Alberta authorities approve petition seeking vote on leaving Canada

Elections Alberta has approved a citizen-initiative petition that could put a referendum question on Alberta’s future within Canada to voters, clearing the way for the Alberta Prosperity Project to begin collecting signatures, as per CBC News.

With the approval, the group must appoint a financial officer before early January, after which it can start gathering support. The proposed referendum question asks whether Alberta should leave Canada and become an independent state. The group now has four months to collect nearly 178,000 valid signatures.

The initiative follows an earlier attempt by the same group to advance a similar question, which was ruled unconstitutional by an Alberta judge. Since that decision, Premier Danielle Smith’s government reviewed the province’s rules on citizen-initiated referendums. Earlier this month, the legislature passed Bill 14, allowing citizen initiatives to proceed even if their constitutionality has not been assessed in advance.

Under the new law, only the provincial justice minister can refer a proposed referendum question to the courts, a power previously held by Elections Alberta, and the minister may recommend changes to constitutional questions before they go to voters. These changes effectively nullified the court review of the Alberta Prosperity Project’s original question and allowed its chief executive, Mitch Sylvestre, to reapply without paying a new fee.

Speaking to CBC News, Sylvestre said the group had followed the rules and argued that court involvement was unnecessary, adding that citizen questions should be able to go directly to the public.

Earlier this month, Elections Alberta also confirmed the success of a separate citizen initiative by Alberta Forever Canada, which collected enough signatures to advance a petition asking whether Alberta should remain within Canada. The effort is led by former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, who has said his aim is for the legislature to debate the question and for MLAs to vote on it. Lukaszuk said his group is prepared to argue its case if the Alberta Prosperity Project’s petition also succeeds.

In a statement, Alberta’s Ministry of Justice said the government supports the democratic right of Albertans to participate in citizen initiatives, adding that those advocating independence now have an opportunity to demonstrate public support.