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Neudorf Recall Mystery Deepens

The Lethbridge Herald has published the story, Neudorf recall mystery deepens, which details the story of a mysterious man who claims he got a call from Neudorf’s office to take the paperwork to willing canvassers for the petition.1

Shortly after 8 a.m., said Apperloo, a man walked in carrying a stack of papers. The man said he was “Mike” and apologized for being late, adding that he came from the west side.

According to legislation, canvassers involved in a provincial recall campaign must have lived in the electoral division for a minimum of three months prior to volunteering.

At the time, however, Apperloo didn’t think anything of it and proceeded to fill out an application.

While she was doing that, Phillips walked into the restaurant and introduced herself to Mike. She had experience with the Forever Canadian petition and had some questions for Mike, including who Ryan Tanner was.

Phillips told the Herald that Mike claimed he didn’t know who Ryan Tanner was, or how a recall petition worked.

There are so many red flags in this story that I’m still in disbelief that we have all the details.

After Phillips left, Apperloo had a brief conversation with Mike, who admitted he was unfamiliar with the recall process.

“I said I was kind of surprised there weren’t more people here because I know people wanted to sign and then he says, ‘I don’t even really know what all of this is about.’”

Apperloo said she explained the process to him, then asked where he got the forms if he’d never met Tanner. Mike replied that he’d got them from Nathan Neudorf’s office.

“He said, ‘well, Sariah gave me a call’ and I said ‘Sariah, like Nathan Neudorf’s office manager?’ and he says, ‘yeah, she gave me a call to come bring these papers down to you.’”

Confused, Apperloo said she asked Mike why Neudorf would be in on his own recall, then had to further explain recalls to him.

Some friends of friends tell me they were there that morning and talked to the mysterious Mike.

“[He] was coincidentally at Timmy’s that morning and chatted with Barb Phillips. At some point, [he] talked with this ‘Mike’ and he did get his last name [‘Richey’].”2.

Who is this Mike Richey? I want to meet him because I’ve got questions!

Update: It has been confirmed that this is the same Mike Richey.

  1. Previously[↩]
  2. Originally spelled as Ritchie in the email I received[↩]
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Overheard

My wife, talking to the kids, explained the basement is a complete mess and they need to clean it up.

Ian responded: Everyone in the family has to help clean up, not just the bad cleaners. It’s not fair that only the bad cleaners have to do all the work.

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Neudorf’s Changing Story on Why He Voted for the Notwithstanding Clause

A few weeks ago, my friend posted on Facebook that his wife had a meeting with Nathan Neudorf. I wrote about that meeting here.

She explained Neudorf’s position:

He told me he wasn’t personally in favour of the clause, but said that “due to the Democratic Process” he had to vote yes with his party. When I pressed him, he admitted that if he voted against, he would be removed from the UCP.

In this interview with Lethbridge News Now by David Opinko, published yesterday, Neudorf now conveniently ignores the part about needing to vote to take away teacher’s rights in order to stay in the party and instead says:

[A]lthough there might have been other avenues the government could have taken in its approach to labour negotiations, it was warranted due to the risk that students were facing.

“We had to take a fairly significant step to resolve that, to make sure that our 751,000 students got back to school and didn’t have to repeat an entire year. Sometimes, you have to take the good with the bad, and we have to work through that,” says Neudorf. “There’s more work that needs to be done to restore that relationship.”

But it’s pretty obvious which of those ways of framing it are more likely to be true. Nathan Neudorf is a smart guy who understands the severity of voting to use the notwithstanding clause. He knows it was a bad idea and that’s why he said he personally didn’t agree with it. Now he needs to own that and resign.

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Where’s Ryan

Alexandra Noad writing for the Lethbridge Herald:

Nearly two weeks after a recall petition for Lethbridge East MLA Nathan Neudorf was approved by Elections Alberta, speculation is swirling about the campaign and a total lack of action by its organizer.

Many residents in the riding, along with other Albertans, are concerned about the legitimacy of the petition since many have offered their support and assistance, only to receive radio silence from Ryan Tanner, the person whose name is on the Notice of Recall Petition.

Achieving this level of media coverage for a legitimate petition might have been a tall order but thanks to Tanner it’s all over the news. Furthermore, despite protecting him from recall, I suspect the fake petition is actually catastrophic for Neudorf’s re-election prospects.

Today’s editorial by Scott Sakatch about Tanner, the invisible man, is also worth reading.

