Danielle Smith Just Got Sandbagged on Separating

Two days ago Alberta’s chief electoral officer became embroiled in a back and forth with Danielle Smith and her justice minister about his decision to ask the courts if a referendum proposed by a separatist group allied with the premier’s government is constitutional.

Then he let the other shoe drop when his office announced it has approved a referendum question with a positive take on remaining in Canada.

In a news release yesterday, Gordon McClure said his office has approved the petition for the “Alberta Forever Canada” citizen initiative launched by former Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, who has long been a vocal critic of the Smith government’s separatist machinations.

Lukaszuk’s petition calls for the referendum question to be “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”

The rival question, submitted on July 4 (perhaps symbolically) by Mitch Sylvestre of the pro-separatist so-called Alberta Prosperity Project, would ask Albertans: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?”

This, obviously, is precisely what Smith and her justice minister, Mickey Amery, want the referendum they plan to hold next year to ask.

While McClure wants the courts to review the Alberta Prosperity Project’s question, for what should be obvious reasons, the electoral officer saw no potential contradictions with Canada’s Constitution in simply asking “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”

Presumably, that’s because if it were answered in the affirmative no radical change in the relationships between Alberta and Canada, Albertans and Canadians, or Albertans and their province would immediately occur. And if it were answered in the negative, Alberta would still have to figure out what its position was.

In his application, Lukaszuk wrote that “since a referendum appears to be imminent anyway, it should be objective and not directed by special interest groups.”

“Separation will threaten the Canadian as well as the Alberta economy, the personal wealth of Albertans, the Canadian citizenship rights of Alberta residents, the treaty rights of our First Nations, and have many other serious and negative consequences,” Lukaszuk said. “We believe the majority of Alberta’s residents are loyal Canadians opposed to any form of separation.”

The technical details are in the Elections Alberta news release, but a key point in it is that because Lukaszuk’s petition was received before the United Conservative Party’s 2025 Election Statutes Amendment Act came into force, “the process will follow requirements set out in the Citizen Initiative Act as of June 30, 2025.”

To wit, to get on the ballot next year it will require 293,976 signatures — that is, 10 per cent of the number of Albertans eligible to vote in the 2023 general election. The petition must be submitted to Elections Alberta by Oct. 28, 2025. That compares with the 177,000 signatures that will be required for any referendum petition approved since the amending legislation was passed, including the so-called Alberta Prosperity Project’s if it passes constitutional muster.

Alberta separatists associated with the APP and their not very subtle backers in the premier’s office will cry foul just the same, of course, but the timing serves a strategic purpose for Lukaszuk.

While lawyers representing his Alberta Forever Canada campaign are likely to argue that the same rules should be applied to their petition as any other, regardless of the timing, Lukaszuk was willing to take the chance on having to collect more signatures to ensure his wording was approved first.

Smith “should know that there can only be one petition, and the one that was filed first goes first,” Lukaszuk told me last month after the premier claimed otherwise on her free Corus Radio program. “She should also know that the question the APP is posing is not constitutional and cannot go ahead as the referendum question.”

“It’s unanimous among our lawyers that the new rules should apply to us,” Lukaszuk told Postmedia political columnist Don Braid yesterday in a column. Lukaszuk, wrote Braid, “is now branded ‘Tommy the Commie.’”

Even before yesterday’s announcement, Lukaszuk broke the news that former Progressive Conservative premier Ed Stelmach had endorsed the Alberta Forever Canada campaign. “I support a strong Alberta within a strong Canada,” Stelmach wrote. “This is why I support the Forever Canadian initiative and ask all Albertans to sign the petition and help collect signatures.”

Well, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the same people start calling Stelmach Red Ed.

Lukaszuk told me yesterday, “We will be launching our campaign probably on Saturday and we will have volunteers across the province collecting signatures. We have over 3,000 volunteers so far.”

“The best thing to do is to get onto our registration page and register, and we will contact you,” he added.