Alberta makes several changes to legislation, including citizen initiative petitions, recalls

Alberta is looking to make changes to legislation around elections and citizen-led petitions, including when referendums can take place.

The Alberta government has proposed amendments to several pieces of legislation that would impact the Citizen Initiative Act and the Recall Act, among others.

Changes to the Citizen Initiative Act include prohibiting petitions from starting or continuing within 12 months before to 12 months after a general election, allowing the minister of justice and the petition proponent to appoint scrutineers to oversee the verification of petition signatures, repeal deadlines for holding a referendum resulting from successful policy or constitutional referendum proposal, and requiring the chief electoral officer to keep successful petition signature sheets for two years.

“We want voters to be able to weigh in on election matters during elections without having citizen-led initiatives stand in the way of that,” said Justice Minister Mickey Amery at a press conference Monday morning. “What we’re doing is creating a very clear window, and I think that Albertans will have the consistency and reliability of knowing exactly when those are.”

Amendments to the Recall Act also allow the appointment of scrutineers.

The chief electoral officer is now required to keep successful recall petition signature sheets until a recall vote is complete.

With the emergence of deepfakes, the province is prohibiting people from creating deepfakes that could mislead voters about the conduct of elected officials, candidates and Elections Alberta officers and employees.

The province said deepfakes is a term to describe seemingly realistic, appearing to depict a real person, that are digitally created or manipulated.

“We know that deepfake technology is going to continue to improve, and the distinction between what is reality and what is fake is becoming more difficult to distinguish,” said Amery.

Public sector disclosure minimums will be reduced to $130,000 in changes to the Public Sector Compensation Transparency Act. The frequency of severance disclosures will also be reduced from twice to once per year.

“It allows for the public to know exactly what government employees and public sector employees are getting in the way of wages and benefits,” said Amery. “It lowers that threshold so it captures more individuals who are employed in those areas.”

The threshold is reduced to $130,000 from $133,813 for Government of Alberta employees and from $159,676 for broader public sector bodies, respectively.

Amery added that scrapping the second report for the year “is simply a red tape and efficiency matter.”

“I still think it captures all of the information that Albertans want and deserve, but it also creates a wide scope and captures a wider number of individuals that Albertans will be able to see about.”

The amended legislation was tabled Monday afternoon.