Get ready for a big fight over Alberta's separation referendum
It's going to be messy but the Chief Electoral Officer needs to hold his ground - and his independence.
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Get ready for a big fight over Alberta's separation referendum
It's going to be messy but the Chief Electoral Officer needs to hold his ground - and his independence.
Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer was publicly rebuked by Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Justice Mickey Amery after a petition aimed at triggering a province-wide referendum on Alberta's separation from Canada was referred to the courts to determine if it is legal.
Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure announced earlier this week that a citizen initiative petition request submitted by separatist Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Mitch Sylvestre was being referred to the Court of King’s Bench to determine whether it conforms with the requirements of sections 2 (4) of the Citizen Initiative Act. That section specifically states that "an initiative petition proposal must not contravene sections 1 to 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982.”
Smith and Amery took to social media to call on McClure to withdraw the court reference and allow the Alberta separation petition to move forward.
“The recently passed amendments to the Citizen Initiative Act are intended to be broadly permissive and to allow Albertans the opportunity to launch a referendum petition without needless bureaucratic red tape or court applications slowing the process,” read a statement from Amery on X.com.
“As it is the Government of Alberta that ultimately decides how or if to implement any referendum result, those government decisions will ultimately be subject to constitutional scrutiny,” Amery’s statement said. “We encourage Elections Alberta to withdraw its court reference and permit Albertans their democratic right to participate in the citizen initiative process.”
Smith shared Amery’s statement on her social media accounts with an additional comment:
“Although I believe in Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada, Minister Mickey Amery is right. Albertans have a democratic right to participate in the citizen initiative process. They shouldn’t be slowed down by bureaucratic red tape or court applications.”
McClure responded swiftly to the political pressure, reminding the premier and justice minister in a public statement that his office is an independent and non-partisan office of the Legislature. His sharp response was a quick move to preserve the independence and integrity of our elections and will remind political watchers of how quickly independent officers of the Legislature in Alberta can be replaced after they run afoul of political party in power.
“Once again, the Premier is improperly attempting to apply political pressure on an independent decision-maker and interfere with the rule of law,” NDP deputy leader and Edmonton-Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi said in response to Smith’s and Amery’s comments.
“The Premier and her UCP government passed legislation just two months ago empowering the Chief Electoral Officer to refer a matter to the courts to determine if a referendum question potentially violates the Constitution,” Pancholi said. “Now, to appease the separatists in their party, they want the Chief Electoral Officer to ignore those very rules.”
The Citizen Initiative Act was passed in 2021 and amended by Smith’s United Conservative Party in May 2025 in response to voters re-electing Mark Carney’s Liberals. The biggest amendment made by Smith’s government decreased the number of signatures needed to trigger a referendum — a signal of her tacit public support of the prominent UCP members calling on Alberta to leave Canada.
Those prominent supporters include Sylvestre, who is also the President of the UCP constituency association in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, and APP former CEO Dennis Modry, who briefly sought the UCP nomination in Edmonton-Riverview ahead of the 2023 election. Along with APP lawyer Jeffrey Rath (who is facing his own challenges with the Law Society of Alberta), the trio carry significant weight within the UCP and have been organizing for separation within and outside the governing conservative party.
Smith has long acknowledged Modry’s influence and tipped her hat to him at a UCP leadership debate organized by the APP and Rebel News in 2022.
“So part of when I decided I wanted to run [for Alberta premier], I knew how important it was to make sure that we addressed the issues of autonomy,” Smith said at the 2022 forum in Calgary. “And I talked to Dr. Modry as one of my first steps. I said, ‘let’s try this together.’”
With Smith now using her Alberta Next Panel to try to steer the separatist furor she fuelled after threatening the rest of Canada with an unprecedented national unity crisis, this fight will spill over into the party’s annual general meeting in November if she and Amery are seen as standing in the way of a separation referendum.
A poll conducted earlier this year found that 54 percent of UCP voters would vote for Alberta to separate if a referendum were held. The same poll found that only 2 percent of NDP voters would vote to separate, representing a huge political divide between supporters of the two main political parties in Alberta.
This could be a big opportunity for the NDP if party leader Naheed Nenshi can present separation-weary conservative voters with concrete and aspirational plans to improve Alberta’s position within Canada. Nenshi has positioned the NDP as the “Stand up for Canada” party but he needs to appeal to that significant group of Albertans who want our province to remain in Canada but also think we could get a better deal out of Confederation.
Most UCP MLAs have successfully avoided being pinned down when questioned about Alberta separatism, but one, Red Deer-South UCP MLA and Parliamentary Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Jason Stephan continues to voice his support for their effort.
Earlier this year, Stephan wrote in an op-ed published on the RDNews website that “If you are being led over a cliff, for the sake of “unity”, should you follow like a lemming? No.” and mailed a pamphlet to constituents calling Canada a “fake team.” And just over a week ago, Stephan released a statement calling on King Charles III to be removed as Canada’s Head of State while comparing the monarchy to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Antipathy to Ottawa is nothing new and historical grievances (both real and perceived) are wound tight into political culture in our province, but you don’t have to scratch very far beneath the surface of the loudest separatist groups to discover some of the real issues driving many of these activists.
Grievances about COVID-19 vaccinations, medical services for transgender people, firearms rights, immigration, 15-minute cities, and conspiracy theories about the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations dominate the far-right separatist online forums and Facebook pages. These issues are also driving Donald Trump’s MAGA movement south of the border.
The DeSmog Blog recently reported that Modry told an audience at a Rebel News event in Red Deer in June that he and the Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington met with senior American government officials in Washington DC and discussed “a $500 million transition loan” from the US government to an independent Alberta.
If officials from a foreign government are actually making these kind of offers, it is deeply troubling and represents a real national security crisis in Canada. It also means that, now more than ever, Albertans need to have confidence that the person tasked with administering our free and fair elections and referendums is able to do their job independently without interference from politicians and political activists at home and abroad.
Pro-Canada referendum petition moves forward
Meanwhile, a citizen initiative petition to hold a referendum calling on Alberta to stay in Canada is moving forward. Led by former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Thomas Luksazuk, who served as the MLA for Edmonton-Castle Downs from 2001 to 2015, the Forever Canadian group is a counter to the separatist drive.
The group will need to collect 293,976 signatures by the October 28, 2025 deadline.
Lukaszuk’s petition was endorsed this week by former premier Ed Stelmach and has the support of political activist
and former chair of the Alberta Labour Relations Board and prominent NDP supporter Andy Sims.Second quarter political party fundraising numbers released
Elections Alberta disclosures from the second quarter of 2025 released yesterday show Smith’s UCP raised $1,659,612.21 between April 1 and June 30, putting them slightly ahead of Nenshi’s NDP, which raised $1,490,929.86 in the same period.
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