Elections Alberta has determined a petition on a potential referendum for separation from Canada successfully gathered enough legitimate signatures, but next steps remain unclear amid an ongoing court dispute. “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence,” headed by Mitch Sylvestre, gathered 286,593 signatures. Nearly 223,000 of those signatures were validated and verified, the provincial agency announced Friday. A successful petition requires 177,732 verified signatures, or 10 per cent of the votes cast in the 2023 provincial election. Sylvestre’s petition was initially quashed by a Court of King’s Bench judicial review earlier this year, meaning whether Albertans actually vote on separating from the country will depend on the outcome of that decision’s ongoing court appeal. The petition was challenged by a group of First Nations for being unconstitutional. A judge ultimately ruled to pause the process as First Nations were not duly consulted, a move which was appealed by both separatists and the Alberta government. Elections Alberta began verifying the signatures, however, after another judge ruled last month that names should still be counted in case the appeal is ultimately successful. Separatist petition legal counsel Jeff Rath says he expects the newly verified petition question to supersede another added by Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government for an Oct. 19 referendum on a multitude of legal and constitutional questions. “I think Danielle has to pull her stupid question off the ballot and let us have a referendum on our question in November or December,” he told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. The question Rath is referring to asks if Alberta should remain part of Canada, or if voters should have a second, binding referendum on leaving the country. Smith has previously said the court decision throwing out the separation petition prevented her from holding a direct, binding vote on the issue in the fall. Rath pushed back against that notion, saying Smith has legal authority to bypass the court decision and call a referendum on independence under the Referendum Act. “We’ve got the signatures, we’ve got them verified, and now the ball’s in Danielle’s lap.” Mount Royal University-based political analyst Lori Williams says the future of a binding separation vote remains solely in the hands of the Court of Appeal. “Whatever the decision, even if one were made today, it couldn’t be put on the ballot. There’s no time for that … The petition question that got the requisite number of signatures here has been ruled by a court to not meet constitutional muster,” she said Friday. “It requires Indigenous consultation, so until that matter is settled, there would be no moving forward on that.” Elections Alberta was only able to start verifying signatures because the courts said delaying the process would risk the integrity of the petition, as those who signed it could move away or even die. The agency also says it found no seeded names during the process. The agency was screening the petition for fake names included in an electors list given to the Republican Party of Alberta after a voters’ data breach at the end of April. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg and The Canadian Press
