Elections Alberta approved a citizen-initiated referendum question on Monday, asking whether the province should separate from Canada, clearing the way for organizers to begin collecting signatures.
The question reads: “Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”
The Alberta Prosperity Project must now appoint a financial officer by early January before launching a signature-gathering campaign. The group needs to collect just under 178,000 signatures within four months to trigger a province-wide referendum.
Mitch Sylvestre, the project’s chief executive officer and a constituency association president for Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party, told CBC News the group has already secured 240,000 signature pledges.
The approval follows significant changes to Alberta’s referendum laws. A judge previously deemed a similar separation question unconstitutional, but the provincial government passed Bill 14 in December, removing constitutional requirements from proposed referendum questions.
The legislation prevents Elections Alberta from rejecting referendum proposals based on constitutional validity or factual accuracy. It also transferred the authority to refer initiative proposals to courts from the chief electoral officer to the provincial justice minister.
Justice Colin Feasby ruled earlier that the previous referendum laws did not permit a citizen-led separation referendum. His decision became moot after the government introduced the new legislation.
The United Conservative government also lowered the signature threshold from approximately 600,000 to 178,000 earlier this year, making it significantly easier to force constitutional referendums.
A rival citizen initiative called Forever Canadian, led by former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, collected more than 456,000 signatures — nearly one in seven eligible Alberta voters. That petition proposes asking Albertans whether the province should remain in Canada.
Elections Alberta declared the Forever Canadian petition successful earlier this month.
Lukaszuk criticized the provincial government’s legislative changes, telling PressProgress that Bill 14 “undermines Elections Alberta and leaves citizens with no recourse.”
Justice Minister Mickey Amery’s office defended the referendum process in a statement, saying the government supports “the democratic right of every Albertan to participate in a citizen’s initiative process.”
“If those seeking independence believe that they have the support for it, this is their chance to prove it,” the ministry said.
Sylvestre told CBC News he believes the court review process was unnecessary and that citizens should be able to ask any question they want.
“The provincial government saw that this process was flawed,” he said. “A citizen’s question shouldn’t have to go to court to be approved when the actual intent of asking the question was so that the government or people could actually ask a question, any question, and take it to the people.”
Related: Have Cake and Eat It Too? Alberta Separatists Claim They Would Keep Passports and Pension Benefits
Alberta separatist sentiment has historically centered on disputes over federal energy policy, equalization payments, and perceived power imbalances with Ottawa and eastern Canada.
The Alberta Prosperity Project has four months to collect the required signatures once it appoints a financial officer. If successful, the referendum question would go before all eligible Alberta voters.
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