Alberta independence organizers claim signature threshold met

Organizers of Stay Free Alberta say they've gathered the necessary 177,000 signatures for the separation question to appear on a ballot.

A petition on Alberta independence has enough signatures to trigger a potential vote according to its organizers — a month ahead of the deadline to collect signatures and have them verified by election officials.

Organizers of Stay Free Alberta say the petition calling for the province’s separation from Canada say they’ve already met the 177,000-signature threshold which could lead to a province-wide vote on the issue.

“We’re crushing the statutory number and we’re just going to continuing working ahead to the second of May to demonstrate to the government how strong the support is for independence in Alberta,” said Stay Free Alberta organizer Jeffery Rath.

The petition remains open until May 2. It will then go to Elections Alberta for verification.

If enough signatures are confirmed the question could be put on a ballot in October.

Alberta independence remains a minority view, according to a recent poll by Abacus Data, where 26 per cent of respondents support independence and 64 per cent oppose it.

Some influential business leaders in Alberta say separation talks are already having ramifications in the province’s economic outlook, with some political scientists saying it will only get worse.

“It’s going to be very divisive. It’s going to chase away investment and damage the economic stability of the province and livelihood of the average Alberta resident,” said Keith Brownsey, a political scientist at Mount Royal University.

“No corporation in their right mind would invest big dollars in a place that may simply be in political turmoil over the next few years not that they necessarily break away from Canada,” Brownsey added.

“Business likes certainty. It likes process and it likes a measured response to political issues. We’re not getting that here.”

Talks of Alberta’s separation from Canada is already impacting investments, according to former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk.

“Just this conversation about separatism is already pulling back investment,” he said from Ranchmen’s Club where he met with members of Calgary’s business community on Tuesday.

He wants Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to stop prolonging the conversation on separation.

“She doesn’t have to go down that road. All she has to do is have a vote on the floor of the (legislature), and if she has separatists in her caucus that’s fine, let them vote that way,” he said.

“I am still confident a majority of Alberta MLAs will still want to remain in Canada. Then the premier can start focusing on other things that are challenging our government.”

Lukaszuk led a petition supporting Alberta to stay in Canada, which amassed over 400,000 late last year. The petition still sits with a provincial committee which will decide how to proceed.

“Any petition that has signatures validated, it’s our intention to put that on the on the ballot in the fall. The reason Mr. Lukaszuk is different is because there’s been some confusion about whether he or not he wants that,” Smith said.

Lukaszuk says he checked the box on the petition form which calls for MLAs to vote.

The premier says a legislative committee meeting scheduled for April 21 will discuss how to address the Forever Canadian petition.

Smith has mentioned there are potentially three citizen led petitions which could result in vote questions in the fall: one on separation, one on Alberta remaining in Canada and one on coal mining activity.

The UCP government already has plans for several other questions to be put to a province-wide vote on Oct. 19.