Alberta pro-Canada referendum petition ‘movement’ attracts half-million website views, 7,000 volunteers

The Forever Canadian group petitioning for the UCP to declare its official policy is to remain in Canada is working to retrieve its petitions.

A group’s website for its petition to have Alberta declare its official policy is to remain in Canada has attracted more than half-a-million views a month into its 90-day campaign window.

While it doesn’t have an update as to how many of the almost 300,000 signatures it needs by Oct. 28 have been gathered so far, Forever Canadian said Friday it has seen 550,000 views to its website and has enlisted 4,000 volunteer signature collectors and 3,000 volunteers who help in other areas.

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The petition by Thomas Lukaszuk, a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, is for a policy proposal asking people: “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”

It was approved by Alberta’s chief electoral officer at the end of July.

Lukaszuk told media on Friday the group is “putting a process in place right now where we will be collecting those petitions every two weeks” and expects it’ll probably be in place next week so they can keep a running tally of how many signatures have been gathered.

In the last week, Forever Canadian volunteers have organized 900 signing “pop-ups, as we call them,” Lukaszuk said, “people just setting up a table in a driveway, at a dog’s park, at farmers market, anywhere where you would least expect our canvassers to be.”

He said while the goal of Forever Canadian is singular -- to collect 300,000 signatures for its petition -- it’s become a movement, describing people of all political stripes from Liberals, Conservatives, NDPers, former Reform Party MPs, “everybody sitting at the same table, strategizing and building this campaign, which I have to tell you know, as a former politician, it’s unprecedented.”

“People are extremely passionate about being part of this movement, and we’re building on it, but our goal still remains -- collecting 300,000 signatures -- and that’s it.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Sean McClune