Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she’s willing to take the word of Alberta’s separatist movement to pose a question on the Oct. 19 referendum. Saturday on her provincial radio show, Smith defended her decision to allow a question about whether Alberta should pursue a separatist referendum even though none of the more than 300,000 signatures collected by Stay Free Alberta have been validated. “The 400,000 signatures from the Forever Canadian petition have been validated,” she said. “The court stopped Elections Alberta from validating the 300,000 signatures achieved by Stay Free Alberta.” “Elections Alberta has the boxes (of signatures),” she added. “They have been told there’s no way to validate them—so I just have to, in good faith, look at that and say they needed to get 177,000, they submitted 300,000, the other petition got validated at 400 (thousand) — (so) that’s why I think in order to follow the spirit of the citizen petition law, that’s why I put forward the question we did." Forever Canadian founder Thomas Lukaszuk, whose group collected more than 400,000 verified signatures, has said multiple times he didn’t want to have a question about staying in Canada on the Oct. 19 referendum. Forever Canadian submitted as policy proposal: Elections Alberta Elections Alberta says there has been “misunderstanding and misinformation” around Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition, which asked whether Alberta should remain in Canada. “The proponent (Lukaszuk) does not choose the type of citizen initiative petition; it is determined by the legislation,” read a statement from Elections Alberta spokesperson Michelle Gurney. “As the proposal put forward by Thomas did not seek to amend the Constitution or propose new legislation, policy proposal was the only available option for the Alberta Forever Canada initiative.” The organization says the type of initiative petition and what happens when it is successful is determined by the Citizen Initiative Act, not the proponent. Elections Alberta points to Section 2 of the Act, which states: Gurney says that Section 15 of the Act sets out the duties the government must take once it receives a successful petition proposal. “The decision on how to proceed is the government’s, except in the case of a constitutional referendum proposal, which must be referred to the lieutenant governor in council for the purpose of holding a referendum,” said Gurney. “This special citizen initiative review committee was responsible for determining what happened by either tabling a report with respect to the policy proposal or recommending it be referred to the lieutenant governor in council for the purpose of a referendum.” ‘Legitimacy is another question’ Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams said while the legality of posting a citizen initiative petition question based on unvalidated signatures isn’t illegal, its legitimacy is debatable. “Questions surrounding the number of valid signatures on the Stay Free Alberta petition are understandable for two reasons: the incorrect claims made by leaders like (Mitch) Silvestre and (Jeffrey) Rath on other matters and the leaked electors list,” she said. “Faith in the claims of people with their (Stay Free Alberta leaders’) track record could magnify questions about the justification for the referendum.“ ”The electors list leak raises concerns about whether names from the list could have been added to the petitions,“ she added. ”This isn’t simply hypothetical—in the 2017 UCP leadership race, several people’s emails were fraudulently added to the list of those eligible to vote for the leader. There is also a concern about unfair access to prospective supporters." “The legality of the referendum question may yet be challenged in court, but it was designed to get around legal issues raised so far,” she added. “Legitimacy is another question. Especially given the viscerally negative reaction from leaders supporting federalism, separatism, business and economic interests and First Nations.” “And public opinion polls show these concerns are reverberating widely,“ she added. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi also issued a statement about the use of unverified signatures. “Not one of the separatist signatures was verified, and, given the data breach, there was ample ability to forge signatures. But Danielle Smith didn’t care,” he said. “This was always her plan. She promised separatists the referendum in return for their support, and now we all are living with the consequences. She can’t blame this referendum on anyone but herself.” With files from The Canadian Press
