Latest news with #CitizensInitiativeAct
Calgary Herald
6 days ago
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
Court ruling has no impact on Alberta Prosperity Project, according to CEO Mitch Sylvestre
The CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project said a court ruling on Thursday will have little effect on their efforts to move forward with their independence question. Article content The question that the APP and their CEO Mitch Sylvestre seeks to ask in a referendum, 'Do you agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?' Article content Article content Article content The question was referred to the courts by the Alberta chief electoral officer Gordon McClure to hear if it violated the Constitution. Article content Article content Following an attempt by the APP to strike the referral last week, a decision on Thursday ruled that a full hearing will determine the constitutionality of their question. Article content Legal counsel for the APP Jeffrey Rath said the decision was as expected. Article content 'The Court rarely decides matters on a striking application,' Rath said. 'We look forward to hearing how asking a question about amending the Constitution can be unconstitutional.' Article content Although the decision was not in their favour, Sylvestre said it will not have any adverse effects on their end. Article content 'It actually gives us more time to prepare for the actual referendum itself,' he said. Article content He adds that the decision raised concerns from government officials. Article content 'I've heard concerns from people that are in the current UCP government, MLA's who've called me and said that the purpose of the Citizens Initiative Act is clearly not to get to having people and judges do that,' he said. 'It's supposed to be for people who want to ask questions freely and vote on them, that's the entire purpose of them.' Article content Article content The group was certain that their question fell within the Clarity Act and rules set in place by the federal government. Article content 'The Government of Canada has already put this into the constitution, and there's a very clear path,' he said. 'We're not understanding why we have to go through the whole process.' Article content Currently, around 230,000 people have have already pledged to sign their petition. Article content Through the new legislation, the petition by the APP would only require 177,000 within 120 days. Article content Although they cannot formally roll out their petition, Sylvestre said their group is ready to hit the streets whenever the opportunity arises. Article content 'We are working to get canvassers in place, and we are very organized,' he said. 'We believe that we are going to have 10,000 volunteers collecting signatures for us, right off the hop.'
CBC
15-08-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Judge to proceed with review of Alberta separation question
A judge says he must hear arguments and rule on whether a proposed Alberta referendum question on separating from Canada is constitutional because it's important for democracy. "The citizens of Alberta deserve to have these arguments made properly and heard in full," Court of King's Bench Justice Colin Feasby said in his decision on Thursday. "Democracy demands nothing less." Alberta's Citizens Initiative Act allows an elector to propose a question to put to a public vote, if they can gather enough signatures in support within a set timeframe. Alberta's chief electoral officer, Gordon McClure, referred the question to court last month so a judge could determine whether it violates the Constitution, including treaty rights. The group that submitted the question applied to have the court referral quashed. Mitch Sylvestre, executive director of the Alberta Prosperity Project, wants to ask: "Do you agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?" Feasby's ruling said it's unclear whether the substance of that question is constitutional. Sylvestre's lawyer, Jeffrey Rath, argued judicial scrutiny is premature, since there's no guarantee enough signatures would be gathered to put the proposed question on a ballot. He also said the act of asking a question doesn't violate the Constitution. Feasby rejected those arguments, saying provincial law only allows the chief electoral officer to refer the question to the court at this stage of the process. Feasby said other jurisdictions that allow citizen-initiated referendums follow similar practices to ensure questions are legal before citizens vote on them. He said deciding early in the process whether a question is accurate and constitutional could potentially save money and time. "Democracy flourishes when citizens have clear and accurate information," Feasby said. Lawyers for Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery and the chief electoral officer did not take a position on quashing the referral. Amery and Premier Danielle Smith have criticized the electoral officer's decision to refer the question to the court, saying it should be approved and only face judicial scrutiny if it garners a majority vote in a referendum. "Alberta's government believes that the proposal is not unconstitutional and therefore should be approved and permitted to proceed," Amery's acting press secretary, Nathaniel Dueck, said in a statement Thursday. He said the minister would refrain from further comment while the matter is before the court. A letter from Amery's lawyer to the judge last week said the minister plans to make submissions if there is a review. Feasby also accepted the chief electoral officer's recommendation to appoint "friends of the court" with expertise in constitutional law. The judge appointed University of Alberta law Prof. Eric Adams and Edmonton lawyer Matthew Woodley to argue why the proposed question could be unconstitutional. They will also be asked to identify potential weaknesses of those arguments. Judge prioritizing evidence from Indigenous interveners McClure also proposed that Elections Alberta put out a call for interveners in the legal case. Feasby said the number of people affected by the case is "enormous." As a result, he will limit interveners to those who can convince the court their participation won't delay the process. He said the only interveners who can provide evidence are First Nations representatives, to demonstrate how their treaty rights might be infringed. Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam says his northern Alberta community will apply for intervener status. After the hearing, Adam said outside the Edmonton courthouse that the judge's decision to rule on the question's constitutionality is a "great win for Canada." Adam said the premier and her cabinet need to stop humouring separatists and focus on improving health care, education and infrastructure in the province. "Start building relationships with Albertans, and First Nations, and start building a relationship with Canada, instead of dismantling the whole process and causing confusion," he said. Separatists say case gives them new platform If Sylvestre's proposed question is approved, his organization, the Alberta Prosperity Project, would need to collect 177,000 signatures within 120 days to get it on a referendum ballot. A competing referendum question was approved by McClure in June that asked: "Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?" Efforts to gather signatures for that proposal, put forward by former Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, got underway earlier this month. He needs to collect nearly 300,000 signatures in 90 days in order to get his question on a ballot, as his application was approved before new provincial rules with lower signature thresholds took effect. Outside court on Thursday, Lukaszuk said he has about 2,000 volunteers working to collect signatures in person. He didn't know how many signatures they had collected. Lukaszuk, who also plans to apply to be an intervener in the court reference case, said the judge's decision upheld the independence of Alberta's chief electoral officer from government. "Albertans shouldn't have to be signing any petitions to reaffirm our allegiance to Canada," Lukaszuk said. Rath said after court he knew convincing the judge to throw out the query would be an uphill battle. Rath said he had yet to hear an argument about how posing a question that amends the Constitution could be unconstitutional. "It'll give us a lot more opportunity to continue to talk to our fellow Albertans about the benefits of independence," Rath said. Feasby and the lawyers present in court Thursday agreed to timelines in which parties will file written arguments to the judge. Feasby said the next hearing will be on the week of November 15. The judge said he intends to make ruling before the end of 2025.
Toronto Star
29-04-2025
- Business
- Toronto Star
Danielle Smith tries to cloak her threats to Mark Carney but Alberta's intentions are clear
Here is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's reaction to the federal election boiled down to one ominous sentence: 'I will not permit the status quo to continue.' It is a threat disguised as an olive branch. Smith has renewed the nine demands she handed to Prime Minister Mark Carney just days before the start of the election campaign — or else face an 'unprecedented national unity crisis.' 'We need to lift the tanker ban off the B.C. coast,' she said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon. 'We need to eliminate the oil and gas emissions cap that has been proposed, which is a production cap. We need to scrap the so-called clean electricity regulations. We need to end the treatment of plastics as toxic.' Smith said she wants to 'reset' the relationship with the federal Liberals 'with meaningful action rather than hollow rhetoric.' But her own rhetoric, if not itself hollow, is heated: 'Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa.' Never mind, of course, that the Liberals spent $34 billion to buy and expand the Trans Mountain pipeline to get more of Alberta's energy products to the West Coast for shipment overseas. This is not about facts but partisan politics. Smith wanted Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to win and she wants him to stay on as leader: 'I told him so. I think that he can find another riding where it may be a little bit easier to be able to win.' But the election results are not a total loss for Smith. She now has another convenient foil, this time Carney, to blame for pretty much all of Alberta's woes. She's hopeful that Carney's conciliatory comments the past few months make him amenable to more energy pipelines from Alberta to the rest of the country as a response to Trump's tariffs. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW However, even though she talks of hitting the reset button, Smith seems eager for a fight: 'In the weeks and months ahead, Albertans will have an opportunity to discuss our province's future, assess various options for strengthening and protecting our province against future hostile acts from Ottawa, and to ultimately choose a path forward.' If you suspected 'choose a path forward' was code for 'separation,' you wouldn't be wrong. Smith herself is not championing secession. But on Tuesday, her government introduced a bill amending the 'Citizens Initiative Act' to make it easier for Albertans to kick start a referendum. 'I believe in Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada,' said Smith. 'However, there is a citizen initiative referendum process that if citizens want to put a question on a ballot and get enough of their fellow citizens to sign that petition, then those questions will be put forward. Again, I don't want to prejudge what a question might be.' Of course, a province cannot simply vote unilaterally to secede from Canada and there are all kinds of barriers, including what to do about treaties with First Nations, to name just one. It is a pipe dream — and one not supported by most Albertans. And even though 30 per cent say they'd support separation if the Liberals won, the majority of Albertans would not. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Government members will hold a special meeting Friday to discuss next steps. Smith is toying with separatist sentiments, not only because it plays to her Conservative base, but because it's an important distraction tool. Smith's government is currently gripped by a scandal involving allegations of wrongdoing in how procurement contracts were handled in health care. Smith has denied any wrongdoing and the allegations have not been proven. But one of Smith's cabinet ministers, Peter Guthrie, was so shocked by them that he resigned his portfolio on a point of principle in February and then voted with the Opposition NDP for a public inquiry. After he was kicked out of the United Conservative caucus, Guthrie accused the premier of misleading cabinet about the nature of the allegations. It's the kind of scandal that could cause lasting damage to a government — if the public was paying attention. But less damaging if the public and the rest of the country were distracted by inflamed rhetoric over Alberta separation.
