it, attempting to overthrow the elected leaders, the recall petitioners say they are just regular citizens unhappy with the direction of the province.

Heather Van Snick, who initiated the campaign against the Premier, said in her application that Smith is no longer fit to serve her constituency because she doesn’t live in the community and “has shown little effort to understand the people she was elected to represent.”

Smith, in her response to the petition, touted her government’s infrastructure projects in the area and said she regularly makes herself available to meet with constituents.

Until last week, the Premier had hinted there would be amendments made to the recall law, passed in 2019 by her predecessor Jason Kenney.

But the government had a change of heart.

“We’ll have a better understanding if there’s any tightening up of those rules that need to be made in the future,” Smith said this week.

As everyone heads off for Christmas break, 21 of Alberta’s 87 MLAs are facing recall. Only one is a member of the New Democrats, the rest are UCP.

While the bar for recall is appropriately high, a number of Alberta’s political leaders, including the Premier, are going to have to spend some time next year fending off constituents trying to oust them.

With a file from The Canadian Press

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.