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Recall Petition has Us Frustrated

Stephen Tipper writing for the Calgary Herald:

Operation Total Recall told Postmedia Monday there have been “extremely widespread complaints” of Lethbridge-East residents being unable to sign up to canvass for the recall campaign team, and numerous people have expressed frustration in social media posts at their inability to reach applicant Ryan Tanner or his team.

The approval of that recall petition last month surprised another group who had already submitted one to Elections Alberta, said Lethbridge-East resident Jeff Milner on Monday. With Elections Alberta approving applicant Ryan Tanner’s petition, the group’s own petition was rejected.

I’m glad to see this issue getting a bit of light but I’m most interested for the verification of rumours that Tanner’s recall is taking direction from Neudorf’s office.

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Stalled Recall

The Lethbridge Herald ran a front page story about the Nathan Neudorf recall petition on Saturday.

By Alexandra Noad:

A lot of local residents are expressing frustration over not being able to get involved in the recall campaign for Lethbridge East MLA Nathan Neudorf.

A recall petition for Neudorf, submitted by someone identifying themself as Ryan Tanner, has been approved by Elections Alberta, but there is very little information available on how to become part of it. A number of social media posts have been making the rounds on the topic on Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.

It’s doubly frustrating for Lethbridge East resident Jeff Milner, who is part of a group of concerned citizens who were trying to create their own recall campaign before Tanner’s petition was approved.

Milner says the group had appointed a chief financial officer and opened a bank account before filing their request for a recall with Elections Alberta. But Tanner beat them to the punch.

I would just add that there have been extensive rumors about a direct connection with Neudorf’s office coordinating this sham petition. I expect that part of the story to be breaking in bigger media outlets soon.

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Choosing the Right

The petitioner to recall Nathan Neudorf is Ryan Tanner. I’ve never met him but I’ve heard he’s an elders’ quorum president at the church I used to go to.

As such, one might expect him to be a truthful sort of fellow. That doesn’t appear to be the case.

Here is a copy1 of his reasons for requesting Nathan Neudorf be recalled:

An acquaintance of mine messaged him to see if he was the same Ryan Tanner behind the recall. He confirmed that he was running the petition. When she let him know that we had also been organizing to recall Neudorf and would he like help, he said he already had a campaign manager and would check with them. She followed up with an offer to meet with us on zoom, but he didn’t respond, left her message as “read”, and then blocked her.2

Very concerning and frankly appears dishonest.

I received the following email from someone3 residing in Lethbridge-East:

I sent an email to recallneudorf@gmail.com and on Friday afternoon I received an email from Ryan Tanner stating that they were in the process of getting organized and that they would be in touch shortly to let me know how I could help.

Yesterday morning (Monday, Dec 1st), I received a second email stating that there would be a meeting for the volunteers to have us sign the forms in order to get our canvasser badges and packages. We were given the name Mike as a contact for that meeting and the meeting was today (Dec 2nd) at 8am at Tim Hortons in South Lethbridge. I was there early and right at 8am Mike shows up. A few minutes later, another woman […] came and it was just the three of us. No one else! And I know there are MANY people wanting to get involved, so this was the first suspicious thing to me. [The other woman] had some concerns about the whole thing and wasn’t willing to sign the application form until she met Ryan Tanner – who never actually came to this meeting. She was upset about this and quickly left. I then asked Mike if he had met Ryan and he said no, he didn’t know who Ryan was. And Mike didn’t even understand the recall process at all, so I explained what I knew about it to him. This was also very suspicious to me as you would think that someone volunteering to get involved would have a basic understanding of things. Then I asked him why he was involved and who asked him to come give us the forms to sign seeing has he’d never met Ryan, and he mentioned that he got a call from Sariah Seaborn of Nathan Neudorf’s office to come to this meeting to hand out papers. This completely shocked me! He then mentioned that he lived on the West Side of the city and isn’t even part of our riding.

I am 100% convinced now that there is something nefarious going on here and this recall is very likely being stalled by Nathan Neudorf’s own office members!

I understand there is someone by the name of Cheryl Seaborn who works in Nathan Neudorf’s office. I’m told she has a daughter named Sariah Seaborn. It’s awfully hard not to assume it’s the same Sariah Seaborn.

Elections Alberta called me back today about my concerns reaching Ryan via email if he was just sending back form letters but not working on actually trying to get signatures for his recall petition. She was trying to be helpful but ultimately I was left with few options besides using the contact information that was on his application and hoping he will open up communications.

  1. Recall applicant statement (Notice of Recall Petition) [↩]
  2. I actually can’t confirm she was blocked, just that she was no longer getting read receipts with further messages.[↩]
  3. I’m not sure they want their identity disclosed so I’m keeping them anonymous[↩]