Hundreds of people in red-and-white clothing waved Canadian flags, cheered as honking cars passed by and sang “O Canada” at a launch event for a campaign aiming to stop Alberta from quitting Confederation.
Thomas Lukaszuk, Alberta’s former deputy premier, said his Forever Canadian campaign will see him and hundreds of volunteers zigzagging from the province’s north to the south in his “Unity Bus” to encourage Albertans to vote for staying in Canada in an October referendum.
“I will be on the road for the next six months, riding in this bus from town to town, campground to campground,” he told the crowd outside his campaign’s new headquarters in Edmonton’s northwest.
“This is definitely the most important vote in the history of this province. This country cannot be broken up by anybody.”
He said the campaign will include door-knocking, lawn signs stamped with the Canadian flag, and fact-checked information for Albertans on how important voter turnout is and how to sign up in the referendum.
Lukaszuk, who led the gathering of signatures for a federalist petition called Forever Canadian, said his campaign’s goal is to obtain a clear majority.
“We live in a phenomenal country,” he said.
“There are Canadians born all over the world. Some like me and some of you are lucky to be born here. We’re going to fight for this together,” said the Polish-born Canadian.
Premier Danielle Smith announced in a televised address on Thursday that an Oct. 19 referendum question will ask Albertans if they want to remain in Canada or start the process to hold a binding referendum on separation.
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Smith has said she couldn’t directly put separation on the ballot because a judge earlier this month quashed a separatist petition looking to force such a vote.
The judge said the Stay Free Alberta petition shouldn’t have been green-lit because Smith’s government neglected its duty to consult First Nations. Smith has said her government will be appealing the decision.
She has also said the more than 400,000 signatures the Forever Canadian petition garnered, and the roughly 300,000 signatures the Stay Free Alberta petition got, indicates that more than 700,000 Albertans want to put the province’s future in Confederation on a ballot this fall.
The separatist petition hasn’t been verified by Elections Alberta while Lukaszuk’s petition was verified in December.
On Saturday, while standing in front of the same “Unity Bus” he used while collecting signatures for his Forever Canadian petition, Lukaszuk disagreed with Smith’s comments.
“The fact is that the people collected signatures and signed the Forever Canadian petition to prevent a referendum from happening because we knew that separatists were going to file,” he said.
“Thousands of people can attest to the fact, frankly, they don’t want a referendum. It’s being hoisted upon us. We didn’t ask for this but since the premier wants a referendum we will be there and we will vote.”
Lukaszuk also said he is open to working with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who said this week all Conservative MPs will press for Alberta to vote to stay in Canada.
“This campaign will have many other smaller campaigns, and theirs will be one of them,” Lukaszuk said.
“As long as we’re all rowing in the same direction, and as long it is about Alberta staying in Canada, I will gladly work with anybody.”
Saturday’s event was also attended by Eleanor Olszewski, the Liberal federal minister responsible for prairies economic development and the representative for Edmonton Centre.
She said Prime Minister Mark Carney ran on a platform to unite Canada and will continue to do so.
“I grew up in southern Alberta in Medicine Hat,” she told the crowd.
“I raised my family here, built my career here and I continue to live here. To this day, my identity as an Albertan is completely wrapped up with my identity as a Canadian. No one should be telling us that we have to make a decision about those two aspects of who we are. These are trying times.”
Mitch Sylvestre, the head of Stay Free Alberta, did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether his separatist group will also be launching a provincewide campaign.
Good news. Push back against those Separatist nutters.
The real question is: do you agree that Canada should be a post nation state or should we remain sovergn?
The real interesting thing is Smith siding with the racist white community. Basically saying the indigenous people have not rights and SHE says the courts are wrong. And adding an anti immigrant question reinforces the White Christian Nationalist side . that she has taken. She is following Trump’s lead, pandering to these people.
Forever Canada is financed by Russia and the USA. Both those countries don’t want Alberta to separate and start dumping huge amounts of oil on the world markets which would compete with them and drive down world oil prices.
whenever I speak to a canda loyalist i always ask the sane question list the reasons fir ne ti vote ti stay. because there is a heck of alot of reasons to leave. they always say we will be landlocked but agree tgat we are already landlocked. if that is the only reason to stay then im voting to leave. goooo carney
the circus came to town!! with Bosso the brown nose clown! hes got three shades . one for each ring inside Carneys colon
Honk Honk
The paid separatists are going to be flooding social media and forums for the next few months as their unhinged campaign continues off the rails into a firey wreck.
Looking forward to obvious biased word salad from anonymous idiots. Good entertainment and humor until the ‘campaign’ money stops coming in.
If you love Canada with Alberta get out and vote for it on the referendum on Oct 19th
Is Justin Tru-Doh joining in also? He and Carney are the main reasons why Albertans want to leave Canada.
G. read it… the stay in Canada signatures were verified. The Separatists used the voters list (possibly to fake signatures, as all that is checked is names and addresses…)
We do need an equal, effective and elected senate, so the smaller provinces have the same say as the larger ones. – How is that going to work if we separate? the issue I keep seeing is ‘they do not hear us’ – so crying alone in the wilderness is going to get us better heard? – it will just make it easier to ignore us.
More like O Canadone, The west needs to WEXIT ourselves off this sinking ship ASAP!!!
They better be verifying the signatures for the people that want Alberta to stay, and have those signatures under the same scrutiny that was put on the people and organization for wanting to separate, or else it’s just another showing that canada and it’s future isn’t up to Canadians but a select group of people.
And keep your eyes peeled Canadians, the mainstream media will try to pull the wool over your eyes with this as they have done so many times before.
Losers