I am trying to wrap my head around how many boxes of paper it took to deliver the petitions to Elections Alberta. ( just a weird thought I can't seem to get out of my head)
Can a petition volunteer reveal how many signatures per page?
( i didn't look at the entire page when i gave my signature to the project)
7 per page; I’d guess 90% were double sided.
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1) There cannot be two petitions around the same topic and the Forever Canada one is locked in.
2) The 'ding dong' petition had to go to court to be reviewed because it is unconstitutional.
Even if the court says they are okay to go ahead, they cannot do so because the other question is in place. With 456K signatures, I think it is very likely that they break the 296K threshold which would then lock in the Forever Canada question as the only question that can be asked on the topic of Alberta's relationship with Canada.
Basically their only hope would be for a judge to declare that their petition isn't on the same topic as this one. If that doesn't happen this effectively locks out the separatists from pursuing this avenue for the next 6 years.
Frankly, I think they might have trouble getting the signatures anyways. The petition is set for judicial review next week (I think?). So call it say three days for oral arguments, a weekend to relax, and a few more for the judge to examine, determine, and write a verdict we're looking at Mid-November at the earliest before they can start collecting signatures. These goobers really gonna spend the holidays trudging along rural roads in the cold heart of a Canadian Winter to collect enough signatures for a petition that might not even be allowed to go to a vote per above? This is at best a 70-30 issue and they're on the 30 side of it.
They can try to spin it all they want... this just punted their issue 6 years down the line.
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I was randomly selected to have my information verified. I got a text heads ups that someone from Election Alberta will be calling to verify. They called about 20 mins later and asked to confirm some things.
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I just finished watching this video from The Goose. First time ever seeing them but it does appear he researches a lot before filming (and cites his sources).
It definitely adds some more spice to the concerns we've all shared about this separation plot.
Elections Alberta has completed verification for the “Alberta Forever Canada” citizen initiative petition. Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer, Gordon McClure, has determined under section 10 the requirements of section 6 of the Citizen Initiative Act in effect on June 30, 2025, have been met and the petition is successful.
Details at Elections Alberta website.
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Total number of valid signatures counted: 438,568 (as described in Citizen initiative Act s.6(4))
Total number of verified signatures after random statistical sampling method applied with a 95% confidence level: 404,293 (Citizen initiative Act s.6(4))
Estimated percentage of electors in the province who signed the signature sheets: 13.6% (verified signatures)
Those are some really impressive numbers. Congrats to all the canvassers who did everything by the book to get so many validated signatures!
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Those are some really impressive numbers. Congrats to all the canvassers who did everything by the book to get so many validated signatures!
Agreed! This is awesome to see the petition move forward and so fantastic that people rallied the way that they did to get this petition to approved and to do so under the much harder "old" rules.
If I remember correctly, the Forever-Canadian petition is actually a Policy Petition, which means these are the steps required to be taken:
Quote:
Policy Proposal
The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly shall lay the proposal before the Legislative Assembly if it is then sitting, or if it is not then sitting, within 15 days after the commencement of the next sitting.
Within 10 sitting days, the Government shall bring forward a motion to have the proposal referred to a committee of the Legislative Assembly.
Within 90 days if the Assembly is sitting, or within 15 days after the commencement of the next sitting, the committee may either table a report with respect to the policy proposal at the earliest practicable opportunity or table a report recommending the policy proposal be referred to the Lieutenant Governor in Council for the purpose of a referendum.
A referendum must be held on or before the fixed date of the next provincial general election. If that date is less than one year after the date the recommendation is tabled, the referendum must be held before the provincial general election following the next provincial general election.
At that point the clock will start on moving the petition question to committee by mid-March. Then it could be another 90 days (June) for the committee to table their report... but again, Smith's government doesn't work in June, July, August, or September... so the report might not be tabled until late October or next November.
The report will either put forth the policy proposal or kick off the referendum.
Of course, all of this is assuming the government is still running as-is through 2026 and not having an election instead... If there is an election before the committee finishes it's report, I have no idea what happens to this petition. Would it get passed off to a new committee in the new government?
I'm curious about the next polling numbers re: separation since the pipeline "deal". Prior to that, separatists among the public were at about 30-35%, which is still shockingly high in my opinion.
After seeing the "highlights" from the UCP AGM on the weekend, I think that it is undeniable that the UCP has essentially become a separatist party. The majority of members support separation (65% in May), they are as unimpressed as ever with Carney, Liberals, Canada, etc., even though he's basically acting like a conservative, minus the social conservative, Maple Maga stuff.
I can't see the legislature, with the UCP holding a majority, endorsing any statement in favour of federalism. The separatist base would go bananas. I'd love to see it, but it won't happen.
I could see Smith and UCP playing with fire and letting this go to a referendum. And while the majority of Albertans do not support separation, it would be dangerous to invite a Brexit-like vote and having it backfire after a swell of populism over... something. Maybe it is BC and/or First Nations doing anything less than rubber stamping a pipeline, for example. "See! Canada is broken! Carney lied to us!"
The UCP is trying to straddle two lanes as they did with Kenney. Even Kenney, who was many things but at least he was a Canadian first, warned us about what would follow. My concern is that, while separatist movements have come and gone in the past, never before has a ruling party done so much to enable it. This big tent, post-merger, "united" conservative movement (both provincially and federally) has proven to be a takeover by the Wildrose and Reformers respectively.
The UCP, based on what their membership wants, is undeniably a separatist movement at this point.
If they do not change it this session, and the next session isn't until Late Feb to March, then one or two of their MLAs might be recalled before they can do anything.
Thing is, they cannot just tweak the process because then all existing recalls will continue through the old process (similar to how Forever Canadian had to follow the old rules).
The UCP needs to axe the recall process entirely to stop the ones already in motion.
