Proposed Bill 54 Election Act changes won’t have any impact on First Nations: Smith

Drumheller Mayor Heather Colberg joins CTV News to weigh in on Bill 54, Alberta separation talk, and Premier Smith’s timing on legal action.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she “100 per cent” respects Indigenous treaty rights on her Saturday morning radio show.

The comments came after a number of Alberta First Nations Chiefs reacted to moves launched by the Alberta government earlier this week that appear to make it easier to call a provincial referendum on separation.

The province’s proposed Bill 54 would reduce the number of signatures required to launch a citizen-initiated referendum to 10 per cent of eligible voters in a general election.

Presently, the requirement is 20 per cent, meaning that if Bill 54 passes, it would require around 177,000 signatures to launch a referendum question.

Applicants would also get 120 days, rather than 90, to collect the required 177,000 signatures.

“This is a very, very common mechanism in California for instance as in most of the U.S. states,” Smith said.

In California, the signature threshold to launch a referendum is 12 per cent.

One such referendum was launched in 2003 to recall then-Governor Gray Davis, resulting in the election of movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2021, a similar recall was attempted against Gov. Gavin Newsom, which was defeated, when 7.8 million Californians voted to keep him in office while 4.8 million voted to have him removed.

That prompted one California assemblyman, Marc Berman, to say the state would investigate reforming its system to make it more difficult to launch citizen-initiated referendums.

“Californians are very frustrated that we just spent USD $276 million on this recall election that, from the looks of it, certified what voters said three years ago and what voters could have said next year,” said Berman.

“The threshold was a little bit too high, so we adjusted it so it could be a little more accessible,” Smith said, on “Your Province. Your Premier.”

Smith said the timing of the introduction of Bill 54, which came in the same week after the federal election that returned the Liberals to power, was coincidental.

She said there were dozens of Election Act changes in a document that ended up being 150 pages long.

“We’ve been working on these since I got a new justice minister, Mickey Avery” she said. “You don’t put a substantive document like that together overnight.”

She said her disputes with Ottawa have no impact on Alberta First Nations.

“Everything I do is changing Alberta’s relationship with Ottawa,” she said. “First Nations have their own relationship with Ottawa -- and it’s enshrined in treaty.

“I can’t pre-judge what referendum questions might come forward right now – there’s zero referendum petitions for citizen’s initiative," she said.

“All there is is a law that’s been on the books for six years now that had a very high (signature) threshold that was unachievable,” Smith added, “which is maybe part of the reason why we never saw any petitions launched.

“Now, we’ve made it so that anyone who has a burning issue of any type can bring it forward,” she said.

“But clearly, the First Nations have a special relationship with the Crown, a special relationship through treaty, and none of anything we are proposing would ever violate any of that,” Smith said.

In 2024, a municipal recall petition launched against Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek failed when organizers gathered around 70,000 signatures when 514,000 were required to be gathered within 60 days.

The signature threshold for the City of Calgary is 40 per cent of its population.

‘Full opposition’: First Nations Chiefs

The chiefs of Tsuut’ina Nation, Bearspaw Nation, Chiniki Nation and Goodstoney Nation released a joint statement on Friday amid the ongoing separatism debate in the province, saying First Nations will not separate.

“Any efforts to separate will be met with our full opposition,” the statement reads.

“Under our Treaties, vast areas of Alberta are held in trust by the Crown for the benefit of the Treaty First Nations, not as property of the provincial government. Our Treaty territories predate Alberta’s entry into Confederation in 1905.”

In response to the proposed legislation, Chief Sheldon Sunshine of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation and Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro called on the premier to stand down, saying her statements and actions violate treaties, in a Wednesday letter.

On Thursday, the Confederacy of Treaty No. 6 First Nations said it “firmly rejects” the premier’s comments and actions regarding the possibility of separation.

“Premier Smith’s promotion of the idea of a referendum on separation is not only reckless — it is a direct violation of the treaty relationship that exists between our nations and the Crown,” the confederacy said in a statement.

“Let us be absolutely clear: our nations do not and will never consent to the separation of our treaty territories. These lands were never ceded, nor surrendered.”

When asked for comment on Friday, the premier’s office deferred to comments Smith made on Thursday regarding the First Nations’ concerns.

“The citizen initiative act, I think, is the purest form of democracy we have and it gives all Albertans an opportunity to play a direct role in the democratic process by inviting them to have a direct say on issues their fellow citizens want to put to the people,” Smith said, during an unrelated press conference on Thursday.

“Any Albertan can put an idea forward on any topic, and if they’re able to get the number of signatures, then it would go to a vote, and that includes a vote of members of First Nations and we encourage Indigenous peoples to participate in the process.”

Saturday at the Alberta NDP convention in Edmonton, party leader Naheed Nenshi addressed Bill 54.

Nenshi said Smith is dragging Alberta away from the rest of the country to feed extremist fringe agendas, and addressed her directly.

“Stop pretending that it’s just a citizen-initiated process and you’re just standing around watching,” he said in a mocking tone during his convention speech.

“I will be damned if I, if we, ever let Danielle Smith tear (this) country down,” he said to a wave of cheers.

With files from CTV’s Brendan Ellis and The Canadian Press