Elections Alberta announced Friday that a citizen-led petition looking to force a vote on Alberta quitting Canada is successful.
The agency said it verified nearly 223,000 signatures out of almost 280,000 valid names counted.
It needed almost 178,000 signatures to be successful.
Despite the result, the separatism petition is largely moot.
It was quashed in court in May, although the ruling is being appealed by those behind the petition campaign as well as Premier Danielle Smith’s government.
Smith has cited the separatist petition and a competing pro-Canada petition as the reason why she has put a separation question on the province’s Oct. 19 referendum
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The question asks Albertans if they want to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on leaving the country.
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The premier has said the court decision throwing out the separatist petition prevented her from holding a binding vote on the issue in the fall.
Elections Alberta started verifying the signatures after a judge ruled last month that the names should still be counted in case the appeal is ultimately successful.
The judge said if the verification process was delayed any longer, it risked the integrity of the petition as those who signed it could move away or even die.
A group of First Nations challenged the petition as being unconstitutional. They argued they were not duly consulted, given the impacts separation would have on treaty rights and how holding a vote could damage the treaty relationship.
— More to come…
You’d think that the 4-ever Canada crowd would actually put in some real effort and put their money where their mouth is in favour of making the case for Alberta remaining on the Titanic, instead of playing games. Of course, that would take actual work and resources.
I read an article about Alberta Independence groups having four times the donations compared to Forever Canada.
And our Canadian media is saying that there is no support for independence?
Smith is wondering about Forever Canada reporting their finances. Lukasuke said “if she doesn’t like it, well then that’s just too bad,”
Well if Lukeasoup doesn’t have anything to hide then show us the books.
But maybe he is hiding foreign money financing Forever Canada to keep Alberta oil off the world markets?
Wynto go global, talk about censorship. This article about independence allows comments from the eastern canadians worried about their welfare cheques but the previous article about the stay canadian group is blocked from comments. Gee, I wonder why?
I’m with Rob H 👍
Seppie that that has had enough and wants to be free or a sheepie that embraces their Stockholm syndrome? WEXIT ASAP!!
It’s a giant waste of time and money. The separation would never happen as most Albertans are perfectly happy with Alberta in Canada. The devisive ex PM and his ferrett enviro terrorist minister were the ones responsible for all the ill will and they are both gone now thank goodness.
Comments are not allowed on the Forever Canada funding questions. I just wanted to mention that countries like Russia and the OPEC countries absolutely don’t want Alberta oil to flood the world markets. So I assume that they are funding anti-seperation groups
“…more than 55,000 signatures on that petition were rejected as invalid?”
Zero evidence of false signatures. Zero.
Invalid per use of mailing address v street address, etc., – not one signature determined to be fraudulent.
Posted this earlier – oddly deleted. Hmmmm…
Unlikely to result in majority favoring separation, but, yeah, I’ll vote in favor of independence, 100%.
It would be great if Alberta separated.That would give all of the True Canadians a place to move to where we could build a civilized powerhouse of a Nation while simultaneously leaving the Elbozos, Communists and Liberals behind to wallow in their own mire.
Rigged as donny trumpy would…
The verification process conducted between July 6 and July 23 has now been completed by Elections Alberta.
“Stay Free Alberta” claimed that the petition had almost 302,000 signatures when they submitted it.
In the information released by Elections Alberta today, they stated the number of signatures on the petition was actually 279,337 – a difference between fact & fiction of more than 20,000 signatures.
Of the 279,337 signatures appearing on the petition, only 222,597 of them were verified – meaning more than 55,000 signatures on that petition were rejected as invalid.
That looks like a very big credibility issue for the “Stay Free Alberta” group when the difference between what they were claiming and what was verified differs by more than 75,000 signatures.
While the number of signatures on their petition may have met the required numbers, it is by no means the “overwhelming support” that has consistently been claimed by the petition supporters.