Alberta separatists submit 300K signatures as petition deadline hits

OTTAWA — Leaders of Alberta’s separatist movement released a final tally of 301,450 signatures as they turned in their petition for an independence referendum on Monday.

If most of these signatures can be verified by Elections Alberta, the petition should easily clear the formal threshold of 177,732 signatures required to force a referendum.

“We are extremely proud of such a successful campaign. From the tens of thousands of Albertans lining up into the dark January nights to the 7,000 canvassers collecting signatures… hundreds of thousands of Albertans have expressed a clear desire to vote to become a free and independent country,” Jeffrey Rath, general counsel to the Stay Free Alberta independence petition campaign, told National Post.

Rath said that his group collected signatures from Albertans living as far away as the Pyramids of Egypt during the four-month canvassing period.

He added that approximately 1,500 more signatures are on their way in the mail.

Monday’s announcement also means the separatist petition will fall short of the 404,239 verified signatures collected by a separate pro-Canada petition led by former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk. A legislative committee is currently deliberating whether Lukaszuk’s question should be debated in the legislature or put to a province-wide vote.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said that if the Stay Free Alberta petition drive succeeded she’d allow Albertans to vote on the group’s proposed constitutional question: Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada to become an independent state?

One member of Smith’s United Conservative Party caucus, Red Deer MLA Jason Stephan, has said publicly that Alberta should hold an independence referendum . Other caucus members are rumoured to have signed the Stay Free Alberta petition.

Monday’s preliminary signature tally positions the question to be voted on alongside nine government-backed immigration and constitutional questions in Alberta’s 2026 referendum , scheduled for Oct. 19.

The petition drive saw a significant eleventh-hour controversy late last week, when pro-independence group the Centurion Project was accused of illegally obtaining a protected voter list and compiling this data into a searchable online database.

Elections Alberta obtained a court injunction on Thursday ordering the Centurion Project to take down the database. The injunction gave both it and the separatist Republican Party of Alberta, the group suspected of leaking the voter list, four days to identify all parties who may have viewed the unauthorized information.

The RCMP has launched a separate investigation to determine how the private information of millions of Alberta voters, including addresses and phone numbers, ended up in the Centurion Project’s possession.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said over the weekend that he was deeply concerned by the alleged privacy breach.

“I expect Elections Alberta and the RCMP to work thoroughly and expeditiously to assess the causes and to pursue appropriate actions against those responsible,” said Carney.

“We must be constantly vigilant to protect the rights of Canadians and the integrity of our democratic processes.”

Smith said in a statement on social media that she was aware of the potential data breach and would await the findings of Elections Alberta and the RCMP before commenting further.

Rath said the investigation into the Centurion Project and Republican Party of Alberta had “nothing to do” with his group’s petition.

He added that Carney was in no position to be voicing concerns about the Alberta citizen initiative process, given that he just obtained a majority government with the help of floor-crossers from other parties.

National Postrmohamed@postmedia.com

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